Hunting with a 30/30 Winchester
#22
Fork Horn
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 240

Its more than enough gun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I let my old timer friend hunt my property and was worried about putting him where I did. There was a deep ravine running down to the creek bottom and all I could think about was him shooting a buck and having it run down in there and my whole day would be spent getting the deer out. He used a model 94win 30-30 with 170 gr bullets. He took off the back sight and put on a long eye relief pistol scope with a post rectilcle and the scope didn't gather that much daylight in low light but it was a real shooter for the woods. He hunted back on my ridge for 7 yrs and killed 6 bucks and not ONE of them went more than 30 yds. I was a real believer. He passed away a few yrs ago but I always will remember he when the 30-30 comes up.
#23
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: North Idaho
Posts: 1,071


My wife shot a buck last season at 110yds spine shot and it dropped. she had to take another shot to finish it off. but it was well within the kill range. 200yds I prob wouldnt take a shot with a 30-30....thats just me though.
#24
Spike
Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 11

Using Winchester's Ballistic Calculator, if you use Winchester Supreme Ballistic Silvertip 150 gr., and sight it in 2.5" high at 100 yards (175 yard zero), you would have a 2.0" below zero at 200 yards. That would easily make it a whitetail kill zone rifle out to 200 yards.
#28
Typical Buck
Join Date: May 2010
Location: South East Pa.
Posts: 526

Once and a while I take out my Savage '99 30-30. It is nice and light to walk around with, but in my experience you will have deer going farther than with something with more velocity. Two years ago I shot a medium sized doe broadside through both lungs and she skipped off (Not ran flat out) and made it about 100 yards. There was plenty of blood, but at about 50 yards I was starting to worry. 30-30 is O.K., but you may want to allow a little more tracking room depending where you are hunting.
Last edited by Gunplummer; 04-30-2014 at 12:22 AM.
#30

30-30 is absolutely fine for whitetails. When I was growing up in northern Wisconsin, most of us hunted with guns in that class. 30-30 was the most common. I had a slide-action .30 Remington (still do, but finding ammo for it is a pain), which was Remington's now nearly extinct answer to the 30-30. Several friends used .32 Specials. They all killed deer just fine.