From a recent email (address witheld)

Shaman, I hunt in almost identical circumstances as yours– pastures, cedar thickets and oak groves. Am I to understand that you don’t recommend lever actions for deer hunting at all anymore? I would think that a nice 30-30 would be ideal.

Dave in Warsaw



Dave, I don’t think I’ve ever said: “Don’t buy a lever gun” or “30-30 sucks” or anything close. Let me say at the outset that I own several lever actions. My favorite Opening Day GOTO rifle is a Savage 99 in 308 WIN. I also own a Marlin 336 in 30 WCF. There is nothing wrong with either. Let me work this answer in several parts because there are different issues in each.

Lever Actions

A lever action makes a fine deer rifle. I do not want to disparage lever actions. However, they do have certain features that I think make them less desirable, at least in my own way of doing things. First, let me address the action itself. Getting one stripped down is a chore and getting it back together is a chore, and I’d just as soon not have to do it. I certainly would not want to take one apart in the field. Of all the designs I’ve seen, they are just not as easy to strip as a bolt gun or any rifle that was built to be easy to maintain. I’ve stripped my Garand. I’ve stripped my Remington 742. I’ve stripped an AR. Levers are just not as pleasant a task.  I’ve seen the question on forums “Why weren’t there more military lever actions?” The truth is, they are much more susceptible to mud and muck, and much harder to clean once they get crudded up. 

The second problem I see is the magazine. Tube magazines are fine, but then you’re limiting yourself to flat-nosed bullets. I love my Savage 99’s rotary magazine, but I’ve never tried to take its clockwork mechanism apart.

The third reason is the sights. My eyes went bad early in life. All my deer rifles have a scope on them, and most lever guns just were not built for scopes.  I compensate by adding a cheek pad.

Marlin 336 in 30-30 WIN

Savage 99 in 308 WIN

The other thing about lever actions, in general, is they don’t fit my paradigm of hunting.  A lever gun makes a great offhand gun. It is also great for follow-up shots.  I haven’t taken an offhand shot at a whitetail in over a decade.  All my shots have been supported in some way or other.  I also have not needed a second shot on a deer in at least that long.  None of this is a condemnation of lever guns.  This is just a discussion of how I hunt and how lever guns fit that style of hunting.

Thutty-Thutty for Whitetails

If you dig around on this site, you’ll find ample examples of the problems I had with 30-30. The best example I can give is:

Ode to a 30-30 Pt 3 — Like A Dog Returneth

Since that time, I have had better results. Angus took his first doe with 30-30 WIN. However, I have shied away from 30-30 only because I got much better performance with other chamberings. 30-06 has had the best track record at our camp, followed by 35 Whelen. Last year, I experimented very successfully with 7mm-08.

The practical facts are this: A conservative assessment puts an upward limit of about 150 yards on the effective range of a 30-30. That should not be a problem when most deer are shot within 80 yards. However, I will tell you that 7mm-08 I had out last year dropped a doe at 120 yards without much more recoil than my Marlin 336. However, I’d have expected the deer to run a bit, had I shot her with a 30-30. The deer just crumpled.

The other information I can give you is the gradual shift I have seen away from 30-30 on our neighboring ridges. Twenty seasons ago, when I first got on my farm, nearly everyone was shooting 30-30. That old guard has gradually retired from the sport and been replaced with a younger generation shooting 30-06, 270 WIN, and now 6.5 Creed. The difference in the soundscape on the Opener has been tremendous. The old guys would lay down a fusillade of 30-30 fire and empty the magazine in the direction of the deer and then go look for a blood trail. The new guys shoot once and start hauling out venison.

Cost to Acquire

If you have an old Marlin, Savage or Winchester, keep it. However, have you seen the cost to acquire something new? A new Henry rifle is probably going to be north of $800. Meanwhile, a Ruger American in .308 Win may be half that. I picked up my TC Compass last year for under $400.  They stopped making my beloved Savage 99 in 2000, because it could no longer be made profitably.

If you go the opposite way, a Ruger American in 308 WIN runs about $400.  To find a lever gun with an action strong enough to take a 308 WIN now runs you $1200 for a Browning and maybe $1400 for the Henry. Style and heritage and all that aside, the Ruger American may be ugly, but it’s a lot of rifle for $400.

There is a reason for this.  Automation and CAD/CAM have revolutionized manufacturing, and firearms have benefitted greatly from this. However, the design of lever guns is such that it benefits less from the changes than some other designs.  Bolt guns are generally easier to manufacture, and there has been a lot of great innovations in this realm in the past decade or so. 

If you go back to 1963, a good bolt gun ran you $100, and you could get a lever gun for about half that.  Now, the situation is reversed. 

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Related posts:

More on Lever Guns ( and Deer Rifles in General) What is my "goto" gun for Deer? What is a "Rain Gun?" A 200 yd slug gun? The Big Book of Gun Gack So You’re Looking for a new Deer Rifle, Huh? So you STILL want a new Deer Rifle??? What Do You Think of 308 WIN?