30-30 Maximum Distance With Accuracy

[PAT303]

Bullet drop with a 3030 at 5 or 600 yards could probably be measured in feet, 3, 4, 5 feet or more. Your about halfway there. Ditto for wind drift, especially in areas where 600 yard shots are actually possible or merited. Practical accuracy of the openended type you reference specifies repeatability and feasibility. We all know the guy who can bullseye quarters at 200 yards, but they are few and far between. A lot of people loose quite a bit of money from assuming things like that. There are some real riflemen, not just a few, around who can shoot much better than you assume.

My answer: Most of the 170 gr. bullets are flatnose and have a BC of a little over 0.30..... with those ballistics and manual data, the bullet goes transonic at around 500 yards which is the point where most bullets have trouble being accurate any more. So mine is 500 yds....... Or let me choose the bullet or boolit and i'll change the results.

I've also seem riflemen do amazing things on measured rifle ranges at long range but in the bush couldn't hit a damn thing.I would seriously pay to see a riflemen regulary hit a 10'' gong at 500mtrs with a 30/30 in the field using field positions,I think a few would cover it,also any riflemen shooting at that range at a live animal with that type of firearm needs his **** kicked. Pat

[ajjohns]

True story. My Father, who's about 90 has hunted deer since he was a boy growing up in Nthrn Mn putting meat on the table for his family. He told me in the 30's he shot a deer with a 30 wcf single shot (don't know the make) in the head at an insane range. It was the last day and figured he had nothing to lose to just raise the barrel up and volley one at him. After he squeezed the trigger, it dropped. After walking some 500 paces he found the deer dead and couldn't find where he had hit it. After some looking he found it was hit in the top of the head. He said he would never try it again, he didn't think he was lucky to hit it. It was an unlucky deer! I was lucky to have a man like him show me how to shoot. Steady and squeeze.

[45 2.1]

I've also seem riflemen do amazing things on measured rifle ranges at long range but in the bush couldn't hit a damn thing.I would seriously pay to see a riflemen regulary hit a 10'' gong at 500mtrs with a 30/30 in the field using field positions,I think a few would cover it,also any riflemen shooting at that range at a live animal with that type of firearm needs his **** kicked. Pat

I think you missed the question:

30-30 Maximum Distance With Accuracy
What distance can one shoot a 170gr bullet in a smokeless charged 30-30 with a 24" barrel ... with accuracy?

Nothing about rifle style nor sights nor bench or field position were elaborated on, just accuracy. No hunting... just accuracy. Assuming things gets you in trouble.....

[gnoahhh]

Aside from needing a definition of 'accurate', there's no such thing as being "inherently" accurate. If the case design is such that it'll propel a particular bullet at its optimal-for-accuracy velocity, then the remaining factors are quality of the barrel, sighting equipment, launch platform (action/stock and bedding of same), and operator skill. A .30/30 cartridge is as 'accurate' as a .30/06, .300 magnum, .223, .270, ad nauseum.

The whole question of how far out there a .30/30 is accurate leaves me scratching my head- it raises more questions than answers, and is in and of itself unanswerable.

[runfiverun]

the bullet remaining stable will be about it.
you need mass,rotation,and velocity to do that.
if you purpose built the rifle and used brass to take the pressures.
you could easily extend the range of the 30-30 to be in the same class as a 308.
simply because you would be duplicating it's velocitys with the same bullet.
they are both 7.62 x 51 rounds after all.
it is just case capacity and working pressure separating them.
fix the pressure end of the equasion and thngs start to equal out.
the 30-30 has just about the same case capacity of the 300 savage.

[Nobade]

I shoot my Rem 788 30-30 in high power silhouette matches. NOE #311041 + IMR 3031 works great, if I read the wind and hold on the target when the shot breaks it falls. So I know for sure it works to knock over a 60lb. target at 500 meters.

Hunting? That's another story. I probably wouldn't shoot a deer past 200 yards with it, though I have no doubt it would kill one a lot further away than that.

[John Boy]

OK, here's my FIRST experience with maximum distance with accuracy shooting a 30-30:
Here's what I read in the 1949 Ideal Handbook:

The Ideal 311413 ... Squibb gas-check bullet for the Springfield and other 30-06 rifles. Perhaps the most accurate gas-check bullet yet produced. Excellent for target practice up to 600yds

Note the words ... most accurate and up to 600 yards

So, I watched eBay 'hard' for that mold and was lucky to win a bid on the 311413, then - cast a 100 - put GC's on them and reload 20 with the powder charge in the 1949 Handbook

I had the pleasure to shoot it for the 1st time Sunday ...


... after our 2 day Lever Action Silhouette Match at Ridgway.

Winchester M94, 30-30, Williams peep and a too fat diopter pin on the front sight (which I'm replacing)
Ideal 311413 - Brinell 15.3 - 170.8gr
16.5gr IMR 4759

A box of 20:
* got the 0.481" setting for the 300m pigs - downed 3 in a row
* got the 0.700" setting for the 500m rams - (an approximate 7 inch, 5 shot group on the 500m swinger per my spotter) and then downed 1 ram ... no more rounds

I'm a believer ... 500 meters = 546 yards!

[45 2.1]

You might try it within the parameters you set. Several people on the forum can tell you what can be done with heavier pointy boolits.

[MasS&W]

I know I can hit a 10" target easily, and an 8" plate with some setup, at 300 yards. That's a 35 remington pet load with a 116 grain bullet trucking along at 2900 feet per second. I suppose this may translate to some 30/30 loads, but I still stand on my opinion of 200 yards, as imo it should be assumed that iron sights are being used. When questions like this get asked, its far easier to assume real world bare bones variables, rather than getting into the whole "well.. if you put a 15 power scope on it with a ransom rest, in a vacuum on the moon with 1/6th earths gravity...". Iron sights and factory loads I say. Just my opinion though, your mileage will vary.

[Lonegun1894]

Using a Winchester 94 with a 20" barrel and iron sights, firing the Lee 170grFNGC, back when I had access to a 1500yd range and nothing except guns and ammo to spend my money on, I used to shoot "bipedal varmint" paper silhouettes out to 650yds, which is where my groups fell apart fast. Out to 550, I could keep 9/10 somewhere on the paper. Plastic gallon milkjugs were 10/10 out to 350, and fell to 9/10 at 400, and coke cans were 9/10 at 250. I have taken jackrabbits with that rifle out to 325yds, but my longest shot on a deer was 175yds, and I don't think I would do that today unless it was in perfect conditions. Now before someone rips me apart here, I do not say I like the idea of long range "hunting", and limit my shots to much closer ranges than I used to. But the above os just to say that some very good shooting is possible with the "outdated" (or so I've been told) .30-30, plenty of time, and ammo. Now when I say plenty of time, I spent about a full month basically camped out at the range starting in mid April til mid May '05 leaving only long enough to go resupply on ammo from my apartment and when I needed a shower. Not having had access to a range with anything beyond 300 since then, I have no delusions of being capable of that kind of shooting anymore, but I know the rifle would do it back then, and there is nothing special about it to differentiate it from any other .30-30. Just a old, but great, rifle I picked up used a month after I turned old enough to go get it.

Now getting to this point back then involved a lot of "hail Mary" shots that I wouldn't have tried if I hadn't had a mountain for a backstop. My hits were few and far between til I started getting a good idea of drop at various ranges, which wasn't as bad as I thought, but was worse than I was used to with my .30-06.

[hickstick_10]

If your not limited to what type of gun you can shoot it out of and what type of bullet you're using, I would have alot of faith in the 30-30 for some long shots. On paper that is.

Personally I think to many people associate a long point blank range with accuracy. As was mentioned before, look what you can pull off with the 45-70.

[TXGunNut]

I have a scoped Marlin 336 that I feel will deliver acceptable hunting accuracy @ 150+ yards, also have a Trapper with aperture receiver sights that I feel comfortable out to 75 yards if I were to take it hunting. Must admit I'm a limiting factor, each rifle in the hands of a better shooter are capable of double that. I don't consider the 30-30 a long range hunting rifle but that doesn't mean it's not capable of doing so effectively. I practice offhand rifle shooting so I have a pretty good idea of my capabilities, I generally pass on longer shots even if I can make it easily on paper.

[TXGunNut]

I think you missed the question:

30-30 Maximum Distance With Accuracy
What distance can one shoot a 170gr bullet in a smokeless charged 30-30 with a 24" barrel ... with accuracy?

Nothing about rifle style nor sights nor bench or field position were elaborated on, just accuracy. No hunting... just accuracy. Assuming things gets you in trouble.....

Maybe so, but for me anyway the 30-30 is a hunting rifle cartridge, for some of us the definitive hunting rifle. I, for one, often forget what a fine cartridge it can be in an accurate rifle.

[12DMAX]

I shoot mcintosh apples off the top off my brothers head at 124 steps in the back pasture when the cows aint out with my 336 reciever sighted cold blue steel lever action tube fed 30-30.

[Mooseman]

That is either BS or one of the MOST IRRESPONSIBLE things a gun owner could say publicly.

[12DMAX]

That is either BS or one of the MOST IRRESPONSIBLE things a gun owner could say publicly.

Does that make it all better for you?

[starmac]

Don't waste the apples, just use an empty soda can. lol

Back in my younger, wilder,crazier,just plain stupid days, I did hold up a beer can while my uncle shot a hole in it with a 22 pistol.

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

The original post seems to be a request for the longest distance at which you've achieved reasonable accuracy with a .30-30. I loaded up some 170 gn GC bullets from a Lee standard production mold, lubed with BAC, over 10 gns of Hercules Green Dot. A friend shot them at a 200 yd target through his Marlin 336 with a Tasco 6x scope. I retrieved the target. Ten of them in a group of about two inches. He held at the the top ring of the target (don't remember specifically what it was), and the holes were about sixteen inches below the point of sight in the scope. I would have thought it to be an accident, if it had not been for the reload and more rounds than the magazine holds. It CAN happen.

[12DMAX]

He's jerking our chain Mooseman, plus he's from PA, they shoot at sound in the bushes.

Movement my friend, if you hear it its too late

[OnHoPr]

As well as you can reload and shoot your gun and your gun. Also, what you think constitutes accuracy. They have BCR shoots at 20" to 36" bulls at a 1000 yd.