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38-55, 30-30, 32 Special and 35 Remington.

6K views 54 replies 28 participants last post by  northmn 
#1 ·
Once read an article in a magazine, by an author that had actually used the 35R, the 32 Special and the 30-30 who stated that if the power between the cartridges was dynamite a chipmunk could not blow his nose with the difference. I am throwing in the 38-55. I have used the 30-30 the 38-55 and the 35 Remington but not the 32 Special. The 32S has intrigued me but I could never see the need to pay more for factory shells or reloading gear to get one.
All have their adherents who are rather vocal in their support, usually at the expense of the 30-30. 32S in my opinion is technically a better carbine cartridge as the loading data shows velocities for its 170 grain bullet equal to those for the 30-30 in a 26 or 24"barrel. Typically the 30-30 gives about 2090 fps with factory loads with a 170 grain bullet. However if one looks at downrange performance, the 30 cal bullet start to exceed the 32cal ones even though starting slower. If one looks at the 200 grain 35 cal bullet it is even more so. That 35 Remington slows down pretty fast. A hot load in a 38-55 with its 255 grain bullet is around 1700 fps and it does maintain its velocity pretty fair but still has a bit of a rainbow trajectory downrange.
So, was that author correct in his assessment. Personally I think so. Makes for an interesting discussion, but I have seen pictures of moose shot with a 30-30. I have a 336 with a rough bore that I have thought about sending off to get recut. Choice would be 35-30, 356 W or 38-55. The rifle shoots OK with a slightly fouled bore so I have not done so. To me the biggest advantage of the 30-30 was that before the shortages it only cost about $16 a box for ammo as compared to more than double that for the others for no gain.
Wrote this for fun, as I am sure there are some detractors.

DEP
DEP
 
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#2 ·
Add to the equation the ability to reach and kill out to 200 yards with the FTX 160-grain bullets and the 30-30 has more than enough power to dispatch 90% of game species found in the U.S.. I chose the 30-30 over the .35 Remington in my 336 due primarily to the ubiquitous availability of factory ammunition and reloading components.
R\Griff
 
#3 · (Edited)
Shot placement and bullet construction are most important. A few hundred ft/sec or a couple hundredths of an inch won't kill an animal. Disrupting the blood supply, tissue damage, and shock from the projectile striking is what kills.

There are two schools of thought on pass-through. One group wants 'all the bullet energy' to stay in the animal. The other group wants two holes, blood out and air in. Tracking sure is easier with a pass-through.

Velocity is a factor. The British had extensive experience shooting game in Africa, and their conclusion is that 2200-2400 ft/sec is the ideal range because the bullet spends more time in tissue than a faster bullet, and is more deadly than a slower bullet. Others, the Roy Weatherby school, promoted hydrostatic shock from very high velocity. Elmer Keith promoted heavy-for-caliber bullets, bigger diameters at moderate velocity.

In the end, placement and bullet integrity kills. A projectile that holds together, plows through, and stops the heart from sending blood to the brain kills best.
 
#6 ·
Once read an article in a magazine, by an author that had actually used the 35R, the 32 Special and the 30-30 who stated that if the power between the cartridges was dynamite a chipmunk could not blow his nose with the difference. I am throwing in the 38-55. I have used the 30-30 the 38-55 and the 35 Remington but not the 32 Special. The 32S has intrigued me but I could never see the need to pay more for factory shells or reloading gear to get one.
All have their adherents who are rather vocal in their support, usually at the expense of the 30-30. 32S in my opinion is technically a better carbine cartridge as the loading data shows velocities for its 170 grain bullet equal to those for the 30-30 in a 26 or 24"barrel. Typically the 30-30 gives about 2090 fps with factory loads with a 170 grain bullet. However if one looks at downrange performance, the 30 cal bullet start to exceed the 32cal ones even though starting slower. If one looks at the 200 grain 35 cal bullet it is even more so. That 35 Remington slows down pretty fast. A hot load in a 38-55 with its 255 grain bullet is around 1700 fps and it does maintain its velocity pretty fair but still has a bit of a rainbow trajectory downrange.
So, was that author correct in his assessment. Personally I think so. Makes for an interesting discussion, but I have seen pictures of moose shot with a 30-30. I have a 336 with a rough bore that I have thought about sending off to get recut. Choice would be 35-30, 356 W or 38-55. The rifle shoots OK with a slightly fouled bore so I have not done so. To me the biggest advantage of the 30-30 was that before the shortages it only cost about $16 a box for ammo as compared to more than double that for the others for no gain.
Wrote this for fun, as I am sure there are some detractors.

DEP
DEP
 
#7 ·
While the 32 looks good on paper, and is possibly a bit superior then the 30-30, I doubt anyone would notice a difference on deer sized game. same with the 35. I've taken many deer with a 30-30 but would add that I feel a 150 gr bullet works best on them. Maybe it's the faster fps, shock, whatever, but I have less tracking then when I used 170's, which just might be most useful on bigger game.
In reality though, shot placement is key, and some deer die harder then others..shoot enough of them, with any caliber, and you'll see everything from dead right there, to 200 yd runs...it is what it is....
 
#8 ·
I have shot 5 deer with the 35. 4 Were DRT, and should have been if you look at where they were hit. Couple would ahve been down with my 22 mag. One was a smaller deer broadsided through the lungs. It was in a small clearing and ran into cover before it dropped. Little to do with whether it was a 35 or what ever as they do that.
Kenneth Anderson was an African PH who had an interest in firearms and shot placement and seemed to have a special place for the Weatherby shooters (not really positive) He was also a veterinarian. His opinions were what Rob mentioned, that 2200 fps or so was plenty. Higher velocities made bullets fragment or deformed solids. There are 3 technologies concerning lead bullets. Bare lead for slower velocities as in the BP days. Jacketed lead developed around 1890 or a little later and now solid copper alloys which stay together better for the fast ones. At
higher velocities, if a jacketed bullet holds together well it gets tricky to get them to work well at the longer ranges and vice versa.
DEP
 
#9 ·
Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell killed 1000+ elephants with a .303 Enfield, a 7x57 Mauser, and a 6.5x54 Mannlicher, the majority falling to the 6.5mm. Mostly one shot kills. It's about bullet placement, brain shots in this case, as any of the three cartridges mentioned are not thought of as traditional elephant loads. When discussing killing power, you can't ignore marksmanship.
 
#12 ·
All I know is that I used to hit the rifle cartridge rams with a 30-30 and they sometimes just stood there with a mark on them, then I switched to a 38-55 going much slower and it was a flat ram every time it was hit.
Little bit of Physics for you -- Momentum is what counts hitting steel.
cartridge bullet kg*m/s increase
30-30 Win 150 0.15
30-30 Win 160 0.16 1%
32 Win Spl 165 0.165 1%
35 Rem 200 0.2 4%
38-55 255 0.255 6%

Momentum is mass times velocity where Kinetic Energy is mass times velocity SQUARED.
I won't make it any more complicated than that. :rolleyes:
 
#11 ·
@northmn If there was just one good deer cartridge then we’d all be shooting the same thing. A deer, bear, moose, etc.. don’t know the difference between any of them. It’s like they always say, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
I like to shoot the less popular cartridges because they tend to be good conversation starters and don’t mind paying a little extra for that privilege.
 
#13 ·
Bullet mass also matters hitting steel. If you look at the lead splatter at the base of the steel targets there is no bullet left. A 22 has about 40 ftlbs of energy which means it should be able to push a 40lb steel target back 1 foot. It might make one wiggle because the 40 grain bullet disintegrates and there is no mass left to push it. The slower large bullets can absorb more energy which permits the steel to move. Silhouette shooters have used FMJ bullets to maintain more bullet integrity because of that. It does not translate much to game. The higher velocity 30-30 just blows up the bullets on steel and leaves little transfer. Most think KE is a yardstick for cartridge effect and more KE means more killing power. The KEalso affects the bullets which explains why hot 22's that blow up on larger animals are not good.
@northmn If there was just one good deer cartridge then we’d all be shooting the same thing. A deer, bear, moose, etc.. don’t know the difference between any of them. It’s like they always say, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
I like to shoot the less popular cartridges because they tend to be good conversation starters and don’t mind paying a little extra for that privilege.
There are other reasons to use the other cartridges. My 35 Remington is not a common one and has a 24" barrel and I shoot it well. My 38-55 is a Marlin CB which is easier to shoot offhand. I am not fond of carbines and have a Marlin CB in 30-30 that I like. The actual rifle itself can make a large difference in choice. Its fun to try different things. If I were totally practical I would shoot my scoped bolt action all the time. Levers can be more fun.

DEP
 
#14 ·
"Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell killed 1000+ elephants with a .303 Enfield, a 7x57 Mauser, and a 6.5x54 Mannlicher, the majority falling to the 6.5mm. Mostly one shot kills. It's about bullet placement, brain shots in this case, as any of the three cartridges mentioned are not thought of as traditional elephant loads. When discussing killing power, you can't ignore marksmanship."

Bell killed Slightly over 1,100 elephants, mainly with the 7x57 Mauser with 173 gr. full metal jacket bullets at roughly 2300 FPS. The rest were taken with various cartridges including the 6.5MS which he dropped early on because of problems with the bullets bending on impact or the cartridge misfiring. He later went to the .303 British with its 10 round magazine and a IIRC 450/400 Nitro Express for the very up close and personal encounters.
You're absolutely right about marksmanship. He liked to shoot birds on the fly with his rifles. His book Karamojo Safari and Corbett's book the, Maneaters of Kumaon and his use of the 7x57 led me to pick up a few rifles for that cartridge and play with the round. FWIW, properly handloaded it will snap quite close to the heels of the .280 Remington factory rounds.
Paul B.
 
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#17 ·
My best freind in high school hunted with his dads .32 Special (can't remember if it was a Winchester or Marlin) and I was so jealous as the Marlin my dad had was 'only' a .30-30. I thought that .32 Special was so, well "special"!
Funny how that happened,back then I thought of a 30-30 as having a big round bullet going really slow. Now my favorite is a 38-55 going really slow.

Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk
 
#19 ·
I also read that Bell had a few individuals that tried to copy him using the smaller cartridges and got stomped pretty fatally.
One grand old cartridge in Africa was the 9.3 X 62 Mauser which does not look like a overly powerful cartridge today but served most of it users well. 286 grain bullet at 2300 fps. Seems like the Bullets moving at those lower speeds hang together better.

DEP
 
#22 · (Edited)
Because I don't own one, aside from 38-55 I've been paying pretty close attention to all of those calibers mentioned for years now.

What I've found is that of the 35 Remington, the 30-30 and the 32 special there really is very little difference on game. That said, I'd happily give up 2 of the 3 and hunt the rest of my life with just the 35. The 30-30 with 150's is the fastest of the 3 and I've found it to be the only one that causes any amount of bloodshot meat and then just barely. I've toyed with the idea of trying 190's in the 30-30 for near 35 Rem weight and probably better sectional density. In that same line of thought I also bought some 220gr round nose bullets with the intention of loading them in my 30.06 at about 2200-2300ps for black bear and deer.

Comparing kills with various calibers over the years I've come to the conclusion that typically at around 2300+ fps is where bloodshot meat starts to happen. Get up in the high 2k's or low 3k's and the meat damage from shock is excessive for my purposes. If on the other hand I KNEW I would be shooting say 200-400 yards, the 30.06 at those distances would duplicate the 30-30 at about 100 and that's just not a bad place to be.

Lower velocities in the 1900-2200 fps range are in my experience the absolute most "efficient" range. I'm talking multiple variables like pleasant to shoot, penetrate well, kill reliably (extremely reliable at that) and the bare minimum of meat damage. I'll also jump in here and say that I own several 45-70's which are even slower but those heavy bullets perform very similarly on deer. The biggest performance difference being trajectory. The 30-30 looks like a laser at 200 yards compared to the 45-70 but again at my average shot distance of about 60 yards, results on deer are basically identical. Note, I'm also NOT saying that if you load a 70 grain 243 down to 2000 fps it'll be a great performer because it won't but for moderately heavy bullets in the 170-250 grain range and 30 to 40 caliber... Well let's just say those are very near to perfection on game at woods hunting distances.

In my experience, the ONLY reason I personally would pursue higher speeds is to duplicate the on game performance of calibers like the 30-30 or 35 but at greater distance. The fact that faster calibers shoot flatter is not anything I really care about. I choose to hunt in ways that get me reasonably close and I have very little desire to take long shots while hunting. I absolutely LOVE shooting paper from far away but when hunting, something just gets lost when sitting back and taking those long shots. It's just my personal feelings and I don't hold it against anyone who loves the long range hunting game PROVIDED they take the time to actually get good at it. Reading a couple ballistic charts and thinking you are good out to 500 yards doesn't cut it without the practice to actually learn what shooting that far is like.
 
#25 ·
Many moons ago.... in a galaxy far far away...:rolleyes:.

I read a article in a hunting/shooting mag. That was testing the so called best caliber for shooting in the woods.
The so called "bush caliber"
They had set up a target and in front of the target about 15 ft. they had made a rack of rows of hardwood dowels.
They had made it that the bullet would at min. would strike at least 5 of the dowels.

Long story... but the so called high velocity rounds faired the worst on hitting the target.
The slower, heavy rounds done better at hitting the target
 
#26 ·
Most of the tests I have seen on brush busting, pretty much showed that there are no such things as brush busters. Jack O'Connor did one and felt that the 6.5 MS did fair with a 156 grain round nose but it was not Steller. Another one found that the 50 BMG round did pretty good.
We keep hearing and reading about the limited range of any of these cartridges. As I have been sighting in lately, I wonder how many really sight in at a decent range? I have been about 2" high at 100 yards but some claim they just go for 50 yards.
I shot two deer with the 38-55 loaded to about 1650 with the 250 grain Barnes Original bullet. They expanded well and I ate venison but I was not impressed by them doing anything special.

DEP
 
#27 ·
Most of the tests I have seen on brush busting, pretty much showed that there are no such things as brush busters. Jack O'Connor did one and felt that the 6.5 MS did fair with a 156 grain round nose but it was not Steller. Another one found that the 50 BMG round did pretty good.
We keep hearing and reading about the limited range of any of these cartridges. As I have been sighting in lately, I wonder how many really sight in at a decent range? I have been about 2" high at 100 yards but some claim they just go for 50 yards.
I shot two deer with the 38-55 loaded to about 1650 with the 250 grain Barnes Original bullet. They expanded well and I ate venison but I was not impressed by them doing anything special.

DEP
There is a corresponding near-range zero to every down-range zero where the projectile’s trajectory crosses line-of-sight to the target. It’s the tits for restricted-length ranges. The trick is finding exactly where that nipple is.
R\Griff
 
#28 ·
IME, bullets of similar construction/sectional density at similar impact velocities will give similar results on deer regardless of diameter. Thirty-nine years ago - when I first read the Layne Simpson quote the OP referenced in post #1 - of the cartridges named I had only used the .30-30 (and the .38-55) on game. Based on what I had read about the .35 Remington up to that time Simpson’s comment seemed rather odd. But after a considerable amount of hunting in the intervening years with the .35 Remington (and many other rifle and handgun cartridges) I now tend to agree with him. Cartridges all have cult followings and there’s nothing wrong with that, except when someone states that a certain cartridge kills much better that it’s “supposed to” (whatever that means) as if there was some kind of magic is its case shape or bullet diameter which killed animals better. I enjoy hunting with the .35, have killed a fair amount of game with it and hope to continue doing so. But I am under no illusion that it is a markedly better killer than the .30-30.

The only caveat I have is about my first sentence. Again IME, deer hit with 300-grain .45-70 bullets have all been knocked off their feet either immediately or within a step. That big flat meplat may do a better job of immediate bullet power transfer than other cartridges - or perhaps a dozen or so deer isn’t a representative enough sample size.



.
 
#29 · (Edited)
Once read an article in a magazine, by an author that had actually used the 35R, the 32 Special and the 30-30 who stated that if the power between the cartridges was dynamite a chipmunk could not blow his nose with the difference. I am throwing in the 38-55. I have used the 30-30 the 38-55 and the 35 Remington but not the 32 Special. The 32S has intrigued me but I could never see the need to pay more for factory shells or reloading gear to get one.
All have their adherents who are rather vocal in their support, usually at the expense of the 30-30. 32S in my opinion is technically a better carbine cartridge as the loading data shows velocities for its 170 grain bullet equal to those for the 30-30 in a 26 or 24"barrel. Typically the 30-30 gives about 2090 fps with factory loads with a 170 grain bullet. However if one looks at downrange performance, the 30 cal bullet start to exceed the 32cal ones even though starting slower. If one looks at the 200 grain 35 cal bullet it is even more so. That 35 Remington slows down pretty fast. A hot load in a 38-55 with its 255 grain bullet is around 1700 fps and it does maintain its velocity pretty fair but still has a bit of a rainbow trajectory downrange.
So, was that author correct in his assessment. Personally I think so. Makes for an interesting discussion, but I have seen pictures of moose shot with a 30-30. I have a 336 with a rough bore that I have thought about sending off to get recut. Choice would be 35-30, 356 W or 38-55. The rifle shoots OK with a slightly fouled bore so I have not done so. To me the biggest advantage of the 30-30 was that before the shortages it only cost about $16 a box for ammo as compared to more than double that for the others for no gain.
Wrote this for fun, as I am sure there are some detractors.

DEP
DEP
DEP,

My two cents:

I have owned and fired all. The only two left are a 30-30 lever with a 26" barrel and in the 38-55 lever and single shot. When reloaded, the 38-55 in a lever gun with tang peep sights is good out to 200 yards. Put that same cartridge in a single shot rifle with 325 gr 40-1 soft lead bullet and you have a completely different beast.

Hands down, the most accurate iron sight rifle I own is a Win 1885 with a Lee Shaver tang sight and front globe. With 3.4 gr of 4759 over the primer and the rest with Fg black powder from a bench it shoots 1/2 moa to 3/4 moa groups if I do my part. At 300 - 500 the BC and weight holds similar MOA. All you need is a rear sight with enough elevation, a steady rest, and hold.

The debate about lighter faster bullets vs. fat, heavy, soft, and slow continues! The combo of 30-30 and 38-55 gives you one of each.

My best 3 shot group ever with iron sights at 100.

BTW: The minimum distance for NRA Silhouette BPCR is 200. The sights were at the lowest setting when shot at 100.
 

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#30 ·
Single shots were the bolt actions in their day. They could use both longer cases as well as longer bullets. I have a 45-70 Rolling block copy with a 30" barrel. Especially with black powder there are no loads in lever actions that can touch it.
My 30-30 Cowboy has a 24" barrel and is the one prefer for hunting as is the 24" barrel in my 35 Remington.

DEP
 
#32 ·
Not so much. BP is an explosive and only needs a little fire to ignite. Also, BP pressures are well within the range of the Win Large Pistol prime cap strength.

The 375 Win is a magnum and if you load magnum loads, large rifle magnum is recommended,

However, if you plan to use reduced loads for plain base cast bullets using Unique, Herco, Trail Boss, etc, then yes. Only on reduced loads.
 
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