30-30

[TN Larry]

Here's a milestone post that I made in 2013 talking about my old 30-30 minus the pics that were with it. I saved it, and this post brings back memories. It's a long read..............

A New Tradition

I started deer hunting when I was 10 years old. I used my uncle's 30-30 that year with no luck. For Christmas, my Mom and Dad bought me my own Marlin 30-30 for Christmas. I know that Dad had to save to buy that gun as he was the only one working at that time. I was so excited to have a "deer" rifle that I could call my own.

We practiced and got the gun lined up prior to the next juvenile when I was 11 years old. I can still see it unfold as my Dad and I were sitting on the side of a steep hill overlooking a flat below us that led to a field. I can remember him nudging me and saying here comes a deer and then me managing to shoot at it three times. Then the emotions as he told me that it was a BUCK and that I might have missed. I could feel the tears welling up but told him that I thought that I hit him at least the first shot because I thought that he flinched. It didn't help when my uncle came to help look for it and said "You should have shot that deer's eyeball out at that distance." Anyways, it was a gut shot and after a long tracking job, I had my first deer, a 90 lb 5 pter. I was so excited and on cloud 9. That moment in 1992 in Jackson County started a fire that continues to burn deep today.

I killed quite a few deer with that trusty 30-30 over the next few years including a few more bucks but nothing spectacular. However, that didn't matter at the time. I then retired the 30-30 when I was 16 and bought a 30-06. The 30-30 set waiting for some attention until 2006 when I decided to put a better scope on it and try to kill a good buck with it. I only hunted with it in certain situations, but all of the bucks that I killed over the next few years, I had a different gun with me. I did manage to kill 2 or 3 more does with it.

Fast forward to 2009 and I had three good bucks on camera at my house. I hunted them hard all year with no luck on either of the three. Finally, on the last day of season with about 15 minutes of shooting light left, the smallest of the three showed up. I had already accepted that I would go buckless that year which was okay. However, the Lord blessed me in the final seconds of the final day. It just so happened that I had the 30-30 with me that afternoon. I also realized that afternoon that I didn't have any deer pictures with my Dad in it. He doesn't deer hunt due to not having the patience to sit for long periods of time but enjoys hunting anything with a dog involved. I couldn't have scripted that one any better - last day, final minute with the 30-30 on my own land.

I am pretty sure that is the last time that the 30-30 come out of the safe until this year. My little boy would be 6, and I wanted him to kill his first deer with the same gun that I did. I spent a lot of money this summer making some modifications to get him ready to shoot it including managed recoil ammo, a youth stock, red dot scope, limbsaver kick pad, and a tripod rest. It is all worth the smile as it all came together on Sunday afternoon when he made a 130 yard perfect shot on a big doe. I will admit that it hit me like a ton of bricks when we sent him around the edge of the field to "find" the deer after we had already found it. I teared up and had to fight it off. My little boy is growing up and will soon be a little man. He got it done his first year and with the old 30-30 that I passed down to him a few months ago as officially his. I hope that he can pass the same tradition on some day to his son, and that I will be around to witness it.

 

[dirtyhands]

Here's a milestone post that I made in 2013 talking about my old 30-30 minus the pics that were with it. I saved it, and this post brings back memories. It's a long read..............

A New Tradition

I started deer hunting when I was 10 years old. I used my uncle's 30-30 that year with no luck. For Christmas, my Mom and Dad bought me my own Marlin 30-30 for Christmas. I know that Dad had to save to buy that gun as he was the only one working at that time. I was so excited to have a "deer" rifle that I could call my own.

We practiced and got the gun lined up prior to the next juvenile when I was 11 years old. I can still see it unfold as my Dad and I were sitting on the side of a steep hill overlooking a flat below us that led to a field. I can remember him nudging me and saying here comes a deer and then me managing to shoot at it three times. Then the emotions as he told me that it was a BUCK and that I might have missed. I could feel the tears welling up but told him that I thought that I hit him at least the first shot because I thought that he flinched. It didn't help when my uncle came to help look for it and said "You should have shot that deer's eyeball out at that distance." Anyways, it was a gut shot and after a long tracking job, I had my first deer, a 90 lb 5 pter. I was so excited and on cloud 9. That moment in 1992 in Jackson County started a fire that continues to burn deep today.

I killed quite a few deer with that trusty 30-30 over the next few years including a few more bucks but nothing spectacular. However, that didn't matter at the time. I then retired the 30-30 when I was 16 and bought a 30-06. The 30-30 set waiting for some attention until 2006 when I decided to put a better scope on it and try to kill a good buck with it. I only hunted with it in certain situations, but all of the bucks that I killed over the next few years, I had a different gun with me. I did manage to kill 2 or 3 more does with it.

Fast forward to 2009 and I had three good bucks on camera at my house. I hunted them hard all year with no luck on either of the three. Finally, on the last day of season with about 15 minutes of shooting light left, the smallest of the three showed up. I had already accepted that I would go buckless that year which was okay. However, the Lord blessed me in the final seconds of the final day. It just so happened that I had the 30-30 with me that afternoon. I also realized that afternoon that I didn't have any deer pictures with my Dad in it. He doesn't deer hunt due to not having the patience to sit for long periods of time but enjoys hunting anything with a dog involved. I couldn't have scripted that one any better - last day, final minute with the 30-30 on my own land.

I am pretty sure that is the last time that the 30-30 come out of the safe until this year. My little boy would be 6, and I wanted him to kill his first deer with the same gun that I did. I spent a lot of money this summer making some modifications to get him ready to shoot it including managed recoil ammo, a youth stock, red dot scope, limbsaver kick pad, and a tripod rest. It is all worth the smile as it all came together on Sunday afternoon when he made a 130 yard perfect shot on a big doe. I will admit that it hit me like a ton of bricks when we sent him around the edge of the field to "find" the deer after we had already found it. I teared up and had to fight it off. My little boy is growing up and will soon be a little man. He got it done his first year and with the old 30-30 that I passed down to him a few months ago as officially his. I hope that he can pass the same tradition on some day to his son, and that I will be around to witness it.

Great story thanks for sharing.

 

[Hunter 257W]

Good story TN Larry. That's what it's really all about.

 

[TN Larry]

Thanks guys! That's one gun that I would never sell. My son is 8 and has now killed 7 deer with it.

 

[dogtown]

I still use my 30-30 from that I was given when I was 14. I have a bunch of other rifles but go back to this one for TN heavy brush hunting.

 

[Headhunter]

I have shared several times. This is from Gray's Sporing Journal. One of my favorite things ever for those who have never seen it.

2386936
A couple of years ago Becky and I went up to Norb and Sig's place in Vermont. They were having their annual invitation-only deer hunt; it's about half hunt and half party, but the men who go up every year seem to know why they go, and the year before they had put a half-dozen deer on the pole. Becky and I didn't even buy licenses; all we wanted to do was to shake a few hands, hear one or two of the stories, sort of a tire-kicking trip.
We got there late in the afternoon of the first day of the hunt, an most of the boys were already back at the house. No deer.
"No snow," somebody said.
"Too hot."
"Herd's down."
"Lotta hunters out there."
"Let's eat," somebody said.
The meal was the standard, put-a-lot-of-stuff-in-the-pot-and-let-it-simmer number, and while the simmering part took place the boys fell loosely into the various chairs and benches around the fire and started talking. You know the script.
You really know the script if you know the group. Norb is one of those upper-echelon gun nuts who thinks about firearms the way Eddie Arcaro must think about horses - passionately, but with respect. So the boys who hunt with Norb tend to be cut from a cloth. A cloth anointed with Hoppe's.
Anyway, it didn't take long for the talk to get around to calibers. Tom had his moment then, for he was recently back from a hidden valley in British Columbia where he had reduced a truly large grizzly to possession with a single shot from his new big bore Colt Sauer. He even had pictures, but the
boys sort of tuned out after they agreed that a .458 Win Mag. might have too much stopping power for the Vermont deer woods. Tom didn't have it with him anyway.
An interesting thing to do in any deer camp is to glance across the gun rack, and you could tell right away that the boys in Norb's bunch weren't just deer hunters. All bolt actions and scopes here, and the ordnance leaned a bit to the heavy side of .270. Becky and I weren't really in the thick of the
conversation, and I was having fun imagining where some of those rifles had pointed when Norb's brother Charley came over.
"Where's your gun, Ed?" he asked.
"Oh, I'm not hunting this time," I answered. "Going up to New Hampshire next week."
Charley nodded.
"But I did bring the gun," I said. "My good .30-30. The one Becky gave me. Pre-64, really a good one. You ought to see it."
Charley didn't want to see it. In fact he didn't want to hear about it. "Don't use it," he said.
He was right, of course. If you spend all year working up to your few days in the woods, if you truly love venison, and if your rifle is simply the tool to get the job doen, then you certainly will increase your odds if you put some extra foot-punds behind your bullet. "Just remember," Charley said, "The first time you trail a wounded deer for six miles is the last time you'll use that .30-30."
"Yeah," I said. The problem is that I've never hunted deer with anything but a .30-30. To me it's a part of the package, just like woolen pants, new snow and lunch alone deep in the woods. I wasn't going to change just because it made sense to do so.
Like most of us, I spend the better part of my time on a deer hunt alone, not seeing game, and the only thing along for company is my little rifle. It's the sort of circumstance that turns inanimate things into pets, and the .30-30 that Becky gave me had become that. So I listened to Charley, and I worried a bit about what he had said, but I took the little gun with me anyway.
I took the little gun when Larry and I went back to the cabin near Bog Brook. I, and the rifle, had been there before, and when we got there I hung the rifle on its peg by the back door. Not an event, just one of the little rituals that marks the edges of a regular hunt; a quiet pleasure marked and quickly forgotten, to be remembered much later.
The moment passed as quickly three days later when I took the gun of the peg, a minor act lost in the glow of what had turned out to be the best hunt that I've had yet. I packed the gun in the back of the jeep, in with the duffel and seemingly detached from the trophy it had cleanly taken - the dressed northern whitetail that hit 212 pounds on the scale at West Milan. The deer I'd spent ten years seeking. The deer that people still want to hear about. The deer that hangs next to me in the funny snapshot that Larry took, the picture that shows my day-glow hat that Larry talked me into wearing that day. And it shows the little rifle resting on my knees as I sit there on the porch of the cabin up near Bog Brook. I'll show you the picture. I'll show you the mounted head of the deer, and I'll even show you the funny hat, as long as you don't ask about the rifle.
Because the rifle was stolen ten months later.
So now I spend a lot of time in gun shops, elbows on the counter, peering at the rack where they keep the better used rifles. If Charley were with me he'd smile, I'm sure, as I looked over the nicely-checkered .30-06's and.308's. But he'd have no way of knowing that this was just idle window shopping, a casual glance across the whole selection. I only get serious when I come to the place where they keep the .30-30's, the Model 94's.
When I find them, I stand back a bit and look carefully, searching for the right touch of age, color and grace that marks a good one. If I don't see it, I move on. But if one of the little guns has it, if the patina is right on the stock and the detachable swivels are there, then I pick it up.
I pick it up and turn it over. If you saw me do it you might think that I was checking for rust or dry-rot, feeling the action or checking for wear. No.
When I turn over the .30-30, I'm looking for just one thing. A number.
2386936.
I think Charley would understand.

Ed Gray, October 1979

 

[Mid-Tenn]

I still have mine, a used Marlin 336.

It was given to me for my 12th Christmas, up until then I had been using my single shot 20ga H&R Topper loaded with slugs. I harvested my first deer the following season with it and used it for several years until the bug bit me and I thought I needed more gun. I can't remember if I had sold it or traded it but I remember replacing it with a bolt action Savage 110 in 30/06. That wound up being one of those gun deals that I always regretted.

Fast forward almost ten years later. My brother calls me about nine o'clock at night telling me a woman he worked with at a local factory had a 30/30 that she wanted to sell. I tell him I'm not overly interested in buying another 30/30 but he assures me that I'd be interested in this one. She has it with her at work so I hop in my truck and run over there and meet them in the parking lot. My gun had originally came from a local pawn shop and at some point the previous owner had split the stock at the toe and had it repaired. As soon as she pulled it from her trunk I saw the faint seam where the toe had been glued and two dowels had been inserted to reinforce the repair and knew it was the rifle that I had got rid of several years earlier. So for $150.00 I got my first deer rifle back.

I still take it out at least once a year, more out of nostalgia than anything. A few years ago we had a good snow and season was still open so I decided to take it for a walk. In the process I jumped up a nice doe and put the rifle back to work. We're planning on going back to Maine in another year or two and if we do the hound hunt then this will be the gun that I take.

 

[TNReb]

My first deer was with a lever action 308 (iron sights) and yes, I still have it. My first buck was with a 30-30, and I still have it too.

 

[Hunter 257W]

I still have mine, a used Marlin 336.

It was given to me for my 12th Christmas, up until then I had been using my single shot 20ga H&R Topper loaded with slugs. I harvested my first deer the following season with it and used it for several years until the bug bit me and I thought I needed more gun. I can't remember if I had sold it or traded it but I remember replacing it with a bolt action Savage 110 in 30/06. That wound up being one of those gun deals that I always regretted.

Fast forward almost ten years later. My brother calls me about nine o'clock at night telling me a woman he worked with at a local factory had a 30/30 that she wanted to sell. I tell him I'm not overly interested in buying another 30/30 but he assures me that I'd be interested in this one. She has it with her at work so I hop in my truck and run over there and meet them in the parking lot. My gun had originally came from a local pawn shop and at some point the previous owner had split the stock at the toe and had it repaired. As soon as she pulled it from her trunk I saw the faint seam where the toe had been glued and two dowels had been inserted to reinforce the repair and knew it was the rifle that I had got rid of several years earlier. So for $150.00 I got my first deer rifle back.

I still take it out at least once a year, more out of nostalgia than anything. A few years ago we had a good snow and season was still open so I decided to take it for a walk. In the process I jumped up a nice doe and put the rifle back to work. We're planning on going back to Maine in another year or two and if we do the hound hunt then this will be the gun that I take.

That was a lucky break for sure to get a chance to buy a rifle back from a stranger like that. I bet you couldn't hardly believe it when you saw it was your old rifle.

 

[Mid-Tenn]

I know. I was pretty lucky in getting my old gun back. My brother told me he recognized the gun as soon as he saw the stock and he assured the woman that she wouldn't have any difficulty in selling it as I would buy it as soon as I saw it. Come to find out that gun had changed hands about four times in ten years, each time it was bought, sold, traded or resold to someone working in that plant.

 

[Hunter 257W]

That is even wilder to think it changed hands that many times yet stayed within one employers people.