Most Consistent 30-30 Winchester brass.

I'm trying to figure out exactly who makes the best and most consistent 30-30 win brass and before its asked or questioned, yes, it's definitely relevant to ELR especially with how far I plan to take it. So far I've tried Nosler brass because I had decent luck with it in the past in other calibers but am seeing as much as 30" of vertical at 1320 yds due to wildly inconsistent neck thickness with a lot of them having as much as .005" runout from one side to the other or more in neck wall thickness which I'm checking with my Starrett tube micrometer, it also feels like some of the brass is actually physically harder than others and requires a considerable amount more force to seat some of them on top of the runout issues. Rifle is an 1885 High wall replica and its currently pushing palma 30 cal bullets 2650 fps with no pressure signs so far and has around 414moa of elevation available and 88moa windage from the XLR tang sight so its got the potential to go very far so long as my eyes hold out.

I like it.

1885 is pure classic. I haven't had a chance to shoulder one but would really like to!!!

Is yours a Sharps?
I noticed Sharps is only chambering in period correct calibers, I think they were all rimmed.
No 30-06 parent cases like Browning did.

Are the rifles too heavy to walk with all day as a hunting rig?

I thought 30-30 would be nice to share w my kid. Ammo is everywhere, single shot to learn on, we can hand load from one end of spectrum to the other.

I hope this is not too much thread derailment.

It is, it weights 12.2 lbs so it's not horrible weight wise.

Quick google shows starline makes 30-30 brass, that'd probably be my choice from what I quickly found.

Mark and Sam have done a couple videos with a 30-30, likely find some good info there.

Taylorbok said:

Quick google shows starline makes 30-30 brass, that'd probably be my choice from what I quickly found.

Mark and Sam have done a couple videos with a 30-30, likely find some good info there.

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I talked to Mark last week about it and he's using old run Winchester brass that's been very consistent for them but the new stuff from them isn't anywhere near as good so I'm still at square 1.

Norma makes 30-30 ammo.....maybe better quality brass?

Much of the newer factory from Win, Fed, Hornady, etc tends to vary more than in the past, so I would try Starline first and go from there. I like the fact you are reaching out with the old 30-30 cartridge, as I have played with a 30-30 AI in a 14" Contender to some crazy distances for a pistol. However, nothing like you are doing with the 1885.

I'm still running some old stock Federal and Winchester brass that performs rather well and is fairly consistent, but those cases came from a different era.

pondskipper said:

I talked to Mark last week about it and he's using old run Winchester brass that's been very consistent for them but the new stuff from them isn't anywhere near as good so I'm still at square 1.

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I'd try the Starline then. It's not super high end stuff like Lapua but I think it's gonna be the best for the cartridge. If you want to absolutely minimize brass variation neck turn it to get consistent necks then weight sort it. Also cull any outliers hardness wise.

dk17hmr said:

Norma makes 30-30 ammo.....maybe better quality brass?

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Yeah I thought about buying several boxes of it or federal and pulling down the loaded round or just shoot them up and keep the brass from it.

I appreciate it and yes it's absolutely chucking the 155gr Berger's and still no signs of pressure at 2650fps, it's a lot of fun to shoot and 1320 is about half as far as I actually planned to stretch it out, just have to get the brass situation sorted out. It's reaching 1020yds with only 40 minutes of elevation and 1320yds with just under 70 minutes with an available 414 total so it can and will go far soon.

You could try PPU brass. I have some 30-06 and some .243 that mirror the results that I get from Lapua.

I also have had good results from Starline.

Critter Picker said:

You could try PPU brass. I have some 30-06 and some .243 that mirror the results that I get from Lapua.

I also have had good results from Starline.

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I just got a good deal on 500 new pieces of starline brass so I should be able to sort through those and get a decent batch of brass from it hopefully. I'll give ppu a try if the starline turns out to be a flop.

Cut the extreme spread down to nearly 1/5th what it was today and picked up a little extra avg speed, avg was 2675 with an es of 12 so not bad at all for a 30-30 shooting match bullets lol, still no signs of pressure. Just switched to Hornady brass this morning, same case prep and load, I'll check out the starline brass when it gets here and see if it's any better but I'm definitely happy with this.

Just realized I didn't even post any pictures of the actual rifle.