Here is a sneak preview from an article i just sent the Editor for an upcoming issue of the FS. I figured that it would fit this topic well.
Memories of the .30-30
A favorite of lawmen and deer slayers alike, .30-30 lever-guns defended our Home Front in two World Wars, fed a then-mostly rural nation and still have utility for sport and home protection.
My childhood wasn't different from others of the Baby Boomer generation. Northern Virginia after World War II was an odd mix of The Walton's and American Graffiti. The rural south still existed where we now call it “outside the beltway.â€? When Dad bought our Annandale house in 1954, State Route 236, aka “Little River Turnpikeâ€? was a 2-lane country road between Alexandria and Fairfax Courthouse, which wasn't yet a city. Our neighborhood was surrounded by dairy farms, hardwood forests were full of game, and we shot my brother's open-sighted Remington Model 511 .22 bolt-action out the upstairs bedroom window to kill woodchucks raiding Dad's vegetable garden. Our neighbor was an avid hunter who let us watch him butcher deer and feed scraps to his two German shorthaired pointers. When I turned 12, he showed me his deer rifle, a Winchester Model 94 in.30-30. Like any kid who watched TV cowboys of that era, I was enthralled!
The opening, in 1963, of Interstate 495, the now-infamous “Beltway,â€? put “my worldâ€? on a fast track towards destruction. By the time I became old enough for Dad to allow me to have a rifle of my own, the fields and woods around us were rapidly falling victim to the developers' bulldozers. Within a few years we were immersed in suburbia, strip malls, and the Cold War. Our shooting activity moved indoors to Fort Belvoir. This meant that my first rifle would be a target .22, the targets paper, and life would never be the same.
Summer visits to our uncle's West Virginia farm prolonged our sanity. There was no TV, so instead we learned about reality. Meat doesn't come from a seed planted under cellophane-covered meat trays in the grocery. Veggies don't grow in the can. “If you eat, thank a Farmer.â€? Outdoor recreation is a celebration of God's Creation which rewards you with peace, solitude, time for contemplation and rest after completing a day's cheerful labor.
Uncle Bill told us the truth about guns. His stories were very different from what we saw on TV. His .30-30 Winchester Model 94 had guarded coal trains from Nazi saboteurs, kept order during mine labor disputes, ended the suffering of sick or injured farm animals, and helped feed starving neighbors during the Great Depression. This rather plain rifle had been carried by a humble farmer, who never expected to see armed combat again after returning from the Pacific after WWII. But, when deputized to serve on a sheriff's posse he had to fire it to take out a “bad man who tried to kill my friend.â€?
Recalling the event invoked no pride, but a simple wisdom explaining that “grown upsâ€? acknowledge that both good and evil forces exist in our world, which sometimes compel honorable men to make difficult choices which are necessary to protect our country and those whom we love. A suppressed slight tremor in his voice reflected deep conviction as he explained that our Second Amendment isn't just about hunting, gun collecting and target shooting. Guns aren't adult toys, but serious tools. Too many shooters today have forgotten that simple fact.
While my older brother, Rick and I had shot .22s and knew fundamentals, firing our first center-fire, watching the .30-30 explode a pumpkin, accompanied by the smack of steel butt-plate against T-shirted shoulder and ringing in our adolescent ears made a lasting impression. Sadly, a .30-30 lever-gun would not find a spot in my closet until I reached middle age. A few years ago a circa-1942 Winchester Model 94 carbine appeared at an estate sale, which brought back memories as if it were yesterday. So, I had to have it.
My shooting mentors were retired military officers who were also target shooters. But Frank Marshall was our devil's advocate, the contrarian who provided a practical balance that kept us in touch with reality. “While you guys are arguing that minute-of-angle crapola, do you see that buck over there laughing at you?â€?
The .30-30 Winchester was a favorite deer camp subject, because the target bolt-gunner's who favored .30-‘06s were always quick to ballyhoo the lever-guns. While Frank owned bolt guns and shot them as well as any man, he remained a staunch defender of the lever-action in the deer woods.
A rural lawman, farmer or forester could find .30-30s at any crossroads grocery. (A federal special agent I trust still advises field agents not to carry any gun of a caliber they cannot buy ammo for at Wal-Mart). Lever guns remain popular in rural areas because they are cheap, plentiful, and familiar and they work. In remote regions a .30-30 is the only high-power rifle many people have heard of.
Grouping of the average lever-action .30-30 is not spectacular, but is adequate for the utilitarian. Groups of 3� to 4� at 100 yards are normal for open sights. Peep sights will knock an inch off of that. A peep sight provides useful improvement over traditional open sights, because it is faster in snap shooting and obstructs less of the target than open buckhorns. Use a threaded aperture in bright light and simply unscrew the disk at twilight.
Frank liked the practical simplicity of open sights, stressing that a .30-30 was a “short rangeâ€? (meaning less than 200 yards in the Infantry sense) rifle. Open sights should be zeroed so that when using a “fine beadâ€? (drawn down into the notch) factory loads strike 3 inches high at 100 yards. This provides a 150-yard, point-blank range, which defines the realistic limit for factory loads fired from a typical 3 minute-of-angle carbine.
A “coarse beadâ€? hold was a common long-range expedient a hundred years ago when the .30-30 was our first flat-trajectory, smokeless powder big game rifle. Here the bead is centered between the points of the semi-buckhorn, while the flat front sight base is raised to bridge the gap across the lower notch. This provides a useful long range zero at maximum effective range, which works out to 200 meters with my 94 Winchester and 1893 Marlin, hitting a 12â€? steel gong with factory loads and a center-of-mass hold.
As a law enforcement or home defense gun Frank compared his Winchester to an SKS, calling it his “Appalachian Assault Rifle.â€? Lever guns have the advantage of a non-threatening, familiar appearance which “doesn't scare the natives. In 19th Century close quarter battle, lever actions had tactical advantages, offering a large magazine capacity and rapidity of fire compared to single-shot breechloaders and early bolt-guns. Pancho Villa agreed. A bolt-rifle magazine cannot be topped off without taking it momentarily out of the fight, whereas you can shove more rounds through a lever-action loading gate whenever you need to. On the frontier and against bandits in dusty border towns a lever gun was “as simple as it ever got,â€? said Frank.
If you must scope a lever gun the Marlin enables optics to be mounted low, over the bore, where they belong for snap-shooting. But in snow-shoe country when a rifle would not be protected in a saddle scabbard, hunters liked the Marlin's solid top receiver and side ejection port because they kept rain, snow and tree debris out of the action. The Marlin breech-bolt, lever and ejector removed easily to enable cleaning from the breech, avoiding wearing out the muzzle crown, as happened to many Winchesters. While it is true that the Winchester action is more exposed to the elements, Winchester fans like to point out that say its open-top makes it easier to inspect the chamber, pry out a stuck case stuck, clear a jam or debris. Doing so in the Marlin action requires disassembly. No big deal say Marlin lovers. They do it every time they clean and can do so in the field with a Scout knife, when required. “Winchesters should be issued to natives or Neanderthals lacking the mechanical aptitude of an Army Private to maintain their field equipment,'â€? Frank said.
Frank conceded that a scope was indeed a help for old guys with poor eyesight to reduce sighting errors, but he still liked to quip “the only sighting error youhave got is that extra head-space between your ears!”¦ the buffalo were decimated, Indians wiped out and two World Wars fought with rifles that barely do 3 minutes of angle”¦ What are you shooting at, cockroaches?â€?
Frank never had much faith in collimators and was highly skeptical of rifle scopes unless the maker's name was German. Iron sights are simple and “best for conscript troops and farm boys,â€? Frank said. “Once zeroed you can forget the darned things until you get too old to see them.â€? (At age 60 Frank finally did scope his deer rifle ”€œ Leupold was a German, wasn't he?).
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73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia