One of several reasons I prefer the 30-30 over my .270 in close cover woods conditions is because I think it makes a bigger hole in the deer, and I get a better blood trail.
Heck yeah My 30-30 leaves a bigger exit hole then my 308 , 30-06, and 7.62x54R.
The 35 leaves and even bigger exit hole, but with my experience with the 35 rem on whitetails the deer seem to bleed out before they keel over I have had tomany times had a nice thick blood trail for about 20 yards then nothing and no sign of the deer. Ive experienced the same problem with my 308, 30-06 and 7.62x54r but with my 30-30 I always had a good blood trail leading right up to the deer.
But I also load my 30-30's with Barnes X-bullets, My load pushes a 150 grain Barnes X bullet at 2322 fps @ 3 feet. That X bullet has exited every time and leaves a nice quarter size exit hole and if it catches a rib or shoulder blade the bone fragments usually create 3 to 4 more exiting channels. when that happens the deer tends to die pretty quickly. Maybe some day I can get the barnes x bullet effect from my 35 rem if they would ever make a them in that caliber. but for now Ill keep loading those 200 grain core lokts. In my other rifles I use Sierra BTHP Game kings.