the fallacy of long range

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kcub

New member
Faster. Flatter. Heavier. More accurate. More this, more that. It's a natural force easy to succomb to. Taken to it's natural progression we lovingly lay our .50 Barrett into our Hummer, fill up a few times to arrive at our destination to take aim at a target silhouetted against the farthest horizon.

And then along comes a thread like this.

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=570448

For every shot fired at a given range, how many more shots must have been fired at a lesser range just as effectively? Will the age humbled .30-30 ever not be in the top ten best sellers?

Who among us is not, or never someday will be, humbled by age and health and priority and wherewithall, to make compromises? Will we not all someday count coup in our minds for every shot fired and acknowledge that every bullet ultimately hits the ground?
 
M

Mobuck

Moderator
"Who among us is not, or never someday will be, humbled by age and health and priority and wherewithall, to make compromises? Will we not all someday count coup in our minds for every shot fired and acknowledge that every bullet ultimately hits the ground?"

AMEN
I shot a 300 Win mag target rifle for several years until it became apparent that I could no longer physically handle the recoil. I now find that even a 10-11# .308 is sometimes painful but continue to use it albeit, less often and more carefully. Quite possibly in a few more years, my "big gun" may be a 25/06 or 7x57.
 
A

Art Eatman

Staff in Memoriam
To me, it's about terrain and vegetation. I've hunted the jungly country along the Appalachicola River below Blountstown, Florida. A GI Carbine with handloads would be quite adequate for power for shots of 10 to 50 yards.

I've also hunted in the desert mountains around my Terlingua home. 16-day season and sparse population of mule deer. One buck limit. Wide open country. If you can't make a 500-yard shot, you might well not get a shot; you never know. So, I've used an '06.

Other places in the central Texas hill country, my .243 has done quite well in the 75- to 200-yard range for a couple of dozen bucks.

Your body tells you how much recoil you can take, plus how much weight and how far you walk/stalk. That lets you decide on the rig, with your own knowledge of probable adequacy of the cartridge within some limit of distance.

No big deal. Everybody's different. I can't do, nowadays, what used to be commonplace for me. So what? I'm still upright and breathing, which beats the alternative. :D
 
H

Hunter Customs

New member
No big deal. Everybody's different. I can't do, nowadays, what used to be commonplace for me. So what? I'm still upright and breathing, which beats the alternative.
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I agree Art.

I recall saying good morning to an older gentleman, he said "son every day you wake up on the green side of the grass is a good morning".:)

Best Regards
Bob Hunter
 
E

emcon5

New member
I really don't understand the question. Are you saying that since .308 is a better than .30-30 in almost every regard, that we should all be shooting .50 BMG?

.30-30 Winchester was revolutionary when it was introduced in 1895. The Ford Model T was revolutionary when it was introduced in 1908, but both were a long time ago. Time marches on.

For many people, depending on the environment where they hunt, a lever action .30-30 is perfectly fine. They are reasonably light, have plenty of power and are sufficiently accurate for deer sized game at short (thick woods) ranges.

In this environment, the advantages of the .308 (and pretty much every other centerfire rifle cartridge developed for a bolt-action rifle) is unnecessary, even though it is still there.

For people who do not hunt primarily in those environments, or as in the linked post want to try medium to long range range target shooting, bullet design (spitzer over flat point) and velocity matter.
 
J

jmr40

New member
.30-30 Winchester was revolutionary when it was introduced in 1895.
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The 30-30 had been obsolete for 3 years before it was introduced in 1895. It was a huge step backwards in cartridge development. The 7X57 was introduced in 1892 and is a much better cartridge in every way. There is almost nothing in use today based on the 30-30 and it owes almost all of its popularity to the cowboy movies of the 1920's-1970's rather than real world performance.

Almost every modern cartridge has borrowed design features from the 7X57. The 30-06 and all of its's offspring are based on the 7X57. And with modern loadings it is still capable of taking any game animal on earth. And most of them at ranges farther than 90% of shooters have any business shooting.

I still don't understand the question. The 7X57 was the 1st modern smokeless powder cartridge and it can still hold it's own with anything made since. The real advances have been in powders and bullets. It is not muzzle velocity that matters. But impact velocity. With todays better bullets and powders a 7X57 will impact at greater speeds down range than a 7mm magnum of 50 years ago. Same if you compare 308 to 300 WM.
 
J

jimbob86

Moderator
Faster. Flatter. Heavier. More accurate. More this, more that. It's a natural force easy to succomb to. Taken to it's natural progression we lovingly lay our .50 Barrett into our Hummer, fill up a few times to arrive at our destination to take aim at a target silhouetted against the farthest horizon.

And then along comes a thread like this.
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...and the thread referenced was one in which the OP had a 30/30 and wanted to shoot farther, and asked about the .308WIN .....

THIS thread seems to be bemoaning wanting to shoot (or maybe hunt?) beyond the .30/30's effective range......
 
S

SIGSHR

New member
It's a matter of selecting the right firearms for the situation. When I look through
the scopes of one of my SIG SHRs thought my living room window the thick woods where I live reminds me that if I were a hunter-and New Jersey were not a shotgun only state-a flat shooting rifle with a good scope would not be very efficient, while my Marlin 336 in 30-30 would. Using a 30-30 for varmint hunting on the western plains...?
 
B

buckhorn_cortez

New member
I truly don't understand the original post.

There are a lot of long range shooting applications and a variety of calibers that are optimum for a specific use.

There is no one "best" long range cartridge. There's 1,000 yard target, F-class, steel targets, and precision tactical rifle as examples of pure target shooting. Then there is hunting various game of different sizes in different terrain. Finally, there is military / defense use.

No single cartridge is going to work ubiquitously over all of those different uses.

If you're picking a cartridge for long range, you pick the one that works best for the targets at the longest range you're going to shoot.

I used to use a 30-338 for elk in a Ruger #1 with a 20-inch, medium weight, Douglas premium grade barrel. With the correct load, a 190 grain bullet would leave the barrel right at 3,000 fps. A 500 yard shot was easily doable and would just hammer the elk.

For prairie dogs I used a Ruger #1 in Remington 6mm with a 26-inch barrel and 70 grain bullet. The load I used chronographed at 3450 fps. Shots to 600 yards were quite easy.

Today, for steel targets to 1,000 yards I use a Les Baer .308 Sniper with the Enforcer muzzle brake. I take blood thinners and have to be careful with heavy recoil. The Les Baer rifle recoils less than a .243, so I can shoot 100 rounds in day.

Different application for each rifle, and a different caliber for a each specific use.

That's how you pick long range calibers / rifles.
 
P

Pathfinder45

New member
The 30-30 cartridge is just as good on deer out to 200 yards as any other caliber. Spitzer bullets are no better than round-nosed bullets until the range gets beyond 200 yards. There's just not that much difference in trajectory inside that range to worry about. In many parts of the country, you can hardly see a deer for all the woods unless it's close. This is why the 30-30 remains with us because it's not obsolete. In typical rifles it remains one of the better tools for the job for a great many locations.
 
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James K

Member In Memoriam
Jmr40's love of the 7x57 is plain, and it is a fine cartridge. But the German 8x57, developed by the Prussian army for the Model 1888 rifle is the fore-runner of not only the 7x57, but of all of those cartridges up to the .308 Winchester family.

But in the late 19th century, few American sportsmen or rifle companies had much interest in, or knowledge of, European developments, either in sporting or military weapons. The .30-30 was a natural progression from the .44-40 and other lever-gun cartridges of the era, but was mostly "inspired" by the military .30-40. The .30-40 was thought a bit too long for the planned action size (and wasn't a Winchester development), so the somewhat scaled down .30-30 was developed instead. But in the world of American sporting rifles, it was somewhat revolutionary, being not only a smokeless powder round but also a representing a big increase in power over the lever action rounds of the day.

Of course, the Krag and its .30-40 were known, but the bolt action was just not thought of in terms of hunting rifles; no bolt action was until WWI introduced the "Springfield" (M1903) and "Enfield" (M1917) to thousands of American "doughboys."

Jim
 
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jimbob86

Moderator
Horsefeathers.

The 30-30 cartridge is just as good on deer out to 200 yards as any other caliber. Spitzer bullets are no better than round-nosed bullets until the range gets beyond 200 yards. There's just not that much difference in trajectory inside that range to worry about.
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You'd better be spot on with your range estimation and have zero shooter error and a 1 MOA gun and load if you are planning on putting a 150gr round nosed or flat point through bambi's boiler room at "200 yards" out of .30/30..... the bullet drops almost 10 inches from a 100 yard zero at 200 yards.... and more than 6" (half the vertical dimension of the target) between 150 and 200 ..... and on the far side of 200? It's twice that bad between 200 and 225....... so unless you have the exact range (rangefinder or marked ranges), a solid rest, a 1MOA gun and load (never seen that in a 30/30 levergun) and make such shots in practice regularly, you just can't say that: A .270WIN or similar is point and shoot to 300. That IS better out to 200. And Beyond.
 
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Pathfinder45

New member
Probably best to zero a 30-30 at 150 yards if you expect to use it out to 200 yards.
Take a 308 with 180 grain bullets. Sight in for 100 or 150. At 200 yards, whether you use Spitzer or round nose, there won't be a huge difference in trajectory. Spitzers really come into their own at substantially longer ranges. There is no substitute for a well placed shot. If you think it's too far, try to get closer. The 30-30 has enough power at 200 yards to kill a deer just as dead as a 300 Magnum will. 200 yards is probably farther away than the average deer tag holder can hit anything, with any rifle, 'cuz he only sighted the rifle in at sight-in day off the bench and he didn't have a bench rest when he actually was hunting and doesn't really practice like he should. I suspect that there are some folks right here that are better with an iron-sighted 30-30 than the average would-be-Nimrod that takes the field with a scoped bolt action. The reason why is as simple as the answer to this question: Would you rather go shooting whenever you can or watch sports with your buddies over drinks? Or whatever it is that people do..... The fellow that shoots his 30-30 a lot and pushes his range limits every chance he gets becomes pretty good with that thing.
 
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jimbob86

Moderator
The bullets aren't getting out there as far as they used to.
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Either that or the "200 yard" shots so many multitudes seem to have made with .30/30 carbines in the days of yore were either tales of what someone managed to do once or twice in a lifetime of the whitetail equivalent of "skybustin", or were measured with some non-standard unit or method of measure that was roughly conflated with an optimistic number of yards later, or maybe both ..... I imagine the ballistics of a 150 grain rn or fp bullet out of a 30/30 carbine has not changed significantly for the worse in the last 100 years.... if anything, it may have improved some.... so it's probably not that....... YMMV.
 
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