Factory 30-30 hunting round?

[Big Daddy K]

I know ya gotta try a lot of different brands and weights to see what your particular rifle like.

Fixin to purchase a 336 mainly because I have never had a 30-30 and only one have one lever gun and it's a 22.

That being said I will use it to hunt deer and occational pig or pig and the occational deer however it turns out. Shots will be 100 yds at the very most.
Pigs will mostly be around 125lbs.

What shell, brand etc do you like? I'm not really into the leverlution thing. If I wanna shoot something a long way off I'll use a different rifle.

 

[R.W.Dale]

I wouldn't buy any remington 30-30


http://thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=289183

 

[Cosmoline]

Most of the major outfits have had a long time to hone and perfect their .30-30 hunting rounds. Unlike some rounds that are a mixed bag of hunting, target or SD loadings, virtually all the commercial .30-30's are great for hunting. And the choices are pretty straight forward. For lighter game the 150's are generally used, and for heavier the 170's. The Partition 170's have even taken large Elk. The only really radically new one is the leverlution, and that seems to be doing OK. Also there were some accelerated sabots around but that's another matter.

Also, keep in mind that almost all factory .30-30 including the leverlution gets its factory FPS specs from what seem to be special 36" barrel test guns LOL. They are ALWAYS "optimistic" shall we say. But the secret is--IT DOES NOT MATTER. The rounds do good whether they're firing at 2,400 fps or just 2,100. They use bullets designed to open at pretty sedate speeds, and have been killing game for 110 years. Use them at reasonable ranges for medium thin skinned game and you should be fine.

 

[dakotasin]

i did some extensive testing w/ my 336... i found that federal, winchester, and remington were all pretty close. accuracy-wise, federal was the worst (but still plenty good for deer-whacking), and winchester and remington would trade back and forth depending on day of the week.

velocity wise, winchester and remington were about 20 f/s within each other (think rem had the advantage here, but do not recall for sure), and federal was a ways behind either of 'em.

knowing what i know now, if i was to re-do the testing, it would be between remington and winchester 170 grain bullets.

 

[MCgunner]

Hornady ---- http://www.hornady.com/story.php?s=198

Hands down the best ammo to come out in factory .30-30 in world history.

I've chronoed some factory ammo in my .30-30 Contender 12" hunter barrel at 1800+ fps from a 150 grain load. I get close to 2100 fps from my reloads and I use Nosler ballistic tip 150s in 'em, boat tailed spitzers. I can do that in a single shot.

Good .30-30 ammo can push 2400 fps out of a rifle barrel, but I've found few factory loads that will push a 150 grain bullet much past 2000 fps now days. I've not chronographed lever evolution, but the spitzer bullet they use is a BIG leap forward and I doubt if it's too downloaded. They have some sort of spongy tip that keeps the rounds safe in a tubular magazine. Had I a .30-30 lever gun, I could run my noslers in it, just load one in the mag, one in the barrel, and have a 2 shot gun. But, you can top 'em up with the Hornady stuff.

 

[tsidorus]

I get about 5 inch groups at 200yds with the lever-evolution using williams fp sights on a 20in winchester... That's off of sandbags of course I still consider it a 100-125 yd ironsight gun in the field but I have absolute confidence in it. No clue about velocity though, Anyone chrono those out of a carbine?

-tsi

 

[Big Daddy K]

Just bought 2 boxes of Remington core-lokt 170s at wal mart for $10.97 a box. Seemed like a good price so why not. Now I need to get a rifle to go with. I'm sure I will end up shooting boxes of the big 3 in the next month till I find what I like. Also the more I read about the L.E., the more I like. I;ll probably give them a try.
What I like about a good knock around tough rifle like the 336 in 30-30 is that it will likely like most ammo I feed it to within MOcritter.
Thanks for the advice.

 

[raginrednek]

150

try the 150 grain remington

 

[v8stang289]

I tried hunting with 150 grain Remington core locks but i didnt like them. They were accurate enough but when the bullet hit the deer, they just came apart. They tended to fragment badly, resulting in poor penetration and a not so quick and clean kill.
I once shot a deer at a distance of around 50 yds, and the deer started walking away slowly. Thinking I had missed, I shot again with the same result. On the 3rd shot, the deer ran a short ways and went down. Approaching the deer i found 3 entrance hole in close proximity to each other behind the right shoulder. Shortly after that, I switched to Federal 150 grain. I had good penetration and expansion on every deer i shot with that bullet, and they all went down in short order.
-Matt