Reloading the .30 Winchester centerfire: today, we just call it the .30-30

Guns Magazine, Jan, 2009 by John Taffin

If there has been a more popular American rifle cartridge than the .30-30 offered over the past nearly 115 years, I certainly don't know what it is. Winchester's Model 1894 lasted for 110 years with well over 7.5 million being produced and Marlin's 1893 evolved into the Model 36 and then the Model 336 which is still in production and they have produced over four million .30-30s.

They are, and have been the definitive deer and black bear rifles for over a century. The .30-30 is definitely not dead as Marlin sells all they make and Mossberg recently introduced the Model 464 levergun chambered in .30-30. In the past manufacturers have also offered bolt action rifles chambered in .30-30 and probably the most accurate .30-30 rifle ever offered is the Thompson/ Center break open single-shot Contender fitted with a rifle barrel and rifle stock.

For Christmas one year, my wife gave me a Thompson Center Super 14 chambered in .30-30. I was already involved in long-range silhouetting using sixguns and this T/C provided me with a single-shot pistol for shooting in the Unlimited category. The first time I shot the T/C I was amazed at its accuracy. Once the T/C was sighted in I settled down into the Creedmore position and placed five shots in a group which could be covered by my hand. The distance was 200 yards and I was using iron sights. I was sold on the .30-30 in the Thompson. My load was 26.0 grains of H4198 under a Hornady 150-grain Spire Point bullet for right at 2,000 fps from the 14" barrel. (This is a Contender load only.)

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Shortly thereafter I shot that same Contender and load at the International Matches. I was clean through 20 chickens, 20 pigs, and 20 turkeys and looking forward to a perfect 80x80. The first two rams went down, I hit the third one perfectly and it shuddered and stayed in place. I asked them to inspect the target and they told me nothing was wrong with it. The second time through the same thing happened and I was convinced it was not me, the load, nor the Contender, but rather the target. But alas there was nothing I could do about it. I still have that .30-30, I know it is capable of shooting an 80x80 score and it has also served well on whitetails.

The First .30 WCF

The .30-30 goes all the way back to 1895 when it was first chambered in the Model 1894 Winchester. The original chamberings one year earlier were the black powder .38-55 and .32-40. The .30-30 is basically a necked down .38-55 or necked down and blown out .32-40 and originally arrived as a smokeless powder load. Theodore Roosevelt considered it a long-range antelope rifle and, when compared to the black powder leverguns at the time such as the .45-60, .45-75 and .45-70, it certainly was relatively flat shooting.

Until the arrival of the .30-30, many shooters, outdoorsmen, even Texas Rangers favored a sixgun/levergun combination with both chambering the .44-40. The .30-30 was so superior to the .44 in the levergun both in muzzle energy and long-range accuracy, the era of the sixgun/levergun combination basically ended and would not be resurrected again until the arrival of the .357 and .44 Magnums.

Before Winchester closed their doors in 2005, the post-64.30-30 Model 1894 had been offered in not only the standard 20" carbine but also a 16" Trapper and a longer barreled 24" version. I have one of the Trapper Models and I liked it so well I had a Marlin configured to Trapper style using an old Marlin Marauder barrel. I had to sell my original Winchester Model 1894 in the 1960s however it has been replaced by a much earlier pair from 1920 and 1953. My most used .30-30 is the Marlin 24" octagon barreled Cowboy Model 336. This rifle was used for the test shooting results and it is so easy to handle and shoots so well it is one of those never-to-sell, pass-down-to-future-family-generations cherished rifles. I have yet to find a handload or factory load which will not shoot well in this Marlin .30-30.

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Size It

When reloading the .30-30 I always full-length size my brass. Some will tell me this will decrease case life however the convenience of having all my loads fit any of the several .30-30 rifles I have as well as the Contender is more important to me than longer case life. I tried neck-sizing only when I first started using the Contender and even though loads were originally fired in the Contender they would not always re-enter as neck-sized only reloads. Everything I reload whether for rifle, sixgun, or semiautomatic, and also whether it is brand-new brass or fired brass is automatically full-length resized.

I had just finished typing the previous paragraph when Diamond Dot called me for lunch. The mailman had just delivered the brand-new 49th Edition of the Lyman Reloading Handbook which I proceeded to browse through while eating. What should I stumble upon but the following: "Reloaders sometimes opt for neck sizing based on expected increased case life. With normal chambers, neck sizing versus full-length sizing offers little case life advantage. Thus, Lyman suggests full-length resizing as the norm, especially for hunting loads where smooth feeding, chambering, and extraction are important." I feel totally vindicated!