Friday, August 21, 2020

An experiment with the .30 Carbine cartridge

Not long ago I was digging around on something else and found a reference to using cast bullets in .30 C, which I've done, but this was specific to use in the Ruger Blackhawk chambered in that cartridge.

Interesting.

Then someone mentioned using .32-20 cases trimmed appropriately  in this pistol.  Some apparently can use them unmodified, others the rim has to be thinned.  This cartridge headspaces on the case mouth, so you have to be careful to have uniform case lengths, and either not crimp or a slight taper crimp, and they do still have a tendency, in some guns, to be sticky on ejecting; a rimmed cartridge should prevent that.

I know a guy with one of those.  And I have some .32-20 cases left.

Hmmm.

Once more demonstrating my problem with messing with things to see how it works, borrowed the use of the Blackhawk.  The cases, after being run through a .30 C sizing die would chamber, but the rim was too thick for them to rotate  through, so some time at the lathe thinning them, after which they would work.

The research had shown that using .32-20 loads with these cases was well within the pressure levels, so I took some 100-grain semi-wadcutters cast for .32 S&W(and .310 Cadet as it worked out), sized them to .310, lubed them, and loaded them just over the minimum listed for .32-20.  Then loaded some .30 C cases with the same load.  Standard .30 C on the left, case loaded with the SWC center, .32-20 case on the right.
                                        .30 C on the left, modified .32-20 right
                                   To give an idea of how thin the rim comes out,
I had to turn these to .025 for them to smoothly cycle through.  It's possible that if they were left a touch thicker, the first firing would take care of fitting them; if these shoot decently and I can dig up a few more cases I might try that.

According to the numbers these should be between 750-800fps, so far less flash and boom than standard loads in this(believe me, it's impressive) for general plinking.  We'll see how it goes.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you ever looked at the 7.62 nagant pistol case?

Anonymous said...

My dad has owned a 30c blackhawk since about 83. He's horsetraded over 50 pistols since then, but still hangs on to the old hogleg. Fun pistol. INCREDIBLE muzzle blast. Funny thing, I was walking through the deserted ammo section at a local Dunhams on Monday and in between the few boxes of weird calibres there was a full stack of .30 carbine from Tul. Never having fired steel ammo in my carbine before I grabbed 4 boxes of 50 at $20 bucks a pop. Will be trying Saturday. Have a nice weekend.
Johnny Gee

Anonymous said...

neck it down to .20 and you will have something

Anonymous said...

Cool. One of the biggest digs on the .30 Carbine was that the price of factory ammunition compared to 5.56 NATO was in the stratosphere. Now, ALL ammunition prices are there, for the most part. I like the "Lil M1" myself though it does have some range limitations.

In the desert scrub we have in the rurals, unless you are on a road, you have about a a maximum range of 30 yards. Well within the .30s range. It and a butt cuff of 2 -15 round magazines give you .45 rounds of fun and games, carried on the gun itself. Not too loud either - take what you want from that.

Firehand said...

I have some of those cases, I need to dig them out and see if they'll work.

If the Tula is like some Wolf .30 C I tried, it shot decently, but BLEEP does it leave a lot of fouling.