Author Topic: least fav. deer gun? (Read 1170 times)

THE#1hunter · « **on:** July 25, 2003, 03:22:52 AM »

What is your least favorite deer gun?....Mine is the .222 :oops: (its really a varmit gun :oops: )

JACKNZ · « **Reply #1 on:** July 25, 2003, 12:20:09 PM »

So true,folks don,t tell you about the ones that get away.If I was,nt against laws just for fools I would say ban 222-223 for deer use.
As you say they are varmint rifles.The min, should be .243.

AAAJohn · « **Reply #2 on:** July 27, 2003, 02:01:04 AM »

12 ga. slugs! Hate them

Rick Teal · « **Reply #3 on:** July 27, 2003, 10:42:52 AM »

I've never shot a deer with one myself, but I've spent way too much time trying to track deer wounded by old guys with 30-30's or cleaning up blood impregnated meat on the ones we did recover. Looking at the numbers, it should be a good deer round, but I'd never feel comfortable using one.

Tony D · « **Reply #4 on:** July 28, 2003, 08:23:25 AM »

Rick, I find it amusing you think the 30-30 is not a good deer round. It has probably taken more deer than all other cartridges combined! If you're having to track deer shot with the 30-30, it's the shooter screwing up, not the round!

willis5 · « **Reply #5 on:** July 28, 2003, 02:32:26 PM »

I abhor teh deer gun in the hands of a dimwit.

Snowshoe · « **Reply #6 on:** July 29, 2003, 03:03:15 AM »

You hit the nail on the head, Tony D !!!!!!

Tony D · « **Reply #7 on:** July 29, 2003, 07:57:48 AM »

How many times have you watched a hunting show and the hunter kills a deer and exclaims, "Wow, this .358 Earschplittenloudenboomer really drops 'em!" I have to laugh, because the shot would be no more than 150 yards and the "lowly" 30-30 would have dropped 'em just as quick with the same bullet placement.

Rick Teal · « **Reply #8 on:** July 29, 2003, 01:01:53 PM »

Tony D:

As I said in my post, the numbers indicate that the 30-30 should do the job. I'm sure it was largely a matter of the old guys making bad shots, but prejudices and opinions are not necessarily formed from logic - often emotion.

I have noticed that factory loads don't normally perform up to the numbers in lever action 30-30's. I believe "the book" says a 30-30 will do 2200 with a 170 grain bullet, and 2400 with a 150. I've never graphed a 170 factory that would top 2000, and my top reading on a 150 was 2250. I had one handloaded 170 that hit 2024. I even tried loading 125's hoping to approach 2500 fps in a lever action, but my best (so far) didn't reach 2400 (I haven't tried pushing the pressure envelope).

When a deer is shot with a 30-30 using 170's, the bullet has always exited in my experience. This has produced a situation where blood is forced into and between the tissues on the exit side (shoulder shots). This has led to a lot of lost meat and messy work to salvage even part of this shoulder meat.

I have always been in the minority that sees no value in exit wounds and these results have reinforced my point of view. However, I've been wondering if this performance may be related to bullet design. I'm planning to begin making .30 calibre bullets sometime in the next year, and its on my agenda to do some work on 30-30 bullets.

JACKNZ · « **Reply #9 on:** July 29, 2003, 01:55:08 PM »

Rick,I see you consider yourself in the minority when it comes to exit wounds.Come to New Zealand and you will find yourself in the majority.
Most folks here prefer the projectile to expend its enegy inside the animal
and not exit.In NZ the 30-30 is the #1 pig gun because with the right bullet
you don,t endanger your dog on the off side.I don,t hunt pigs with dogs myself,But pig hunting with dogs and a knife or a 30-30,357,or 44mag is big with the young guys.Anyway this is just me having a yarn again.
Catch ya later,,,JACK.

ringo · « **Reply #10 on:** July 29, 2003, 03:38:26 PM »

12 gauge with buckshot, I've seen a lot of legs "shot" off, read dangling! The animal is owed a quick, clean, humane kill and there are firearms that do just that. IMHO.

Cabin4 · « **Reply #11 on:** July 30, 2003, 05:21:04 AM »

Why to many folks load the wrong bullets in a 30-30 for deer. There are some great factory loads now avaiable using very high quality and extremlly well contructed bullets in the 30-30. The problem is these bullets are entirely to strong for a thin skinned, med game animal like deer and simply don't expand properlly when impacting a light target such as deer. Thus the problem with hit deer running off into the woods never to be found. They die days later of a 30 caliber hole.

A soft point, rapidly expanding 150 or 170 grain load should expand properlly and take out a deer without any problem. Many of the higher quality bullets will simply hole-punch, not expand or not expand properlly. These loads are designed for hevier game such as bear, moose and elk and need more significant target resistance to provide proper expansion.

When deer hunting I use the cheap factory loads such as the Winchester Power Point SP 150's. My 30-30 also shoots these the best so I'm am very lucky in this respect.

A 30-30 with the proper bullet is an extremlly capable deer cartridge.

Snowshoe · « **Reply #12 on:** July 30, 2003, 07:16:37 AM »

The first deer I took at 16 years of age was shot with a .30-30, and 2 years ago a nice buck fell to the same rifle, and many in between. I am a member of the dump energy into the animal school, and use hand loaded 150g Winchester psp bullets in our bolt action Savage rifles. I made my living as a meat cutter for a number of years so I have butchered a lot more deer than most people have, and I can say that the .30-30 ruins far less meat than the high speed rounds like the .270 and the mags.

broken arrow · « **Reply #13 on:** August 01, 2003, 08:54:09 AM »

The 30-30 round isn't the problem, it's the platform. I think they are a super "brush gun" or great for close in work where you have brushy shooting lanes. Because most of these rifles are of a dated design, the barrels aren't free-floated & the action is based on a design from the 1800's as well. Give me a modern bolt action presicion rifle any time. And nothing smaller than a .243 (when it comes to whitetails.)