why the 3030?

Personally I think the 30-30 is a decent close range big game cartridge, and so why not use it.

The OP mentioned his native relatives. There is a lot to that as well.

A big part of traditional native culture is looking to elders and events in the past for wisdom and guidance for the future. So, if your dad and your grandad used a 30-30, there is a well ingrained cultural push to follow in their footsteps. Non-native culture tends to be the other way around - looking for the newest possible solutions to whatever is going on. So, without being racist at all, lots of natives use hundred year old rifle designs chambered in 30-30 for the same reason lots of non-natives pre-order next year's model of Brand X chambered in some version of WSM.
 
remington308 said:
i personally think that a 4570 would be better, although yes a 3030 would get the job done. i have a 3030 but dont see a need to use it.
Click to expand...

I have both and for me the economics is a huge factor.
For the price of one box of factory 45/70 I can buy three boxes of 30/30, that's 20 rounds vs 60.

Also 45/70 is harder to find in local stores, while most places carry 30/30. So take a guess at which one I practice with more. :D

And generally the one I practice with is the one I will likely hunt with. Besides which the mule deer on this Westcoast island are tiny in comparison to the ones on the mainland.

Find what works for you and paddle your own canoe. ;)
 
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hmm kind of appropriate that the thread that wouldn't go away is about the 30-30. Miss the one I had, just waiting for the right one to pop up at the right price.
 
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Have 2 x Winchester pre-64 model 94s in 30-30.:rockOn:
Had a Rossi Rio Grande in 30-30 and sold it in a private deal last fall.
Have a Marlin 336C in 30-30 which has produced 1-shot kills on both deer and moose.
It was a choice between the Marlin and the Rossi:HR: and the Marlin won hands down.
The Rossi was a cheap POS with a crappy jungle wood stock compared to the Marlin with it's walnut stock and much superior fit/finish and workmanship.
The newer Marlins are much better than the ones made 4 or 5 years ago when the new factory in Ilion, NY just opened.
 
Actually, the Winchester 94 and the .30/30 cartridge designs were pure genius. I challenge anyone to show me an easier to carry hunting rifle, even the similarly popular Marlin 336 is a bit beefier, and not quite so nice to wrap the hand around. Handiness, next to reliability, is the most important consideration there in a hunting rifle that will be carried in difficult conditions, and the more difficult the conditions, the more important handiness becomes. I've wandered the country north of Lake Superior, the tundra of the sub-arctic, and the western mountains in BC, and the Yukon, and in each case I'd have happily given up ballistic superiority for a shorter, lighter, rifle. Maybe, just maybe, I should have ditched the bolt gun in favor of a lever action.

The ballistics of the .30/30 established the ideal of the era, a reasonably heavy bullet, with a muzzle velocity of 2150 fps. These ballistics are certainly enough for deer and black bear, and if lacking for moose, that would come as a great surprise to the thousands and thousands of moose harvested with .30/30s over the last century. Will a lung shot moose instantly collapse from the damage inflicted by a .308/170 impacting at 2000 fps? Probably not, but then again, they don't always act like their impressed by a .375/300 gr either. Consider the ballistics of all the Nitro Express cartridges and you'll notice a common theme, one only had to choose his caliber for the weight of the game he intended to hunt, the velocity of 2150 fps was already decided, and so it is with the .30/30.

A real eye opener to me was how well the traditional lever guns could shoot; I've seen talented marksmen squeeze some pretty small groups out of Winchester and Marlin .30/30 carbines, which was quite a revelation for the young guy who at the time believed the sun rose and set on the bolt action .30/06, and looked down his nose at the ole lever guns that everyone knew would barely hold 4 minutes. I still look down my nose at the .32 Special, but that is more of a question of rate of twist than of rifle or cartridge. I'll never forget the day that the fellow sitting at the bench next to me embarrassed my highly touted Remington 700 '06 with his scoped Marlin 336. Perhaps his carefully dovetailed shooting box and his wood cartridge blocks should have been a tip off that he might know something I didn't!! As others have mentions, the limiting factor for accuracy isn't so much the lever action rifle's design as it is it's sighting equipment. Had all of these rifles been factory equipped with large aperture peep sights and wide post front sights, instead of the ill advised buckhorn/semi-buckhorn with bead fronts, these rifles would have proven much easier to shoot well, and their reputation for fine accuracy would have been more generally accepted.

One of the criticisms of the .30/30 is that its a 150 yards cartridge, as if that were bad if it were true. But I'm here to tell you it ain't necessarily so. On the day you need to take that longer shot, there are two ways to accommodate it with the .30/30 lever gun. The first is to load the cartridge with a pointed bullet. A 165 gr boat-tail spitzer bullet might seem out of place seated in the long neck of the .30/30, and the suggestion of loading pointed bullets in a tube magazine will surely bring out the pitch forks and torches. But if the rifle is carried with one round chambered, and one round in the magazine, your two shooter, will be able to reach out to 300 yards if you do your part. Another way to achieve a flat trajectory is to drop the bullet weight down to 125-130 gr pointed bullets to attain a velocity of 2450-2600 fps. Naturally long shots require a scoped rifle, which detracts somewhat from the handiness of the traditional lever action rifle, but life is full of compromises. I've done a fair bit of shooting at 300+ yard targets with ghost ring and post sights, and my marksmanship at that range with irons does not allow me in good conscience to attempt such a shot on unwounded game, except perhaps in some emergency where I badly needed the meat and could get no closer.
 
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Yes a three year old thread resurrection. Just like everyone else, i have shot a few animals with a 30-30. There is a place for a light, short carbine capable of the most common shots, which is the under 100 yards shot. Unfortunately, for me the place for my M94 was at the back of the safe as it simply fell way down the depth chart as i acquired other rifles. Sold it, and never regretted doing so. I suppose a good use would be as a truck gun, but living in the burbs means that term really does not apply.
 
I know there will be calls from people calling me a liar, but I once plopped a nice WT buck at a paced off 260 yards with the 30-30 hierloom of our family.

The front bead was changed to a firesite, the rear peep was a William's FP. Practised for the summer on metal gongs, most often at 200 yards from offhand position.

150 gr Winchester ST. One shot was all that was required while standing in a field of mostly mature winter wheat.
Aimed at throat patch, knew the drop was into the chest with a zero of three inches high at 100 yards.
On the 22nd of November 2005, approximately 9:20 AM.

a true story
 
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