I know of an "invite only" hunt on a very large ranch in South Texas, the attendees all cattlemen, where you can only hunt with a 30-30. It is a BYOH hunt, the "H" being a horse, as it is a pack-in event, miles from any made-made facilities.

they had a cowboy buck hunt up on one of the ranches (may have been the waggoner ) up in north texas where it was like this....lever open sighted rifles off horseback. seems like it would have been an interesting hunt for sure.


IMO a .30-30 was at the time the best combination hunting/tactical rifle available....decent range ( for an open sighted rifle ) more punch than a .44-40 or .45 LC but still had a decent magazine capacity and could fire shots pretty fast.

as far as a straight hunting rifle was concerned there were better options available but considering the times many rifles had to serve double or triple duty and this was a great combo gun.


I've owned two in my life, a model 94 that was lost in my parents divorce and my current 336 marlin. I was always a fan of the marlins over the Winchesters myself. its not my favorite hunting rifle or cartridge by any stretch but it serves its purpose for me like it did for many when the cartridge was created; to be a short, quick handling rifle with power to kill deer sized game and have the ability to have fairly rapid follow up shots. it lives under the back seat of my truck most of the time, this one wears a trim little 2x7 leupold.

I'm not sure about the Waggoner Ranch but I do know the Nail Ranch outside of Albany has hosted these kinds of hunts before.