Best Premium Ammo?

[CHEROKEE COWBOY]

Dear Friends:

What are your opinions about the best premium commercial ammo for the 30-30 Winchester? I specifically have in mind the following: Federal's Nosler Partition, Winchester's Powermax, Barnes, and the loads by Buffalo Bore? How well do they penetrate and hold together?

Thanks for all information,
Cherokee Cowboy

[buckhunter]

They should be better than the plain jane Walmart ammo but I question and always have the use of these premium on deer size critters. Seems to me that any deer hit with a softpoint bullet will drop as fast as if it were hit with a premium bullet.

However when Elk and Moose are involved it changes. Premiums definately have their place.

[skeet]

The premiums do have their uses. As Buckhunter said..the run of the mill softpoints do work fine at normal ranges with the 30-30..but here is the whole point. If you think the premiums are better..then by all means use them. They surely do not reduce the effectiveness of the ammo. And in short range situations the premiums will be better for elkies and moosies. And being a bit old school.. I really do like the Noslers.. In larger cals the Barnes bullets work very well too. Don't know about the 30-30 though with a X bullet. A friend used my 300 Savage 722 to shoot an elk with a 130 gr X bullet... bullet went front to back and out of the critter. DRT too...never moved according to him. But only 125 yds or so. but that bullet shoots almost 3000 ft per second from the 300 Savage. Probably only get 2600 or so from the same weight in a 30-30

[Jack]

I suppose another way to say the same thing that Buckhunter and Skeet are, is: premium ammo is a good idea to use when you're tackling a critter that's larger than one usually would for the caliber.
The only 30-30 bullet mentioned that I have experience with is the Nosler Partition designed for the 30-30. I load that bullet in the 307 Winchester for a friend of mine, who hunts deer with that load. The Nosler performs very well- complete penetration.
Why do I load that Nosler Partition for deer? In this case, because the 307 is shooting about 3-400 fps faster than the 30-30, and faster than 30-30 bullets (flat points) were originally designed for.
Were I loading a 30-30 for deer, I doubt I'd use a premium bullet- the standard bullets have been designed specifically for deer at 30-30 velocity, and I'm sure they work very well.

[Rapier]

Have to agree with what has been said and add that if you are talking about a lever gun with factory iron sights, the front bead limits your range to fairly close as respects bullet selection. A single shot with a scope can put a 30-30 into another level and a premium bullet could well be an asset.
Ed

[T.R.]

I had no trouble downing this red stag with my 30-30 carbine. Plain but effective 170 gr Winchester Power Point ammo did the job nicely! Remington core-lokts and FEDERAL power shock ammo have very good reputations, too! Plan to hunt deer with "plain" ammo - higher priced Premium ammo is for moose and the great bears.

This South Dakota muley never knew what hit him.

Yes, I hunt out of state with my 30-30's. Never had any trouble with them at all. It's a fine cartridge for the careful and patient hunter. I've heard many arguements that favor magnum rifles and ignore them all. Getting to within 150 yards or closer has been quite rewarding for me.

Good hunting to you.
TR

[GoodOlBoy]

I personally don't use premium ammo (unless you count handloads) for hunting. But if I WAS going to look into it I would look at Hornady. They have a very good rep. I do agree that premium ammo has it's place, but since I rarely hunt anything besides squirrel, rabbit, and whitetail I don't have a need for it.

GoodOlBoy

[PJgunner]

"A single shot with a scope can put a 30-30 into another level and a premium bullet could well be an asset."

Only up to a point. You're limited by the strength of the brass. I have a Winchester M54, the bolt action rifle that finally morphed into the vaunted pre-64 Winchester M70. very accuracte and very strong. I figured i cuod soup up the old "Dirty Thirty" and have something a bit different. Didn't work out that way. get much over current max loading data and primer pocket get too loose, partial case head separations and other signs of way too high pressure.
Come to thnk of it, I don't think I've shot a jacketed bullet of any type in any of my 30-30 rifles in probably 25 years. I shoot strictly cast bullets in my 30-30's. I can load the Lyman #311291 to 2000 FPS with good accuracy and they've downed 15 deer over the years. I took two other deer with the RCBS #30-180-FN, a 190 gr. bullet in my alloy. That one did some serious smack down. Bullets were made from Wheel weights with a bit of tin added to make mold fill out easier.
Frankly, unless I was after a really big elk or a moose, I wouldn't even bother with a jacketed bullet but would consider a jacjeted or (GASP!) a premium if nasty critters also lived where I was hunting.
If it makes you happy, have at it. Every man should be allowed to scratch his fleas in whatever manner he chooses. (I stole that line from Elmer eith BTW.)
Paul B.

[dovehunter]

I don't know about .30-30 premium ammo but I had extremely good results with Federal's premium .223 Rem. 55-gr. soft points loaded with Sierra's GAMEKING bullets. I have yet to be able to work up a handload that provides significantly tighter groups or more consistent kills (on groundhogs). On the other hand, when my son got his CZ 550 .22-250, he got a couple of boxes of Winchester's "white box" 45-gr. factory rounds and they too gave exceptional accuracy. I have always understood that Winchester's "white box" ammo is their economy line. So, based on our very limited recent experience, I couldn't see that Federal's premium .223's gave any tighter or more consistent groups than Winchester "white box" .22-250's.

[wrenchman]

The 30-30 has been around for years that is a round that has got all the kinks out of it. Now i do know guys that hand load that have them bolt action savages that make the round realy nice the round turns in to a tack driver with some boat tails and loading a little hotter.

[Rapier]

Paul,
When you run up against the brass wall in the 30-30 you can switch to the 225 Winchester brass and get all you can get from the 30-30 chamber. That is why JD Jones changed to the 225 as his base cartridge, from the 30-30, years ago.
Ed