Experimenting with the .30-30?

Just be careful about approaching max pressures and creating sticky extraction. The 788s have had the bolt handle welds break loose as a result of trying to cam open the bolt after hot loads. As long as extraction is easy, you're good to go.

Good point made above about headspacing on the shoulder and ignoring the rim. Same as I used to load the Contender with bottleneck rimmed cases (.30H, .30-30 & .35H) for best case life.

ducky said:

Well maybe I'm going off the deep end with this. I ordered a Lee collet neck die and Redding body die for the .30-30 today. I have multiple dies for .30-30 I've collected or been given over the years, but never reloaded for it as I haven't been shooting it enough that I felt the need to reload.

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Welcome to the rabbit hole

ducky said:

Well maybe I'm going off the deep end with this. I ordered a Lee collet neck die and Redding body die for the .30-30 today. I have multiple dies for .30-30 I've collected or been given over the years, but never reloaded for it as I haven't been shooting it enough that I felt the need to reload.

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The neck collet dies have worked great for me in several cartridges. The 22-250 is notorious for stretch, but it's minimized with the collet neck die. I was very impressed in my early days with the 30-30 bolt action I owned. Took several nice whitetail in those early years.

bamban said:

Y'all might want to read this. Mike Turner built a 30-30 for me as well on a custom action and 10T barrel to shoot in prone mid range matches. Unfortunately, due to physical issues, it remained unfired other than pressure testing it using 168 Hybrids.

30-30 600 yard build

Some of you may have seen the post from Nez Rongero in Lee's thread on Lederer barrels. When Nez first contacted me concerning building a 30-30 for 600 yards, he told me his goal was to push a 168gr. Berger Hybrid at 2800 fps. I told him that 2700 fps. was more of a guarantee, but 2800 fps...

benchrest.com

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That was an exceptional read, thank you!

Although, I started to develop a dislike for that "jim 1k" guy.....

ntsqd said:

That was an exceptional read, thank you!

Although, I started to develop a dislike for that "jim 1k" guy.....

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MTurner is a highly skilled tool and die maker. He machined his own receiver and bolt from Titanium bar stock for his 30-30. Before he left TX for NM he dominated the short range benchrest group shooting in CenTex with his 30-30.

Nez

highfinblue said:

The neck collet dies have worked great for me in several cartridges. The 22-250 is notorious for stretch,

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I've never used the collet dies from Lee, but it was $24 at Midway so I said why not. The Redding body die wasn't $24, but I'll only use it if the cases get hard to chamber. I'm trying to find a good seater die, I may wind up ordering a Hornady die as I have a couple of the older micrometer seating stems.

The only neck dies I really have much experience with are Wilson bushing dies, and a couple RCBS non bushing neck dies. I've been using them mainly for my 6X47 Rem and 6X45. I use a Hornady FL sizer on both when I need to bump the shoulder back.

My RCBS dies are for .243 Win and .25-06 Rem, both of which I don't shoot anymore. I sold my .25-06 about five years ago. Since the 6 Creedmoor came out, I don't play with the .243 much and just buy factory loads for what little I do. I'm down to one .243 Win, a PH 1200 the first rifle I ever bought at 18. It needs a new barrel, but it's still minute of deer.

I should be able to shoot some on Friday, and I'll have about 40 pieces of once fired to start reloading. There will be a lot of case trimming on the neck to get spitzers to fit the mag. The whole thing may be futile without a new barrel, there is going to be a huge jump to the lands. I've jumped Bergers a long way with good results, maybe I'll get lucky with the NBTs. I also found a plastic ammo can of 750 Speer 125gr TNT bullets I forgot I had purchased for my .300 BO.

Rem7mm08 said:

Welcome to the rabbit hole

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I've been down it before, just managed to stay away for a few years. I had a bad itch to play with wildcats back when I got my first Encore frame. I never created my own, but I played with whatever I could find in a used barrel at the time. The one I liked the most was the .375 JDJ, and the least was a .280 GNR. The GNR was horrible on brass, and I lost about a third during fire forming. The 17" barrel with radial brake gave me a horrible flinch.

I wound up building bolt actions in 6X45, 6X47 Rem, and while not really a wildcat a .338-06. I started with all of those in an Encore first except the .338-06 it was an old 03A3 sporter. I always wanted to try a .30-30 AI, .30-40 AI or a .35-303 AI, but I wasn't making the money to afford it, and when I was I was married and had different priorities.

Back when I was just a lad, (1984) my first rifle purchase was a new Savage 110 in 30-30.
I remember topping it with a Simmons scope. (Don't ask me what power range it was).
If I recall correctly, I was making just over $4hr. More than what minimum wage was.
How does that blow your mind?!

This was my all around hunting rifle. From ground hogs to deer.
I started out using Federal 150gr round nosed bullets.

One of the guys I worked with did reloading. I asked if he could do some reloading for me.
He was having a conniption about me wanting soft points for a 30-30.
I finally brought my rifle in to show him that NO, it wasn't a lever action.

He took my rifle for about a week.
When he gave it back with the reloads, I could consistently hit a 3" plate at 200 meters.

I unfortunately traded the rifle on a new Savage 110 in 30-06.

Were I to find another of those rifles, I think I would start with Leverevolution powder with either a 125 or 150gr NBT.

std7mag said:

Back when I was just a lad, (1984) my first rifle purchase was a new Savage 110 in 30-30. I remember topping it with a Simmons scope. (Don't ask me what power range it was). If I recall correctly, I was making just over $4hr. More than what minimum wage was. How does that blow your mind?!

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Well since we're of similar age, my mind isn't blown. I got my first summer job 1987 for $5 an hour, MW was something like $3.50 an hour then. I purchased a nice 1978 Dodge 3/4 ton pickup at the end of that summer for $3.5k with 40K miles on it, it got crappy mileage but gas was around $0.80 a gallon.

Are you sure your rifle wasn't a Savage 340 not a 110? I know they were still making the 340 rifles back then. I didn't think the 110 was ever offered in .30-30.


I put an Accubond in a fired case in a mag to compare it to a loaded round tonight. As I stated in previous posts the mag is my biggest limiting factor. I'll need to trim back to see how short I need the neck to seat the ogive above the case mouth.

bamban said:

MTurner is a highly skilled tool and die maker. He machined his own receiver and bolt from Titanium bar stock for his 30-30. Before he left TX for NM he dominated the short range benchrest group shooting in CenTex with his 30-30.

Nez

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Every now and again I come across someone like him and I'm always amazed. Guys like him are quietly excelling at what they're doing and not pursuing notoriety or fame, they're doing it for their own enlightenment or enjoyment, or both.

Ti is an interesting choice for what is essentially a one-off action. I'm betting that there is a whole story behind that decision that isn't just "Wouldn't it be cool if I made them from Titanium?"

This thread had me looking at GB to see if I could find a 788 in .30-30........ oh! shiny!!! LOL

I just finished helping a buddy load up some little pointy hammer bullets in a bolt 30-30. Same issues with the coal in magazine. I know it was varget powder but will have to text him what bullet we ended up with. It was his grampas rifle and he wanted to shoot a deer before he stuck it in the safe

One thing I noticed with his rifle was the new brass was extremely short so definitely needed fire formed before load development

We used a little Hornady bullet for fire forming that if I remember correctly, would come apart like a varmint grenade. I'll try and figure out what we used later today. I know we used lever evolution for fire forming but needed faster burn rate for hammers

I used to reload for my dads 30-30 Contender when he was still able to hunt. If I recall, it shot the 125 and 150gr NBTs very well at surprisingly high velocities considering it was a 14" barrel. He killed a few deer with it over the years and bullet performance was always good with one exception. He shot a Whitetail and the bullet went through two strands of barbed wire fence before striking the deer. That one took a bit of tracking before we finally found it.