It all started back in 1895 with Winchester releasing the first commercially available factory loaded cartridge using smokeless powder. It was, for the time period, a wicked fast and very accurate cartridge. It took the American Shooting World by storm! It has been used to hunt literally everything in North America and has been used to hunt most everything else, everywhere else. The gun industry has developed a whole lot of other cartridges, but the .30-30 Winchester kept trucking along. The only question is whether it is still a viable cartridge in 2025 and onward.
In most commercial loadings, the .30-30 Win (also called the .30 WCF originally) has moderate velocities compared to most modern calibers. Kind of like how 55 Miles per hour was blistering in the 30’s but in 2025 you had best not be in the far left lane doing that speed!
Just between you and I, the far left lane is for blatant crime. .308 is typically around 2700 Feet Per Second, and the .30-30 is 2400. So it’s no longer the Speed King. The .30-30 is also hampered with high-drag, flat nosed projectiles. Hornady has given us soft nosed pointy boys that won’t chain-fire in a magazine tube, and that’s done very well to help things out, but it can only help so much.
A lot of Gun Guys have pontificated that the .30-30 is only good for White Tail Deer out to 100 yards at the Max. I’ve personally dropped a Cow Elk at 200 yards, and it fell like it was pole-axed. That range was verified by a Nikon laser rangefinder and the load was the Hornady LeveRevolution 160 grain load. It performed as advertised and delivered an ethically clean snuffing. If there is a downside to Hornady’s FTX projectile, it’s going to be that it was reluctant to feed smoothly out of the Marlin 336 I used to own.
Though, to be fair, it does feed better out of my Mossy 464.
Hornady isn’t just a One Trick Pony when it comes to .30-30. They have some other great loads, including a 175 grain subsonic load that I’d love to test out if I had a .30-30 with a suppressor. If you’ve tried it out all Hushed and Quiet like – Let me know how you find it.
The longest range shot I’ve made with a .30-30 was 500 yards onto a steel plate. And it wasn’t the most precise of a shot. Then again, Lever Actions are not the most precise of a rifle. My 336 spent a lot of time with gunsmiths to get it tweaked to be 1 MOA. That involved barrel work, crowning, trigger, and firing pin modifications that cost me about triple what the rifle cost me. I do wish I still had that rifle. But the new owner did report back that he had harvested some fine big game animals with it in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming.
The cartridge and the rifles are no longer getting Magazine Covers, and Online Discussions had almost dropped completely off the radar… But it’s getting more attention lately thanks to the “Tactical Lever Action” Trend that is happening. Modern Lever Actions from Marlin and Henry are coming out with Rails, Giant Loops, Optic Mounts, and Threaded muzzles for the easy installation of the Gun Muffler of your choice. Pretty much every company that loads Rifle Ammunition is still rolling loads for this old Classic. But my favorite are the monolithic solid hollowpoints. They deliver excellent terminal performance, even at the moderate velocities the cartridge lives with. The .30-30 remains alive and well within the American Gun Culture.