LONG TIME NO POST

I know I have been lax in my duties on here.  Things have been kinda crazy at  my house.  For one thing my back has really been giving me fits and I haven't been out.  Not even to the range.  I got another round of shots in there and hope I feel more like moving again soon.

I just read an article from the Shot Show on popular deer rifles.  They list AR's first of course.  I have nothing against the AR platform, I own one and am in the process of building a couple more, one for Sue and for me.  Sue shot mine a while back and put in her order for one.  Mine is probably going to be for home defense, hers to hunt coyotes with and just to shoot.

But in all the hoopla over the AR-15, I still lean to the bolt gun for most of my hunting and shooting.  For whitetails though what I never hear about is the time honored 30-30 Winchester.  The old Model 94 or the Marlins.  Where I grew up in Louisiana they were hard to beat and I think they still are.  My old Model 94 is one I found in a barn while cleaning it out for a farmer.  It needed some tlc and I bought it for almost nothing.  I replaced a couple of broken parts and cleaned it all up and probably killed more whitetails with it than all the others combined. 

Lately I have been casting pistol bullets out of wheel weights and bought a mold for the old 30-30.  It is a gas check bullet, casts about 165 grains.  My eyes aren't what they used to be and I ordered a Williams Peep Sight with a Fiber Optic front sight and installed them on the old 94.  Bill and I took it to the range a while ago to sight it in with the new sight and I took some reloads with the cast bullets.  We were shooting other rifles at 100 yds and I decided to shoot at a target already set up with the 30-30, just to see.  Bill was watching through the binoculars, I never expected to hit the target much less the bullseye.   I fired 3 rounds and he told me to put the rifle back in the case, it was done.  I hit the 3" bull with all 3 shots. Done deal.  

I plan on using this rifle again if I ever get back east in the woods.  Plus I always figured that it was a darn good rifle for home defense also.  

Swamprat