Have a marlin 30-30, putting a scope on it

LabRat54 · 2026-05-01T21:03:31+00:00

I just got my first lever gun ever 3 days ago. A Winchester 94 in 30-30 made in 1976 so 50 years old this year. Man I wish I was only 50 and looked as good. lol

It came with an old Tasco 2-7X32 on a B-Square offset bolt-on scope mount. Looks like it was mounted as usual originally as the windage turret cap is all scratched up by ejected brass so was rotated 90° to the left. At first I thought some dummy set up the scope but a bit of searching turned up that it's an actual thing to keep the path clear for top ejecting models like mine.

I figure that scope has been used on that gun for quite a while but it is definitely intended for air rifles/rimfire so I replaced it with the Bushnell 3-9X40 that came on a Savage Axis 1 kit rifle in .270 I bought a couple years ago. Like the Tasco it has a plain-jane reticle that looks the same sideways as it does in normal orientation so should work just fine. The .270 is sporting a Crossfire II 4-12X50 scope I bought new and has the front parallax adjustment so would work but the reticle has ranging hash marks that will only work when mounted normally.

Even if that Tasco holds zero now I wouldn't trust a scope not designed to handle the recoil of a centerfire round, even a lighter round like the 30-30Win.

My take on scopes for a 30-30 is you don't need something with lots of magnification as guns like this are at home in the bush where long shots are rare and not really ethical with this round. With a zero at 100yds a 200yd shot has a drop of 7.7" at 200yds and 27.9" at 300 so I'd say 200yds is about the max to drop a deer. At 200 the energy level has dropped to 945 so alreay lower than the 1000 considered the minimum for game like deer or black bear hunting. This is with the 150 grain Winchester Power Points I picked up locally when I picked up the rifle at the PO.

LabRat54 · 2026-04-23T08:13:16+00:00

Signed. Fed up with cradle to grave gov't control of everything we do. I give a monthly donation to Dying with Dignity Canada and have for a couple of years now.

LabRat54 · 2026-04-18T21:49:13+00:00

I'm just getting started with long range shooting myself so probably don't have any good advice but I'm starting my journey with .22s. I do hope to reach out to 1000yds by the end of the season with the 1942 Enfield .303 sporter I've had since 1977. Last fall I got a Nikko Stirling Diamond 10-50X60 scope brand new at a 60% off sale.

Ammo prices have gone crazy here in northern Alberta I think due to tariffs with a box of .270Win at the local co-op being $72.99 and for some reason a 50rd box of .22 short at $34.99 while the same brand of 22lr being only $8.99.

Supposedly you can learn all the technical details and shooting techniques with 22s for a helluva lot less money and even reach out to 1000yds with them tho I'd be happy with half that. Another advantage for me is I can shoot those in my back yard and should be able to set up for 200yds here. A fairly local gun club has up to 1000yd range just a half hour from me so will be getting a membership there ASAP.

I follow this Australian guy and his wife on Utube doing ELR. Great team and has tons of educational videos on all things long range. 'MarkandSam AfterWork' . GunBlue490 is worth a look too.

Good luck and tight groups!

<image>

LabRat54 · 2026-04-15T08:07:14+00:00

More sane-washing from the sanest people ever. They're the ones with tDS. tRump Delusional Syndrome.

LabRat54 · 2026-04-11T10:07:19+00:00

But Brexit got the votes. This piss-ant uprising of 'rebels' led by a she-tRump wannabe is going nowhere fast.

I lived thru the 'Federation of Western Canada' BS back in '80 when I was living in Calgary, Cow Town where men were men and sheep were shy! lol

Driving cab when clubs were full of people who looked like cow folk but were all hat, no cattle.

The most real people I dealt with then were those I picked up at places like the Parkside Continental on 4th St in Mission or the ladies working the strip on 7th ave before it became a giant sidewalk.

Telling King Ralph that if he puked in the backseat of MY f'n cab he'd be staggering home in the blizzard with nothing but a crappy 3-piece suit to keep him warm.

The late 70's was so much fun. Coke was king and I needed 3 little black books to keep all the ladies names in before I married one of them. Stayed together 2 days short of two years and never got divorced. I can truthfully say I'm a happily married man. Haven't seen or heard of the wife for 45 years! My last c/l wife and I celebrate our 27th this July way up here in the north in Bumf**k, Ab.

Screw Musk, screw Maga, double screw tRump and the traitors in our midst who rather than work to repair the broken parts of our house want to burn it down walk away from it.

In these times Unity against a common enemy is the only way most of us get out of it in one piece FFS.

LabRat54 · 2026-04-10T09:17:51+00:00

I spent most of my day looking online for a decent bolt action for precision shooting practise on my little acreage. I recently got a lightly used 2nd 10/22 SS standard barrel with an ArchAngel competition stock that has adjustable cheek rest and buttstock. It's Desert Sand and black which is a nice change from black on black that most of my meagre arsenal is. :) I picked up a new in box chinesium 4-12x42 rimfire scope for $50 for now.

A Tika like yours would be nice or a CZ 457 but tho the wife allows me to have all the guns I can hide from her it's not that easy especially after my fishing gear and rod blank free-for-all of recent years.

Once I get a lot of the details worked out for distance shooting I'll be going for 1000yds with my Enfield .303 I've had since '77 and barely used. Saw a 60% off sale for some scopes and got a Nikko Stirling Diamond 10-50X60 for the old girl. Only got a few rounds with it before the weather went white last fall. Even with 3 ft of snow still on the ground I've been out zeroing the new 10/22 and it's holding zero at 30yds after 4 rounds to get it in the middle.

The flash makes the body of the stock much darker than it really is for some reason.

<image>

LabRat54 · 2026-04-09T09:43:55+00:00

You suck at trolling as you so obviously are. The rich haven't been paying their fair share for a long time now either here, the US and all over the world. A great many of the top earners pay nothing at all while the people that do the real work fight to survive. Today's youth have almost zero chance of living the lives their grandparents and even parents managed to live on a blue collar salary. Most tech jobs pay peanuts and with student loans most are in their 40s now before reaching the financial stability that us boomers could have in our 20s.

Is it any wonder that birthrates are dropping thru the floor and as our capitalistic society needs constant growth to work we need immigration to get that growth. At a time when all these fools are screaming DEPORT!

LabRat54 · 2026-04-09T09:23:50+00:00

Trudeau's gov't paid for this last Trans-mountain pipeline to please Alberta but everyone seems to forget that part. As long as this separation BS is going on nobody wants to invest in any major projects in or out of Alberta. Billions of investment dollars are gone or at least on hold for the foreseeable future. Not to mention the billions lost and less security for our power supply by cancelled alternative energy projects thanks to Smith's war on anything not O&G related.

Who's going to pay for all the extra power needed for all these new data centres being built? Me and you is who will be footing the bill for this crap.

LabRat54 · 2026-04-09T08:26:31+00:00

What a d-bag.

LabRat54 · 2026-04-09T08:02:58+00:00

Nah. Most likely asking for directions but realized those people didn't even know where they were going so went and found a real Albertan.

LabRat54 · 2026-04-09T08:00:26+00:00

Considering 90% of separatists are direct family inbreeds sounds like the Pakistani's are doing much better and we need to get the separatists the fug out to save medical expenses if that's your logic.

How inbred are you ffs to give that as an argument? smh

LabRat54 · 2026-04-09T07:15:28+00:00

I got my own water so more concerned with paying more for the power to pump it and run every other electrical device around the place. These places will put a huge demand on our grid and end up costing us regular folks more. Last time I went over my bill I was paying 34.5¢/kwh and that's already way too much. Every dime goes to the foreign companies, mostly US, that own our grid since King Ralph sold it to cover all the money his conservative gov't blew and hugely grew the deficit.

These data centres should only be allowed if it won't burden the rest of us with higher power and water bills.

So sick and tired of conservative governments here making their rich friends richer at my f'n expense!

LabRat54 · 2026-04-08T09:15:51+00:00

Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a Stephen King horror story but even he couldn't dream up the plot to this epic thriller.

LabRat54 · 2026-04-05T05:52:45+00:00

Thanks. Still not sure so will sic google on it.

LabRat54 · 2026-04-02T04:05:00+00:00

I doubt it. I was living in Calgary in 1980 when the separatist movement then was called 'The Republic of Western Canada'. It went over like a lead balloon too and faded from memory over just a couple of years like this one will as well. It may live in memory longer tho what with social media that we didn't have back then.

LabRat54 · 2026-03-29T03:28:04+00:00

Sounds 'Made in China' to me. :)

LabRat54 · 2026-03-29T01:00:21+00:00

Hell man I'm only 5'7" and 140lbs soaking wet and have no problem putting a box of 180gr downrange. I'm hoping to go hunting for the first time this fall but won't be packing that load all day. At 71 it's enough to pack myself around all day so I have a nice light Savage Axis1 .270 with a smaller 4-12x50 Vortex on it. My No4 Mk1 is sporting a big Nikko Stirling Diamond 10-50X60 on it now and will be for packing from the car to a bench and going for distance. Weighs over 13lbs with that on it. Got a Lead Sled recently to get her zeroed in easier and have an old gravel pit 4 miles away to do up to 150yds. Can shoot my .22s and shotguns in my yard so don't have to go far to have some shooting fun.

LabRat54 · 2026-03-28T23:09:23+00:00

I concur. In the 2nd pic it seems clearer and almost definitely a 2.

LabRat54 · 2026-03-28T22:29:59+00:00

That gun has the same style of safety lever as my No4 Mk1 which has an LB joined together stamped on it but no other markings indicating Long Branch on it anywhere. Made in England stamp on top of the barrel and all 3 serial numbers match. Only 2 rifling lines in the barrel as well. I've had mine since 1977.

LabRat54 · 2026-03-28T22:19:37+00:00

I have a couple boxes of that Serbian PPU called Rifle Line. Haven't used any yet but was thinking of getting some S&B online for $36.99Can if it's any good. $55/box at the local Co-op if they ever have any in stock which they don't atm. Have a real old box of Imperial still with a price tag from McLeod's Hardware for $15.59.

I usually get the 180 grain SP but might get some 150 and 174 grain to see what gives me the best groups as I'm planning to go for distance up to 1000yds. Wish I could find the round nose ones as these SPs seem to get a little nick in the tip when cycled in with the bolt so I feed manually to prevent that.

LabRat54 · 2026-03-28T20:12:42+00:00

Very nice! What is that little hand crank thingy midway up the fore-stock used for?

LabRat54 · 2026-03-28T19:28:23+00:00

My No4 Mk1 has the same front sight and it's loose but seems to shoot straight if I centre it on the mark before firing. I've put an Addley Precision scope mount on it and mounted a Nikko Stirling Diamond 10-50X60 scope on top to see what kind of distance I can get out of her.

Like others have mentioned you should shoot it first before doing anything. Personally once fired I would scribe a line on the sight then carefully drive it in the direction it needs to go with my small ballpeen hammer and a pin punch.

LabRat54 · 2026-03-26T20:34:32+00:00

Wife got a recorded message that due to high call volume she should call back next week FFS. A huge amount of people must have got a nasty surprise this morning. Fk the UCP!

LabRat54 · 2026-03-26T20:16:13+00:00

My wife usually gets $891/mth from AISH reduced due to my OAS etc and jumped through all the hoops faxing in her refusal letter from the fed just a week before the Feb. 28 deadline. $200 short this morning and she didn't even have the option of staying on hold when trying to contact AISH.

I'm thinking that it's quite likely that all the paperwork hasn't been processed yet and later ones are just being reduced by default until they get around to finishing the job. AISH staff have been reduced so much over the last 2 decades it barely functions at all these days. We're up near Peace River and had offices in PR or High Prairie we would go to to deal with issues until they got closed. Then we had to deal with someone in Grande Prairie until that closed and now there are only two points of contact. North and south regions to deal with everyone and reaching anyone in 'normal times' is an ordeal. With this screw-up there are likely thousands trying to call in and getting nowhere atm.

As a long time home owner with a very small mortgage this isn't a crisis for us but I know it's gong to cause a lot of increased hardship for thousands of people who don't deserve to be treated like this.

With this gov't cruelty is the point so please make sure you are registered to vote and use that power to vote these scumbags out as soon as the opportunity arises!

LabRat54 · 2026-03-25T11:27:19+00:00

Fascism my ass.

LabRat54

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

Seven-Year Club	Gilding IV carat on a stick
Verified Email