No Fancy Bullets or Powders Here! Just a Good Honest Group & an Old Rifle

[BBF]

 No got no wind down your way?? Elevation is one thing but drift??

[Dee]

TM, I am not attempting to go long range with this rifle. I am simply sharing what I do to stay in practice with this rifle. I also practice at estimating range, and then measure that range to ascertain if my skills are still sharp.
I appreciate your generosity at the suggestion you would send me spitzer bullets if you had them, however I most likely have some 308 caliber rifle bullets in my inventory from my 308, and 3006 days. I use this rifle, and match it to it's INTENDED capabilities, and MY capabilities with that rifle.
The idea of carrying an 8 shot rifle (one in the chamber) with only one in the chamber, and one in the magazine does not appeal to me in the least. I have shot spitzer bullets in the rifle about 40 years ago, so the idea is not new to me.
I am way past experimenting. I am satisfied with what I have. There is no reluctance, or doubt when I pick this rifle up and start out the door. I know it will do, what I want to do.
Occasionally I will make these long shots just for entertainment, and to show myself, that not only I still can, but that to others, they have been misinformed, or mis-led, and or, that they have preconceived notions that it could not be done, when it most certainly can be done.
I used to be one of the millions, that could not wait until the next edition of magazines like Guns & Ammo, or Shooting Times, or a number of other gun rag's LATEST COPY, came out. I would pour thru the pages, and justify going out and spending several hundred dollars on what THEY said I needed.
It finally occurred to me a little over 25 years ago that the writers in these gun magazines weren't EXPERTS. They were GUN SALESMEN. Nothing more.
I have a lot of education and experience involving L.E. related firearms, and was a trainer for almost 20 years. I could testify in court involving training, and some ballistics issues. I have charts, graphs, books, and countless hours of reading on the subjects of ballistic coefficients, hydrostatic shock, trajectory, windage, all that. But I also had a grandfather that could take the nose off a squirrel at 40 yards with a 60 year old lever action 22 rifle with iron sights. He not only had NONE of that training, but could barely write his own name. He knew instinctively, what I ignored, and took years to get thru my head. If it works, it really doesn't matter why.

[Dee]

No ghot no wind down your way?? Elevation is one thing but drift??

Of course there is wind here. Who doesn't have wind? Windage is part of the equation. You read the wind, just as you read the distance.

[Sweetwater]

Dee,
that is some fantastic shooting you are doing. My Pepsi can is 2.6" outside dia and 2.1" across the "ring" on the bottom of the can. The 6" square I was referring to was the bottom of your milk jug and with a bit of tongue in cheek relating that to a deer kill zone and all that. You are a good influence on us and make us want to go shoot something. I just don't have eyes like you do, anymore - at least I don't think I do - and that's the "it" of it for most of us. We don't think we can, therefore we can't.
Due to our severe brain-washing of necessary cartridges for anything beyond the 50 yard line, you are in the realm of long range for a 30WCF "as we have been educated". However, as my "research" showed in the previous post, you have plenty of "power" way beyond "normal sighting distances" so, contrary to what we have been taught; if you can get a sight on it, with your load, you should be able to take it home - within Deer-size limits. Larger game would take more distance consideration for a clean kill. My elk with my 32WSpl proved that to me, and it wasn't "up close and personal".  I do prefer the flying wheelweights. That elk didn't know it wasn't a super-wiz-bang-magnum. Good Grillin' Ahead!

[Dee]

Sweetwater, sometimes folks like to quote information on things that they think I don't know. Yesterday I went and looked at the new Remington VTR rifles. At least I think that's what they were called. They had the triangle shaped barrels. The gun shop owner didn't know me, and when given the first opportunity he began telling me that my 223 AR was a great cartridge but, sadly was too light for killing 200 lb hogs, and 150 whitetails, and that my decision to switch to a 308 or better was a good decision.
I listened to his gas and asked him if the 223 was "too light" for a hogs in the 300 lb class, and he assured me that it was. I then asked him why the hogs I had shot over the years in the 350lb class had fell over dead with a 52 grain match hollow point, shot out of this same AR? At about this point, he seemed to realize that he was in over his head. The man was speaking from READING EXPERIENCE, rather than ACTUAL EXPERIENCE. I have laughed in past threads about the city boys coming up from Dallas and telling their tales for the NEED, of 300 win mags, and 450 Marlins, and 4570s for those dangerous "wild boar". Feral hogs have been in this area for over a hundred years. They used to free range them just like cattle. In my sixty years, I have never EVER, been charged by a boar. Oh, if you corner him, EVEN A MOUSE WILL FIGHT. A sow with younguns can be pretty damn cranky if you get one of her little'uns to squealin, but the point is: Some folks just read too much, and believe folks they have never even met, just cause they got a degree in journalism, and can write pretty. That was the gun shop owner's problem.  I told him that I appreciated his time, but that I had decided that if I were going to the land of bigger hogs, I would just take my 3030, and I left.
I mentioned about my grand father. In 1962 I watched him take the nose off a squirrel that was in the fork of a giant sycamore tree. He was laying in it near the top, and you couldn't see him. I couldn't even find his nose, but my grand father could. And that's all he needed. Damnedest shot I ever saw. He did it with the only rifle he ever owned. A lever action octagon barreled 22 he found in a clay cave on the Verdigris River near Verdigris Oklahoma. And here's the funny part. He had found that rifle with a skillet, and a lantern in that cave when he was a kid. He had shot that rifle all his life, and when the hammer spring broke, he stretched a loop of tractor inner tube from the forearm to the hammer to make the hammer fall. He died that same year with an aneurysm at age 60. I doubt he ever looked thru a scope, and am not sure he ever even saw one. Cherokee, and poor as a church mouse, but the most practical, and as happy a man as I ever saw in his old age. And a terror when pushed too far.
We have spoiled ourselves I think, and while doin it, caused ourselves to doubt our own abilities.

[Sweetwater]

"We have spoiled ourselves I think, and while doin it, caused ourselves to doubt our own abilities."

Couldn't agree with you more! I shot the IHMSA game 20 years ago. Got pretty good on the 200m line with handgun and levergun. Never thought of hunting that way until hunting season came up and I was working, surveying, with my 41mag holstered at my side. Shot my first antelope with that revolver at 187 yards. Longest on antelope with open sights was just over 300 yards using a TC in 6.5TCU. It was my Unlimited gun for IHMSA and did the trick. Most of my game have been taken well under 150 yards, deer, elk and antelope. Don't consider myself a long range shooter, but have done some respectable 275-300 yard shots. Mostly with scoped rifles, but some with the Blackhawk revolver and some with the leverguns. Just been awhile.
Got to get my knee where I can walk far enough to set a decent target and give your popcan a go!

[streak]

 
We have spoiled ourselves I think, and while doin it, caused ourselves to doubt our own abilities.




That is a big 10-4!!!

[454Puma]

Dee
 I'm a babe in the woods when compared to your 30-30 experience! But I just got my first one 2 years ago. But I have falling in love with the cartridge! Always been an '06 shooter ! Always loved levers, have a couple in other calibers in them just never a 30-30!   I just love shooting cast bullets and with cast shoot alot more! I get near factory perfomance with my reload of 170 gr Lee cast GC 1998 fps with 28 gr H4895 -whats 100-150 fps!  Actually Win PP's chrony about 1925 fps out of my Win 94.  I'm lucky as my eye's are still good most days -not quite as seasoned as you!  

[Dee]

With wheel weight cast bullets and a gas check you can load 170s with 37 grains of 748 powder, and get 2350fps, with no leading, and it's not an experimental load, or even a maximum load, and right out of a Lyman manual.

[454Puma]

Dee
 That would be a sure thumper- But my Win 94 is telling me it don't like em that fast!  Accuracy dropped off with my first loads of 2100+ fps !  So I backed it off some and got it down too 1-1.5" groups at 100 yards! With open sites I'm more then happy! Same load gives me and 1" or less with my scoped 336!

[Dee]

Every rifle is different. I found mine liked the 150s at 2400fps, so it's about all I shoot. I've got some 170s layin around, and a new box of Speer 170s I bought about 5 years ago, but have never rolled'em up.