.30 Carbine For Deer

[woodchopper]

well I prefer my 25-06 with a 110grn accubond but at short range I would not hesitate to shoot a deer with a 30Carbine

I was trying to work up a load using 90grn XTP bullets but the hollowpoints won't feed. I have a box of Herters 30 Carbine ammo that is listed as being holowpoint and those are tiny hollow points in 110grn bullets that should work just fine.

 

[MiG25]

Why not, it isn't far behind the 300 BLK, which isn't far behind the 7.62x39, which is the same as the 30-30 according to the internet.

It's like the 10mm, great for Bear Defence in a pistol, but it is behind the 35 WSL and you'd get laughed off the internet if you had a Model 1905 for bears.

 

[Dukester]

It's ego protective comments like this born of pure ignorance that are a disservice to new hunters.

Ego needs the 3300 FPS to kill a deer... might be compensating for something

Assuming I was specifically referring to his spire point bullets is a leap as I did not specifically mention it. But I do prefer hollow points for deer... not to say anything not a hollow point cant kill the deer.

And finding fragments of copper in meat.... I've shot a lot of deer and been party to many hunts where lots of deer were killed. The fragmentation does not travel more than a few inches from the impact and such damaged meat would be trimmed away by anyone with any meat processing experience... if it was actually in the meat, which it shouldn't be... and this leads us to an even more off the wall interpretation... why the deer is getting shot in the meat in the first place. Ribs, sure... but the rump is where 85 percent of deer meat is found... uh... duh... here's a tip... don't shoot your deer in the a$$.

Even the shoulder should be avoided when possible as that meat will be largely destroyed by any even non fragmenting rounds. Don't shoot your deer in the meat.

And to the point of shooting inaccuratly with a 300 WM because of the fear of recoil... well now we know why Dukester here shoots deer in the meat. Try a low recoil rifle you can shoot accurately and aim for the chest cavity... where the vital organs are.

Metal fragments in the heart and lungs help the deer die quickly. I can post pics of blown open heart, but that might be too gross for some.

More BS with pathetic personal attacks thrown in. Weight retention is a desirable feature of hunting bullets frag boy. Even new hunters know that.

 

[Maple57]

More BS with pathetic personal attacks thrown in. Weight retention is a desirable feature of hunting bullets frag boy. Even new hunters know that.

You read too many hunting magazines hero.

Weight retention doesn't mean $hit after the bullet exits the deer. It only matters to terminal performance when it doesn't.

The only thing that matters is how much energy is actually lost to the animal before the bullet passes through.

Go off and study gelatin tests and examine how deep bullets enter before creating that football shaped damage path.

The deep penetration rounds I'm talking about might well be suitable for moose or elk but completely inappropriate for deer.

This is where marketing convinces the uneducated to buy stupid products that just don't work. That's how they sell that crap.

Correction, it might not be crap for hunting one animal, but it can be crap for hunting another. The trick is to know the difference.

So to this point, and why I commented to this thread in the first place... I've never seen a factory load for 300WM that is suitable for deer or clearly intended for deer. A guy could certainly create a great 300WM hand load, but I've never seen it in a factory load. But I have seen deer shot with a 300WM and not recovered... I have seen deer shot with a 300WM running on 3 legs and chased for hours until shot with something else.

I have actually never seen a deer shot with a 300WM that dropped on the spot... I'm sure someone out there has, but I haven't. Again... this is because typical hunters use the wrong bullet in the 300. If he was an exceptional hunter, he would not be using a 300WM on deer in the first place.

 

[grabbers]

And guys handgun hunt deer with 357mag revolvers in the states...

OP, Yes, it will work. I wouldn't be reaching for one, but where I live ranges can go long and I'd rather not pass a shot because its at 300yds instead of 200. I also prefer to be overgunned rather than undergunned with big game, and I find light-for-caliber bullets (say, 110-125gr 30cal pills) to really be lacking in sectional density.

If you've got the discipline to limit your ranges, then I would put it in the same class as many of the pistol caliber lever guns like 357, 44mag, 45colt and not think twice about it - a 30 Carbine is more gun than 44-40 and that was one of the go-to cartridges for years before smokeless powder took over.

So the question is not will it kill a deer, because it will. The question is whether you are willing to work within the limitations of the cartridge, and whether you are ok with the higher likelihood of having to track the deer after the shot.

Ya I hunting NS. There really isn't a an over abundance of long range hunting opportunities here, at least where I hunt. My ground blind is about 50-60 yard from the bait, so I think I would feel confident with a .30 Carbine.

When I stalk/walk or sit the edges of choppins I used to use my M305. But I will be switching back to my No.4 with scope. I appreciate your input! I think will pull the trigger on this... Pun intended

 

[kodiakjack]

You read too many hunting magazines hero.

Weight retention doesn't mean $hit after the bullet exits the deer. It only matters to terminal performance when it doesn't.

The only thing that matters is how much energy is actually lost to the animal before the bullet passes through.

Go off and study gelatin tests and examine how deep bullets enter before creating that football shaped damage path.

The deep penetration rounds I'm talking about might well be suitable for moose or elk but completely inappropriate for deer.

This is where marketing convinces the uneducated to buy stupid products that just don't work. That's how they sell that crap.

Correction, it might not be crap for hunting one animal, but it can be crap for hunting another. The trick is to know the difference.

So to this point, and why I commented to this thread in the first place... I've never seen a factory load for 300WM that is suitable for deer or clearly intended for deer. A guy could certainly create a great 300WM hand load, but I've never seen it in a factory load. But I have seen deer shot with a 300WM and not recovered... I have seen deer shot with a 300WM running on 3 legs and chased for hours until shot with something else.

I have actually never seen a deer shot with a 300WM that dropped on the spot... I'm sure someone out there has, but I haven't. Again... this is because typical hunters use the wrong bullet in the 300. If he was an exceptional hunter, he would not be using a 300WM on deer in the first place.

You almost seem to be bestowing some magical power to the 300WM. It’s just a slightly faster 30cal.

Also, I’ve gotta ask where you shop, that you’ve never seen 300WM ammo for deer before? Never been to a Walmart? Canadian tire?TSC? Winchester makes their “Deer Season XP” in 150gr for both 30-06, 308, 300WM, and more.

Choosing a 300WM has more to do with range than type of game. It simply allows the hunter to stretch the shot a little farther. A 30-06 at 100yd is identical to a 300WM at 250yd.

And at the same distance, With the same bullet, and with the same shot placement, the faster 300WM WILL expand more than the slower 30-06, WILL create a bigger wound cavity, WILL introduce more hydrostatic shock to the critter, and WILL impart more energy than the 30-06. All the things you like about your fast and flat sub 120gr 308. So I’m having a hard time understanding what your beef is?

And as for never seeing a 300WM put a deer down... Who are you hunting with? Have they seen an optometrist lately?

ANY EXPANDING BULLET fired out of a 300 WM (or any other 30cal rifle) and put through the vitals of a deer will kill it quickly. If it had to be tracked across 3 postal codes, it wasn’t shot in the vitals. That’s not the bullet or the rifles’ fault.



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[Maple57]

How thick can a guy be not to get the point?

No mystical powers just a classic example of an over powered cartridge when used on deer.

Not only is there far more than enough powder, the bullets used in factory loads are typically designed for large animals... not small deer. It would be nice to see light loads in such large cartridges that are loaded with suitable bullets for such small animals.

Often times guys are afraid of the recoil from a light bolt action 30-06 never mind a 300WM and in both cases are not likely to shoot them accurately for fear of recoil.

These are simple facts that have nothing to do with who may have been present in a group hunt I attended over the last 50 years. I don't approve or reject the rifles and ammunition when 25 guys show up at hunt camp for a deer drive, but if I did, I would flag the guys with such over powered cartridges and encourage a more suitable solution.

Like I've been trying to do here... but some don't seem to get it.

How hard you hit the tree on the other side of your deer does not increase the terminal performance to kill the deer. The only thing that matters is how much of the bullet energy is lost to the deer.

Simple facts... not opinion... not the subject of further debate.

I'm done here.

 

[woodchopper]

well that it I'm convinced my 300WM is totally inappropriate for deer hunting, (don't let the deer I've killed with it know)

I'm taking the 458WM deer hunting, those 400grn bullets will do just fine


I've one shot dropped many deer with my 300, it works just fine.

I like my 25-06 too, its a ###y little gun, and the 25-06 is a good deer round.

But then I have killed deer with so many different guns over the years.

I guess I was just wrong a lot of the time. Who Knew.

 

[Eagleye]

I believe the 30 carbine will kill a deer within it's range limitations, but it would not be my choice. [Each hunter must decide for himself]
That being said, I will not shoot deer with any extremely frangible bullet, regardless of chambering.

One very opinionated poster on this thread insists that energy is wasted if the bullet exits the animal. After a very long hunting career,
and a lot of game animals on the ground from small blacktail deer up to Bison, I do not believe there is any merit in that assertion.
Whether a bullet exits or stays in the animal has virtually no determination of the final outcome, unless the bullet fails to expand at all.

I have never shot a deer with a 300 Win Mag, but I have shot close to 2 dozen with the 308 Norma Magnum, a ballistic twin. Never lost
one, nor had to track one farther than possibly 40 yards. Most have been dead within 10 feet. Not one bullet was recovered from a deer
shot with the 308 NM. Typically, the bullet would have been a 165 or 180 grain Partition. Ranges: 45 to 380 yards.

Nowadays, I have plenty of choices to hunt deer with, but if I was Elk hunting or Moose hunting with one of my 308 NM rifles, and a decent
deer showed up, I would not hesitate for 1 second to shoot that deer, having full confidence that the deer would be recovered easily.

I have shot deer with the 6mm Remington, the 257 Roberts and 257 Weatherby, 260 Rem, 6.5x55 Swede, 264 Win Mag, 270 Winchester, 7x57, 280 Rem.,
7mm Rem Mag, 30-30 Winchester, 300 Savage, 308 Winchester, 30-06, 308 Norma Mag, 303 British, 8x57, 338 Win Mag, 38-55 Winchester and probably others
I cannot recall ATM. All will kill deer just fine. Shot placement is important in every case, of course. Dave.

 

[Suther]

Some folks use “frangible” and “expanding” interchangeably.

Then there are bullets that walk the line between both worlds, such as the Barnes Barmint Grenade, which compared to a soft point seems awfully frangible, but compared to frangible training ammo seems awfully solid.

I have also seen frangible used to describe the front half of the Nosler Partition. Basically, if its not bonded, mono metal, etc, someone will probably call it frangible even if its not a varmint bullet or training ammo.

 

[Gatehouse]

So to this point, and why I commented to this thread in the first place... I've never seen a factory load for 300WM that is suitable for deer or clearly intended for deer. A guy could certainly create a great 300WM hand load, but I've never seen it in a factory load. But I have seen deer shot with a 300WM and not recovered... I have seen deer shot with a 300WM running on 3 legs and chased for hours until shot with something else.

I have actually never seen a deer shot with a 300WM that dropped on the spot... I'm sure someone out there has, but I haven't. Again... this is because typical hunters use the wrong bullet in the 300. If he was an exceptional hunter, he would not be using a 300WM on deer in the first place.

Weird.

I've seen plenty deer shot with 300 magnums. WM, WSM, H&H, RUM. They all died pretty fast. A number of them were DRT using a variety of bullets, from quick expanders to deep penetrators like X, TSX and TTSX. A few of the fastest deaths I've seen on deer combined 300 magnums and Barnes bullets. Not to say that other more frangible bullets didn't kill fast too.

I really don't care what a bullet does after it's fully penetrated an animal. When a bullet turns an animals lungs to soup then zips out the other side I figure it's done about all I want it to do.

 

[kodiakjack]

How thick can a guy be not to get the point?

No mystical powers just a classic example of an over powered cartridge when used on deer.

Not only is there far more than enough powder, the bullets used in factory loads are typically designed for large animals... not small deer. It would be nice to see light loads in such large cartridges that are loaded with suitable bullets for such small animals.

Often times guys are afraid of the recoil from a light bolt action 30-06 never mind a 300WM and in both cases are not likely to shoot them accurately for fear of recoil.

These are simple facts that have nothing to do with who may have been present in a group hunt I attended over the last 50 years. I don't approve or reject the rifles and ammunition when 25 guys show up at hunt camp for a deer drive, but if I did, I would flag the guys with such over powered cartridges and encourage a more suitable solution.

Like I've been trying to do here... but some don't seem to get it.

How hard you hit the tree on the other side of your deer does not increase the terminal performance to kill the deer. The only thing that matters is how much of the bullet energy is lost to the deer.

Simple facts... not opinion... not the subject of further debate.

I'm done here.

Ahhhh. I see the issue now. Not everyone suffers from the same recoil apprehension that you do. plenty of fellas can handle it just fine. I should have guessed this was your issue right of the bat with your “compensating for something” comment. No need to feel inferior, friend. 308 gets the job done well... even with your tiny little... ”bullets”.

;-)

 

[Suther]

Ahhhh. I see the issue now. Not everyone suffers from the same recoil apprehension that you do. plenty of fellas can handle it just fine. I should have guessed this was you issue right of the bat with your “compensating for something” comment. No need to feel inferior, friend. 308 gets the job done well... even with your tiny little... ”bullets”.

;-)

Its good that he realizes that there is such a thing as too much recoil, too bad he projects his own limit onto everyone else though. I love how the 300mag is the problem, not the person using it - gotta love blaming the object right?

CGN is a funny place. One guy says a 300wm fails to drop them quick, and another will tell you that same 300 will blow half the deer into the next quarter section...

Still, The best part of your post is the fact that 308 spits the same bullets as the 300 mags. Lol

 

[MiG25]

I've heard rumours that the 30 Carbine was specifically illegal for hunting in BC back in the day, but have not been able to find such a regulation.

 

[tactical lever]

You read too many hunting magazines hero.

Weight retention doesn't mean $hit after the bullet exits the deer. It only matters to terminal performance when it doesn't.

The only thing that matters is how much energy is actually lost to the animal before the bullet passes through.

Go off and study gelatin tests and examine how deep bullets enter before creating that football shaped damage path.

The deep penetration rounds I'm talking about might well be suitable for moose or elk but completely inappropriate for deer.

Better go check that gelatin again and tell us how much the entrance hole bleeds versus the exit hole. Penetration matters in the real world. A quartering shot or through a bigger piece of bone than you meant to hit means a grievously wounded animal that will likely go far and possibly escape to die slowly when hit by a varmint bullet. Hint: 120 grain .308 bullets are varmint bullets particularly out of something as fast or faster than a .308.

This is where marketing convinces the uneducated to buy stupid products that just don't work. That's how they sell that crap.

Correction, it might not be crap for hunting one animal, but it can be crap for hunting another. The trick is to know the difference.

So to this point, and why I commented to this thread in the first place... I've never seen a factory load for 300WM that is suitable for deer or clearly intended for deer. A guy could certainly create a great 300WM hand load, but I've never seen it in a factory load. But I have seen deer shot with a 300WM and not recovered... I have seen deer shot with a 300WM running on 3 legs and chased for hours until shot with something else.

I have actually never seen a deer shot with a 300WM that dropped on the spot... I'm sure someone out there has, but I haven't. Again... this is because typical hunters use the wrong bullet in the 300. If he was an exceptional hunter, he would not be using a 300WM on deer in the first place.

You have most of that statement wrong. A good, heavier bullet will work for everything. Remember that marketing thing you were talking about? Suckers believe they need half a dozen different bullets for the same cartridge...

Dropping on the spot is nice, but not a requirement for a successful kill. More often hunters fall for the light bullet hype, only seeing the velocity and foot/pounds and mistakenly believing that it'll kill harder and be better at long range. The shorter, lighter bullets shed velocity quickly, as the air resistance is squared by velocity, and the lesser SD and BC doesn't help.

Deer hobbling on 3 legs is due to a poor shot and/or a too light (fragile) bullet that blew up before it hit vitals.

You could just as easily say REAL hunters don't need a .308 to kill. Try a 30-30 with a 170 gr. bullet. Kills everything well.

 

[tactical lever]

Ahhhh. I see the issue now. Not everyone suffers from the same recoil apprehension that you do. plenty of fellas can handle it just fine. I should have guessed this was your issue right of the bat with your “compensating for something” comment. No need to feel inferior, friend. 308 gets the job done well... even with your tiny little... ”bullets”.

;-)

I have a feeling Maple only shoots a .308 with light bullets so he can feel like he's part of the "big boy .30 cal club".

If I wanted to shoot a 120 gr. bullet, I'd probably go to a 25...

 

[tactical lever]

To answer the original question, the .30 carbine will kill them with the right bullet. Not sure where you'd find a good soft point. Maybe a cast bullet with a bit of a flat nose.

 

[Suther]

I've heard rumours that the 30 Carbine was specifically illegal for hunting in BC back in the day, but have not been able to find such a regulation.

Perhaps back in the day, but not these days. You could legally hunt moose with one now, only bison has restrictions above and beyond "centerfire rifle".

 

[captonion]

To answer the original question, the .30 carbine will kill them with the right bullet. Not sure where you'd find a good soft point. Maybe a cast bullet with a bit of a flat nose.

Winchester has a hollow point and Federal a soft point, Rem use to produce both. I have used both soft and hollow points for deer, both work well but prefer hollow points, they open up perfectly at carbine velocity..
Hornady produces 110 GR FTX Critical Defense, should be interesting..

 

[MiG25]

Perhaps back in the day, but not these days. You could legally hunt moose with one now, only bison has restrictions above and beyond "centerfire rifle".

Yes, rumoured to be at some point in the past, but I have been unable to find it.

The 22LR was banned for Big Game as a roadblock for poor people hunting. The other rimfires; 25, 32, 44 etc were not banned until modern times. In other words, until fairly recently it was perfectly legal to take a Cooey or Stevens 25RF for all Big Game.