"Appalachian Assault Rifle"
Found this today on another forum I visit. Decent article, I thought I would share. A couple of nice quotes to be found. It was written by Ed Harris:
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.” 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!
Summer visits to our uncle’s West Virginia farm prolonged our sanity. The first high power rifle I ever shot was a .30-30 Winchester Model 1894 which 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.
It had been carried by a humble farmer, who never expected to see armed combat again after returning from the Pacific after WWII. But, once when deputized to serve on a sheriff’s posse he had to fire it in anger. Recalling the event invoked no pride, but only simple wisdom that acknowledged both good and evil forces exist in our world, which sometimes compel honorable men to make difficult choices necessary to protect our country and those whom we love. My elders taught me 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.
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.
As a youngster my shooting mentors were WWII vets who were hunters and target shooters. Frank Marshall was the crusty ex-NCO contrarian who kept us in touch with reality. “While you guys argue that minute-of-angle crapola, did you see that buck over there?” The .30-30 Winchester was a favorite deer camp subject, because match shooting bolt-gunners who favored .30-‘06s were always quick to ballyhoo the "cowboy guns." Frank owned bolt guns too and shot them as well as any man alive, but remained a staunch defender of the lever-action in the deer woods. His salient arguments I remember are summarized:
The .30-30 is ubiquitous. Guns and ammo are sold everywhere. A rural lawman, farmer or forester could find .30-30 ammo at any crossroads grocery.
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.
It Offers Practical Hunting Accuracy. 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 with open sights. Peep sights knock another inch off of that.
Today’s 30-30 user should get a receiver sight because post-war rifles are already drilled and tapped for them. A peep sight is a 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 target aperture in bright light and simply unscrew the disk at twilight.
Frank liked the practical simplicity of iron sights and felt that mounting a scope on a levergun defeated the purpose of a handy, snap-shooting rifle. He stressed that any lever gun was a “short range” (meaning less than 200 yards in the Infantry sense) rifle. Open sights should be zeroed so that when using a “fine bead” (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. This is all most people need.
Combat Accurate, If You’re a Cowboy. As a law enforcement or home defense gun Frank compared his Winchester to an SKS, calling it his “Appalachian Assault Rifle.”
Lever guns have the advantage of a non-threatening, familiar appearance which “doesn’t scare the natives. But in 19th Century close quarter battle, they had tactical advantages, offering a useful magazine capacity and rapidity of fire compared to single-shot breechloaders and early European bolt-guns. The Ottoman cavalry and Pancho Villa agreed.
A bolt-rifle magazine cannot be topped off without taking it out of the fight (Unless it’s a Krag!), 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,” said Frank.
Purists Debate Winchester vs. Marlin 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 remove 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, 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 Neanderthals lacking the mechanical aptitude of an Army Private to maintain their field equipment,’” Frank said.
Found this today on another forum I visit. Decent article, I thought I would share. A couple of nice quotes to be found. It was written by Ed Harris:
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.” 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!
Summer visits to our uncle’s West Virginia farm prolonged our sanity. The first high power rifle I ever shot was a .30-30 Winchester Model 1894 which 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.
It had been carried by a humble farmer, who never expected to see armed combat again after returning from the Pacific after WWII. But, once when deputized to serve on a sheriff’s posse he had to fire it in anger. Recalling the event invoked no pride, but only simple wisdom that acknowledged both good and evil forces exist in our world, which sometimes compel honorable men to make difficult choices necessary to protect our country and those whom we love. My elders taught me 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.
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.
As a youngster my shooting mentors were WWII vets who were hunters and target shooters. Frank Marshall was the crusty ex-NCO contrarian who kept us in touch with reality. “While you guys argue that minute-of-angle crapola, did you see that buck over there?” The .30-30 Winchester was a favorite deer camp subject, because match shooting bolt-gunners who favored .30-‘06s were always quick to ballyhoo the "cowboy guns." Frank owned bolt guns too and shot them as well as any man alive, but remained a staunch defender of the lever-action in the deer woods. His salient arguments I remember are summarized:
The .30-30 is ubiquitous. Guns and ammo are sold everywhere. A rural lawman, farmer or forester could find .30-30 ammo at any crossroads grocery.
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.
It Offers Practical Hunting Accuracy. 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 with open sights. Peep sights knock another inch off of that.
Today’s 30-30 user should get a receiver sight because post-war rifles are already drilled and tapped for them. A peep sight is a 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 target aperture in bright light and simply unscrew the disk at twilight.
Frank liked the practical simplicity of iron sights and felt that mounting a scope on a levergun defeated the purpose of a handy, snap-shooting rifle. He stressed that any lever gun was a “short range” (meaning less than 200 yards in the Infantry sense) rifle. Open sights should be zeroed so that when using a “fine bead” (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. This is all most people need.
Combat Accurate, If You’re a Cowboy. As a law enforcement or home defense gun Frank compared his Winchester to an SKS, calling it his “Appalachian Assault Rifle.”
Lever guns have the advantage of a non-threatening, familiar appearance which “doesn’t scare the natives. But in 19th Century close quarter battle, they had tactical advantages, offering a useful magazine capacity and rapidity of fire compared to single-shot breechloaders and early European bolt-guns. The Ottoman cavalry and Pancho Villa agreed.
A bolt-rifle magazine cannot be topped off without taking it out of the fight (Unless it’s a Krag!), 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,” said Frank.
Purists Debate Winchester vs. Marlin 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 remove 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, 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 Neanderthals lacking the mechanical aptitude of an Army Private to maintain their field equipment,’” Frank said.
