.45-70 or .30-30, considerations and suggestions?

Both will take deer , the effective range is the distance you can put a bullet into the vitals. Deer aren't that hard to bring down with a properly placed first shot
I use a 30-30 . I find that the rainbow trajectory and heavy recoil of the 45-70 makes it harder for me to shoot accurately. Now if I were hunting bears, the 45-70 for sure and as close as I could get ! Bears are big , tough and will eat you.
If at all possible, shoot both. I shot a 45-70 trap door carbine (replica) a few times and found it was more gun than I needed. That steel butt plate hurt !
Gary
 
I have shot a 45/70 and I own a 30/30 Winchester 94. If you hit a deer where you should, the 30/30 does as good of a job as the heavier, more punishing 45/70. IMHO, there is nothing easier to carry, shoot and buy ammo for than the M 94 followed closely by the Marlin.
My M 94 has more than a few deer and one Elk to its credit. I have some Buffalo Bore 190 gr hard cast 30/30 that I'm not afraid to go after Elk or even Moose if I can keep the range 100 yards or under.
 
Deer are not hard to kill. I hunted with a 30-30 for years, then upgraded to a 7X57, then progressively upwards to 375 H&H, then turned around and went back down to 7X57 and 30-30. So IMO if you do decide on the 45-70, it's only for your freedom to choose. You will gain literally nothing and sacrifice range and ballistics to achieve a dead deer (and use more powder and lead to get there).

And as far as recoil, the 30-30 has mild recoil, and the 45-70 will have about the same recoil as a 308, not terrible but noticeably higher recoil than the 30-30.
 
I had a 45-70 and sold it. I really liked the gun and the round but just didn't use it. The recoil wasn't any worse than the metal buttplated BP rifles I shoot in 50 and 54 caliber. And its easy to add a thicker rubber pad if you need to. I even shot one deer with the 45/70. With a reduced load using a 300gr bullet at 1600fps. And then I realized that I was shooting the same thing as a full power 44 mag round. So the 45-70 went away. The 44 mag kills deer just fine by the way.

I am a real fan of the 30-30. You can tell by my sig line. If I were limited to just one deer rifle a 30-30 would be my first choice. I have no more Elk hunts or trips to Colorado left in me. Texas whitetails are all I will hunt from now on.

But just a couple of months ago I picked up a lever gun I have wanted for a long time. A Marlin 336 in 35 Remington. That will be my first rifle to use this deer season. I think its a good choice between the 30-30 and the bigger bores like the 444 and 45/70. Here is a picture showing the difference between the 30-30 and 35 Remington.

For a long time factory loads and componants for the 35 were hard to find but now they are back on the shelves. The factory 35 loads cost more than the 30-30 but its not a plinking round. But if you reload for it lead bullets work and so do the easy to find bullets for 38/357 revolvers. Now you can plink for pennies a round. Just a thought since I an guessing you are buying new. All three guns are available NIB.
 

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Forgot to add that you don’t need the Hornady gimmick bullets for either round.Standard cup and core bullets work just fine for the 30-30 and have worked for decades. I have shot my 30-30 out to 300 yards and it still hits hard at that range.

The 45/70 will just as good with a hard cast bullet and gives all the penetration on really large animals you could ever ask for.
 
It is good to read all the accounts of successful deer hunts with the 30-30. Too long has the shooting society been indoctrinated to believe that a certain amount of kinetic energy, or velocity, was required to kill. If you read in print magazines, Gun writers had formulas that so many foot lbs of kinetic energy were required to kill a deer, more for Elk, much more for Elephants. Based on all the positive experiences shooters have had with the lowly 30-30, seems the kinetic energy theories were all bogus.
 
I guess I am a wimp, but IMHO a light .45-70 is a pretty mean kicker. I haven't fired the Marlin, but I have fired 500 grain infantry loads in a trapdoor carbine and I won't do it often.

Jim
 
TOheir, size definitely does effect how much recoil you can stand. I am 6'6" 280 lbs. I can guarantee you that the big boomers punish me much more than they do a small man. A smaller person moves more as the recoil hits them. A big person has more inertia, stays much more still, and gets beat to death by the recoil instead of moving with it.
 
Well thanks for everyone's responses. Ideally I would have both. As I typically do more paper punching currently, I might go with the .30-30.

It's a shame I'm hung up on the big lever and shorter carbine barrel. I love the way that combo looks. Having a heck of a time finding any Marlins in the handgun calibers.
 
As mentioned, the 45-70 is the choice for reloading. I started out with a 405 Hard Cast @ 1500fps and the recoil was too much for me in the 22" barreled Marlin. Sold it and got a 450 Bushmaster, which is the bomb.com for me.
 
I'll 2nd the suggestion for the 35 remington. Good middle ground.
 

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500 linebaugh with 450gr lfn gc and hs-6

wQaK6xc.jpg
 
size definitely does effect how much recoil you can stand. I am 6'6" 280 lbs. I can guarantee you that the big boomers punish me much more than they do a small man.
Click to expand...

I'm 5'8" and 250 now but I've been shooting so called hard kickers without recoil pads since I was 11 years old and probably didn't weigh 75 pounds. I still disdain recoil pads.
 
I have shot the .45/70 but never owned or really wanted one. Was happier with my Winchester 94's in 30-30. Even so I no longer have the Winchesters. I went for a Marlin 1894 in .44 magnum. I no longer hunt and prefer the .44 as a rifle/pistol combo when woods walking.
 
This doesn't apply to you in Texas, but for purposes of general discussion, here where I live in Ohio, the .45/70 is a legal cartridge for deer hunting whereas the .30-30 is not.

Why ? I have no idea. It is just another government regulation. I believe there are other states where the same is true: you are required to use a straight walled case (as well as the fact that .30 falls below the minimum also). This was the excuse I used to buy a .45/70 even though I seldom hunt and despite the fact that I already owned several rifles in legal calibers such as .444 Marlin, .45 Colt, and .357.

http://wildlife.ohiodnr.gov/hunting...pping-regulations/allowable-hunting-equipment
"Straight-walled cartridge rifles in the following calibers: New this year! All straight-walled cartridge calibers from a minimum of .357 to a maximum of .50. Shotguns and straight-walled cartridge rifles can be loaded with no more than three shells in the chamber and magazine combined."

So, again, FWIW: I could (as far as I know) use the .45/70 in any state that allows rifle hunting, but I couldn't use the .30-30 in all states that allow rifle hunting.
 
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