Why Hunters Keep Coming Back To The .30-30

Above, my Winchester 94 with my grandfather's Winchester 62A I inherited. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Six years ago, I was staying in Albuquerque overnight as I had an early morning flight to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for a cruise to Key West and Havana.

To kill time, I went to Ron Peterson's Firearms gun store to browse around. I spotted on a rack a Winchester Model 94 in .30-30 for sale. I had been looking to buy a pre-64 Winchester 94 for some time. I checked it out and it was made in 1962 (verified by its serial number) and in great shape. I put it on layaway and picked it up after I returned from the cruise. It is my favorite firearm.

Apparently, I was not the only one in recent years looking to buy a .30-30 lever-action rifle. Lever-actions have made a big resurgence in popularity.

The Avid Outdoorsman has posted an article on why hunters keep coming back to the .30-30. 

It begins with:

There’s something about the .30-30 that keeps it hanging around, no matter how many new cartridges hit the shelves. It doesn’t have the flattest trajectory. It’s not the hottest round on paper. But none of that matters in the woods where it counts. The .30-30 earned its place in deer camps because it flat-out works—and it’s never given you a reason to doubt it. You can talk all day about modern bullets and long-range performance, but for the kind of hunting most folks actually do, the old lever gun still makes a lot of sense. That’s why it keeps showing up in truck racks, scabbards, and meat poles across the country. And once you’ve taken a deer with one, odds are you’ll want to do it again.

To read more, go here.