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Myth/Reality - Fact/Fiction
My whole life, I’ve read and heard that the .30-30 Winchester has “taken more deer than any other cartridge” or “taken a train load of boxcars full of deer” (Jayhawker 😉).
I’ve also heard, though to a lesser degree, the same regarding the .30-06 Springfield.
Question is, how the heck can anyone prove/validate such a theory in this day and age? Way back when......when there were fewer choices.......easy to fathom.
In 2020.......125 years after creation.......how do you know?
My point........why make a statement you can’t prove?
Discuss. 😁
My point........why make a statement you can’t prove?
Discuss. 😁
"To Hell with efficiency, it's performance we want!" - Elmer Keith
Replies
Also...when I was coming up, everyone I knew (ranchers and farmers) had a .30-3O...most often squirreled away in their pickup...often one in each of their pickups...not to mention the one in the saddle scabbard on their horse
I would say, without a doubt, that dynamic has changed and you're just as likely to find an AR as a truck gun
I have never killed anything with a .30-30...actually, never owned one...I favor other cartridges in my lever guns...
:wikipedia:
Mike
N454casull
Records show the count.
Don't count out the 44wcf aka 44-40, the 38wcf aka 38-40.. Also the 45-70. Surplus ammo for 45-70 could be had cheap for along time.
Got any numbers? I’d love to see the validity behind the claims. Thanks.
Compiling those numbers will take more than I have at this moment. Maybe........
I'll poke around online this weekend and see if there's numbers. Supposedly the Win 94 is the best selling rifle of all time. With 30wcf being the most popular chambering. However. The value of scepticism should never be short changed....
Numbers of deer killed will be like smoke in a hurricane.
The last number for the Win 94 in 1894 is listed as 14579.. The last number listed for 1964 is 2797428..
In contrast for the Win model 70.. Last number for 1935 is 19.. Last number for 1964 is 740599..
Now this is an exclusive slice and not inclusive of the very relevant observations of GunNut. But at least its a start. The numbers of bolt actions surely must be staggering. Not to mention the post war surplus rifles used. However Win 94 manufacture continues past 1964..
Another one is: "...but it makes a fine brush gun! Lol.
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
-Mikhail Kalashnikov
If someone could invent a bullet that traveled 50 mps, had blaring horns and hi beam headlghts, deer would be jumping in front of it yelling "kill me, kill me".
"Elusive little creatures, aren't they?"
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
Geez...I guess the use of metaphors is a confusing thing for some folks.
I shall now slink off into a corner and sulk...
Ok then. Let's assume U.S. market only. And we kind of have to assume post-Civil War, as prior to that, it was largely a muzzleloading world.
All that "taming of the West" was done before the .30-30 even existed. Same goes for A WHOLE LOT of market hunting. One must assume that the .44-40 and the .45-70 along with its "stretched"family (.45-90, .45-100, .45-110) would rank VERY high. Also, all those pre-existing black powder cartridge guns did not suddenly stop killing deer when the .30-30 arrived.
Then let's look at the .30-30 when it was new. Among its contemporaries. I see an AWESOME Eastern woods gun, and considering that the 1894 Winchester housing it was essentially built on the pistol-caliber 1892 forgings, it was an impressive performer for something so light and handy. But west of the Mississippi? Who's reaching for it as the first choice? As that Eastern woods gun, it had the advantage of still being around with ammo still being produced when you couldn't really find much other lever gun ammo in quantity, HOWEVER. . .
Then you have the flood of cheap WWI and WWII surplus bolt actions shooting spitzer rounds that outclass the performance of the .30-30 in every conceivable way, and a new generation of shooters that learned the bolt action in the service as their first weapon. So despite the ongoing popularity with a very tenuous link to a cowboy past, we kinda have to regard the real heyday of the 1894/30-30 platform as spanning about 25-30 years. Maybe 40-50 if you consider that folks in the Great Depression hunted with what they already had on hand.
Who picks it now? Really who has picked it in the last 30-40 years? You'd probably get strange looks in many areas if you showed up hunting with one today.
So no. I doubt it's really a contender to any deer killing throne.
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
"If you get it and didn't work for it, someone else worked for it and didn't get it..."
1 deer wounded with a Marlin 336 in .30-30 Win.
1 deer killed with a Rem 742 in .308 Win.
Dozens face planted with a Browning A-Bolt II in .270 Win.
.30-30 Win lags FAR behind on my list.
Mike
N454casull
The 1894 Winchester had its genesis when T.G. Bennett told John Browning "We really like what you did with the 1886, but it needs to be CHEAPER". So the 1894 was low cost compared to the '86 and the '95, but both of those were capable of shooting bigger stuff.
And it while it was probably cheap - FOR A WINCHESTER - there was still probably a bit of an elevated price point for fit, finish, & name recognition. Our economist / statistics guy would have to look at what the period equivalents to the 700 ADL and Savage 110 were, and what their sales figures looked like.
Now I'm kinda wanting to learn more how the bolt action began horning in on the U.S. lever and single shot market. The .30-40 Krag got chambered in a lot of platforms, was more capable, and would have had the benefit of bulk military manufacture lowering ammo cost. The "wake up call" of the 7x57 in Cuba was not lost on the military, and it was probably not lost on the sportsmen either, but I'm not aware of much going on in the commercial bolt gun market until after WWI.
That said, there WAS a push toward autoloaders in that general period - i.e. the Remington Model 8.
Kinda wondering if most of the .30-30's popularity was due to it being the only brand of jeans on the rack at the time.
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
In one of my Elmer Keith books he recalls the use 30-06 milsurp ammo for elk. Same reasons.
For people heavily engaged in long hours of hard labor just to live, economy"s paramount. Economy sometimes takes the guise of money, but time also has its place.