Introduced by Winchester Repeating Arms in 1895 as the main chambering for their Model 1894 rifle, the .30-30 was the first sporting cartridge loaded with smokeless powder. The original .30-30 Winchester load featured a 160-grain bullet driven at almost 2,000 feet per second, a huge step up in performance as compared to the black powder cartridges of the day. It didn’t take long for hunters across America to fall in love with this revolutionary rifle/cartridge combo, which shot flat and hit and dropped game hard. The .30-30 quickly became the go-to for deer and bear at short to moderate range. In the 20th Century, Marlin Firearms began chambering lever-action rifles in .30-30, and in 1948 the gunmaker introduced the venerable [...]

I have blogged multiple times about the incredible ammo shortage of 2020 and now running into 2021. You’ve felt it and so have I. In fact, for my deer hunting the last 3 months, I had to rummage my ammo stash and dig out a box of 20-year-old-plus Federal Premium .30-06 w/165-grain Trophy Bonded bullet. No complaints, I shot 5 bucks with 5 shots and the old ammo performed beautifully. Here’s an update on the ammunition situation from Federal and Remington, the 2 brands I have hunted with exclusively for the past 2 decades. In a recent story on the Outdoor Life website, Jason Vanderbrink, head man at Federal Premium, explains that before the pandemic hit last February/March, the previous [...]

Sturm, Ruger and Company’s $30 million offer to purchase Marlin Firearms was accepted by Remington Outdoor Company and approved by a bankruptcy court in Alabama. As of October 2020, Ruger now owns Marlin. "The value of Marlin and its 150-year legacy was too great of an opportunity for us to pass up," said Ruger President and CEO Chris Killoy. "The brand aligns perfectly with ours..." The transaction is exclusively for Marlin Firearms assets. Remington guns and ammunition, and any facilities and real estate, are excluded from the Ruger purchase. Ruger will soon begin the process of relocating Marlin assets (designs, machinery, stock materials, etc.) to existing Ruger manufacturing facilities. I have spoken with several sources in the firearms industry, and [...]