Originally Posted by
florizark
The black powder version of original 30/30 killed lots of elk & moose in the day, if we are to believe the stories and accounts. Bow hunters kill elk every year with less ballistics than the modern 30/30 provide. Just saying....
There was never a black powder version of a 30-30. The 30-30 has always been loaded with smokeless powder. The name stands for 30 caliber and 30 grs of powder.
Note the following:
The .30-30: A Historic Overview
Today what is known as the .30-30 began life as the .30 WINCHESTER SMOKELESS. In 1891, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company first began experimenting with smokeless powder to develop a higher velocity smokeless cartridge that would bear the Winchester name. They decided on .30 caliber after working with the military on the development of the .30 U.S.Army (.30-40) cartridge.
When the 1894 Winchester rifle was on the drawing boards, they ultimately decided to use the .38-50 Ballard cartridge case of 1876, and neck it down to hold a 160 gr. .30 Caliber "metal patched" bullet.
The resultant .30 WINCHESTER SMOKELESS cartridge which carried the .30 W.C.F. (Winchester Center Fire) designation on the head stamp, first appeared in Winchester's catalog No. 55, dated August, 1895. Several months prior to this, the first ads announcing the arrival of this cartridge began appearing in the sporting press.
Three months after WINCHESTER’s first advertisement of their new .30 WINCHESTER SMOKELESS cartridge, their biggest competitor, the Marlin Firearms Company, announced their version of this cartridge chambered in their model 1893 rifle. Since Marlin did not manufacture ammunition, it worked closely with the Union Metallic Cartridge Company (U.M.C.) located in Bridgeport, Connecticut. U.M.C. replicated the .30 WINCHESTER SMOKELESS cartridge but gave it a different name. Since 30 grains of smokeless powder was initially used in this cartridge, they named it the .30-30. Cartridges were head stamped U.M.C. / .30-30 S. The S was dropped from the headstamp within a few years.
The name .30-30 followed the prevailing practice of that period where the first number designated the caliber in inches and the second number the powder charge in grains, however, in this case, the second number denoted the charge in grains of smokeless powder used rather than black powder as with such cartridges as the .32-40, .38-55, .45-70, .45-90, etc...
http://www.leverguns.com/articles/3030history.htm