30-30 Win Range

336 30-30 My first bench rifle when I was a young pup. Shooting plastic coke bottles at 150yds Ahhh the good old days.

So, at 200, the 30-30 is a virtual lazer!

Click to expand...

I wouldn't go that far...but I am glad it isn't. Wee bullets with a lot of powder are horribly inefficient...OTOH the .30-30 gets the job done with a lot less.

This is my typical accurasy with plain factory ammo. Handloaders have their carbines performing even better!

TR

you should easily get 2MOA at 150 yards with Winchester 150gr Sivertips, i get that with my Winchester 94AE i guess cuz mine is a newer production gun , mine was one of the last 30-30's that came off the line.

For me it would be 150 yards maximum, beyond that I'd go .308. The 30-30 is a bush carbine and not designed to be a long range sniper round.
Not saying some riflemen can't meet or even far exceed your criteria and I admire their skills but I'm not willing to spend the time and money to aqiure them when I can perform the same function with a different round.

Teddy Roosevelt felt different than some on this board:

The 30-30 was the first small bore centerfire round to use smokeless powder. History tells us some guy named Teddy Roosevelt was an avid hunter and owned one of the first 30-30's to come out of the factory.

Teddy use the "thutty thutty" to down an Antelope buck at 220 yards with a 160 grain bullet.

Click to expand...

Teddy's own words:

In the fall of 1896 I spent a fortnight on the range with the ranch wagon. I was using for the first time one of the then new small-caliber, smokeless-powder rifles, a .30-30-160 Winchester. I had a half-jacketed bullet, the butt being cased in hard metal, while the nose was of pure lead."

"They were starting as I raised my rifle, but the trajectory is very flat with the small-bore smokeless-powder weapons, and taking a coarse front sight I fired at a young buck which stood broadside to me. There was no smoke, and as the band raced away I saw him sag backward, the ball having broken his hip."

"As we stood over him, Joe shook his head, and said, 'I guess that little .30-30 is the ace' and I told him I guess so too

Click to expand...

Not arguing that the .30-30 is a great cartridge, or that the above feat cannot be performed by a skilled rifleman (because it is, and it can), but you can't compare the feats of Teddy Roosevelt (an avid sportsman to say the least) to the average outdoorsman. Teddy was one of a kind.

I'm not sure that a shot to the hip with the thirty thirty is doing the accuracy justification at all, then again I have no idea where Teddy was aiming.

Also, I think that story is a little out of context. When the 30-30 was introduced, it was a very flat shooting cartridge, it was the magnum of its time. With other rounds out there, I wouldn't consider the 30-30 as a flat shooter. Getting a 200yd shot, yeah, no problem, 300, maybe if you really know your rifle and have put in the time and rounds at the range (this goes for any gun, even the 300wby at that range). Flat by todays standards would be something like a 7mm mag, which could be in a BLR, now that'd be a flat shooting lever.

So, back to OP. Take it to the range, learn what it likes. I suggest staying away from the Rem corelocks if you're planning on going past 150 (I don't recall getting much accuracy from remmington loads lately), maybe look at hornandy as others have mentioned. And practice practice practice. Learn the drop that YOUR rifle experiences, not what a calculator tells you. Learn how the wind effects the trajectory. Etc...

Oh, and shoot from field positions, being able to shot a 6" group at 300yds off of a bench won't do much good in the real world, unless you carry a bench with you.

I believe Cabela's make a BDC Scope for use with the Hornady ammo.

I wouldn't try over 200 yards with mine. I'm sure the rifle could do it. I probably couldn't.

Also, I think that story is a little out of context. When the 30-30 was introduced, it was a very flat shooting cartridge, it was the magnum of its time. With other rounds out there, .

Click to expand...

not quite. Back when the 30/30 was introduced we already had rounds that were the equivelant of anything without the word magnum attached to it

8mm Lebel, 7.65x53, 7x57, 7.62x54r, 303 and 7.92x57 had all been around in some cases predated 30/30 by several years

How prevalent were they in America?

I always thought that the 30-30 was the first really prevalent smokeless cartridge and was fast for its time because of that. But then again, that was from the history channel, and sometimes they like to take a little liberty...

Amen! Praise Him!

The 30/30 will take care of business out to 300 yards in my hands. Yours I don't know about. But when you shoot the same rifle for 30 years you can get quite deadly with it.

30-30

Leverloution chart shows it effective out to 300yds..

You can get more insight on the challenges of hitting your target by looking over the discussions at http://shootersnotes.com/field-shooting-discussions/grendelmania/grendel-potential-for-large-game/ -- the images assume a 200 yard zero.

Interestingly, the Hornady HITS methodology (http://www.hornady.com/hits/calculator) suggests that the 30-30 can have a better potential for deer-sized game out to 300 yards even though the trajectory may make getting a hit in the vital zone very challenging!

(.223 for scale)

What you can do at 100 yards with a good load..

However I do realize that 10gr of unique isn't going to push the bullet very far at all.

My point is that if you find a good load with your gun, it can hit targets consistently to an distance.

As for hunting, no more than 150 yards though due to the available energy by then.

By the way, out of my win 94.

Hiaboo, a bit OT but what kind of .223 is that? Polymer projectile?

Scope and Ammunition Combo Plan:

Hornady's innovative new LeverEvolution® ammunition is reviving interest in lever-action rifles around the world, and Cabela's is pleased to be able to equip these firearms with scopes specifically tailored for use with the new cartridges. These scopes are outfitted with Ballistic Glass Reticles specifically engineered for use with a particular Hornady LeverEvolution round. They're calibrated to compensate for bullet drop out to 300 yards and have an extra-long, 5-1/2" eye relief that facilitates mounting on traditional lever-action rifles. All you need to do is sight in the main reticle for 100 yards, and then use the 200- and 300-yard horizontal lines to hold dead-on at those ranges. Combining our scopes with LeverEvolution ammo turns your .30-30 Winchester, .444 Marlin, .308 Marlin, .35 Remington, .45-70 Govt., .338 Marlin, .44 Magnum or .45 Colt into a big-game rifle capable of efficiently harvesting game out to 300 yards with proper practice.

http://www.cabelas.com/p-0043787712741a.shtml

Having had my 336 set up that way for a couple years (took the scope off for another project and went back to Williams peeps a month ago) I can tell you that it can be done all day long at 200 yds.

I don't have access to a longer range, so I can't speak to that from experience.

Maverick, it's just a dummy .223 that's used to stimulate failures (failure to fire) in a magazine in a live fire exercise.

Maverick, it's just a dummy .223 that's used to stimulate failures (failure to fire) in a magazine in a live fire exercise.

Click to expand...

I see, is there a reason that they don't use the old crimped side dummy rounds or are those a relic of the past?

Never shot 30-30... For the price of it at WallyWorld I wish I did!

Click to expand...

You can stop wishing! Just pull into a used gun store or pawn shop every time you drive by one. Eventually, a slick little Marlin 336 or Winny 94 will follow you home. Its a proven fact.

I dunno, I tried that and an SKS followed me instead

200 yrds or so.

Here is 50 shots under similar circumstances but no scope. With a scope I am sure I would have done better, but who could scope a great rifle like a 1952 94 in this shape. This was shot off the bench, 50 shots, 100 yrds.



I now have peeps on it. I should really duplicate that picture to see how it has improved my sighting.