thoughts on .30 luger?

[zb338]

I'm going to have to go with Gordon. I have a .30 Luger and it is a
real fun gun to shoot. I don't use it to kill people. I just go out in the
back yard and have fun with it.

Zeke

 

[justin22885]

enough with the assumptions that powder capacity determines the energy of a cartridge, if this would true the 45acp would be as powerful as a 44 magnum but it isnt, its about the same muzzle energy as a 9mm due to pressure differences.. pressure in PSI multiplied by the surface area of the bullet in square inches determines the amount of thrust applied to the bullet at any given point along the barrel.. more thrust = more velocity and all higher powder capacities provide is a higher pressure curve over longer lengths of barrel.. the pressure difference between the 30-luger at 9mm +P pressures and 7.62x25 is enough to make a difference

that said the case capacity between the two is only about 2 grains which is about the same as the difference in capacity between a 9mm and a 9x21 IMI which is roughly 1/4 the capacity difference between a 9mm and a .40S&W so in the case of the 7.62x25 theres not enough of a case capacity difference to make up for its general lack of pressure compared to modern cartridges

 

[barnbwt]

The integral of the pressure curve over the length is what matters, and mo powder keeps it elevated longer. Everywhere, not just longer barrels. For really short barrels, it is a diminishing return because it can't burn fast enough, but 9mm is not overbore in a pistol barrel (by design) so neither will be a necked version most likely, therefore additional powder will give more performance than a spikier pressure curve using faster powder.

"enough with the assumptions that powder capacity determines the energy of a cartridge, if this would true the 45acp would be as powerful as a 44 magnum but it isnt"
Pretty sure the mag has more capacity, more powder, and a lot more pressure --same situation as your round will have vs 9mm. And like 44mag guns, strong design will probably be necessary, but it will be fun to shoot.

TCB

 

[joem1945]

I've been looking for one for a while but prices turn me away.

 

[MatthewVanitas]

Other than tracking down a BHP in .30 Luger (which aren't terribly expensive nor too rare), what's the best way to get into .30 Luger via conversion?

Get a 1911 barrel maker to make you a custom 1911 barrel to fit as a replace th on an existing 9mm 1911?

Sleeve/reline a 9mm 1911 barrel to .30?

Or same questions as the above, but for Glock?

 

[barnbwt]

I'd do it with a 7.62x25 barrel (see: Numrich) and solder in a spacer, for just experimenting in a sturdy frame (Tokarev would also work, with the added benefit of mags that would likely not need modification). For a 'serious' version rather than a proof of concept, a relined* or custom barrel is best

*I would bore out much of the thickness of a 45acp barrel, and basically use it as a sleeve for a new 30cal slid through from the breech end & soldered. Far less worries about things coming loose, though there is some concern about the load path between the barrel & lugs not being a short straight line through solid metal with such a round as this.

TCB

 

[justin22885]

relining is definitely the way to do it, bore out the barrel to remove the old rifling, insert a sleeve to add the new 30 caliber rifling, then chamber to 30 luger and enjoy... do this with any 9mm pistol you can get a spare barrel for.. im sure you can get a shot-out barrel online for dirt cheap thatll work perfectly

thats part of the interest in it over 7.62x25 or 7.63 mauser is that any 9mm pistol can be converted and theres a ton of them out there, i like the CZ75 myself

 

[Gun Master]

Luger .30 cal.

My 1st semi-auto pistol was a .30 cal. DWM Luger.

Oh, how I wish I still owned it. Smooth functioning, good penetration (no penetration, no good), great accuracy, and a great collectible.

 

[highpower]

Interesting.....I somehow always thought that the .30 Luger was the same as the .30 Mauser. I have never had a Luger in anything other than 9mm, but it sounds interesting.

I do have a couple of Broomhandles, but both of them are in 7.62X 25 Mauser.

 

[Gun Master]

.30 Cal. Luger and .30 Cal. Mauser

Both are bottle necked cartridges with good penetration.
The .30 cal. Luger (AKA- Parabellum) is 7.65x21mm.
The .30 cal. Mauser is 7.63x25mm.
Both are underrated ammo in the US.
Not so in Europe.

Note: The .30 cal. Tokarev (7.62x25) is similar to the above Mauser cartridge.
Close but not the same.

 

[tark]

I have a question. If the 30 Luger can be loaded as fast as the 30 Mauser (or 7.62X25 Tokarev, then why isn't it? OK it shoots a bullet 8 grains heavier, i'll give you that. But why, in any reloading manual you want to choose, the Luger always trails the Mauser or the Tok by a couple hundred FPS? With the same bullet weight? Why is that?

justin22885, the 45 ACP is weaker than a 44 MAG because it is loaded to a lower pressure on purpose. Most 1911s don't like 40,000 psi. Chamber it in a strong revolver and load it up to 40,000 psi and it might narrow the gap a bit, but you're comparing apples to oranges

The following statement is not open to debate or discussion: it is absolute, or so my Son tells me. He probably knows, he has a degree in Interior, transitional, exterior and terminal ballistics. (I know, you may not be familiar with that second one, go look it up)

ALL OTHER THINGS being equal.....let that sink in....the case with the larger capacity will always be the more powerful round....all other factors being equal.... The more capacity a case has the more powder it can burn and the longer that powder will be able to maintain peak pressure.

Look at it this way. If you take a tube, insert a marble in the tube and hook it to an air tank that holds one quart of air at 100 PSI, and you release the air all at once the marble is pushed by 100 PSI .....but not for long, and halfway down the tube the small air tank runs out. Hook it to a larger air tank at the same pressure and the same thing will happen. But because the larger tank has more air the marble will be further down the tube when this happens and will have a higher velocity. Both tanks have the same pressure but the larger tank can hold that pressure longer because it has more air to work with. It is no different with the two cases in question here.

The 30 Luger case and the Mauser case are as close to identical as you will ever see..... except for capacity. And that is why the Mauser round is more powerful.....it"s a "bigger air tank"

 

[justin22885]

yes, i know the 45acp is weaker due to lower pressures, thats the point, pressures make a pretty big difference when it comes to muzzle energy, as stated the difference in case capacity between 30 luger and 7.62x25 is the same as the difference betwee 9x19mm and 9x21 IMI which is negligible..

do not forget the 30 luger shares the same cartridge case as 9x19mm which is a slightly larger in diameter than 7.62x25, so with such a small actual difference in case capacity, but a significant increase of pressure (about 4,000 PSI between 7.62x25 and 9mm +P pressures), yeah, itll work

why havent they done this before?.. the older guns probably couldnt handle these higher pressures and 30 luger fell out of favor so many decades ago, its for the most part a dead cartridge.. it has potential, but it takes custom work on the barrel, and would require handloading to achieve which most casual shooters would have no interest in

to take interest in this idea you have to be a handloader, and have a desire to get 7.62x25 ballistics out of a modern doublestack pistol

 

[Pilot]

yes, i know the 45acp is weaker due to lower pressures, thats the point, pressures make a pretty big difference when it comes to muzzle energy,

Well, I wouldn't say the .45 ACP is "weaker". Remember, it is pushing a 230 grain bullet while .30 Luger is typically 93 grains.

 

[tark]

All I know is this: With maximum loads a 38 SPL cannot equal a .357 with the same bullet weight. The two are identical save for the fact that the 357 is longer and can hold more powder. More capacity. The same situation exists with the Luger and Mauser rounds. The only way the Luger is going to match the Mauser round is to load it to dangerously high pressure, which anyone who wishes is free to do so.......just let me know when you're ready to shoot so I can leave the area.

 

[Jim Watson]

The early work with 7.62x25 conversions of 1911s were done with lined barrels.
There was a detailed exposition of this on an AR board. No reason not to apply it to 7.65 Luger just to get a testbed that won't call for beating up a Luger or rather scarce non-Luger in the caliber.

I fear our intrepid OP may not have a good handle on the 9x21. There is NO difference between the 9x21 and the 9mm P because the bullet is seated deeper in the longer case so it will run through the same actions. Same working volume, same ballistics. It is a loophole product for the Italian market.
It was popular in IPSC competition for a while because it was not specifically banned from Major power factor loadings. Didn't keep them from being heavy overloads for use in tight strong guns. I have seen 1911oids in the caliber which let ammo be loaded long to keep pressure reasonable. But if you are going to use a long action, you can just as easily go to .38 Super or other 23mm case.

Speaking of which, Jason; how are some of those other fascinating projects going?
Internet Hypothetical Discussions are ok for a while, but it is time to get reports on metal being bent.

 

[tark]

How right you are, Jim. I can think of one good use of the 9X21 case, it might be the perfect case to FORM the desired 30 Luger from.

I well remember those 9X21 years. The IPSC crowd was loading the 9X19 to insane pressures with supported barrels (we're talking OVER 50,000 PSI) and IPSC banned the caliber for Major. Along came the 9X21 and it wasn't banned (yet), so they did the same thing all over again. Then someone realized that they could make Major with a 38 Super case loaded to a lot lower pressure. They were still exceeding SAAMI standards but not by nearly as much. The Super has more case capacity than the 9X21........ Sound familiar?

 

[Jim Watson]

And now USPSA have reduced the Major power factor and allow 9mm P Major in Open.

I once had a 9mm Miller Major, 9mm P brass but loaded to 1.27" OAL for Super magazines to beat the then restriction. Not terribly hot loads in cheap brass, what's not to like? When I got over that and broke down the gun to reconfigure for other use, it was pretty battered inside.

 

[HankB]

I found a statement that the Swiss, one of the major users of the 7.65x21 in military pistols (Luger and SIG) loaded the round to a standard pressure of 2870 atm, which converts to 42,000 psi!! The proof loads were 3600 atm (52k psi)!

The Swiss probably use the C.I.P. pressure testing method, which gives different results than our own SAAMI-compliant testing.

 

[justin22885]

Well, I wouldn't say the .45 ACP is "weaker". Remember, it is pushing a 230 grain bullet while .30 Luger is typically 93 grains.

weaker than 44 mag, not 30 luger

 

[Jim K]

To stoke the fire a bit. I see references to converting a 1911 from .45 to 7.62x25 (Tokarev/Mauser) by lining the barrel. How has that worked out?

Generally, lining barrels for use with high pressure cartridges is not recommended because the process leaves small gaps between the original reamed barrel and the liner and high pressure bulges the liner. Is the barrel liner thick enough to fully contain the pressure of the 7.62 mm cartridge so that doesn't happen? Also, what method is used to lengthen the magazine well? And are longer magazines available that will take the 7.62x25 or do they have to be made?

Jim

 

[rcmodel]

I don't know.

But I think you just have to put up with a 1911 that will only feed five tilted rounds in a mag.

And may blow up unexpectedly, but from time to time??

rc

 

[Jim Watson]

Jim K,

I followed the progress of the G.M. 9mm and .38 conversions to 7.62x25.

Phase one used lined barrels. Sort of. I don't think they reamed and lined a whole tube. More like monobloc with only a shell of the breech end of original barrel left to provide locking lugs and link lugs.
Then Numrich and J&G offered new barrels in the Euro caliber.

First effort in loading accepted 5 rounds at a slant in a .38 Super magazine. Second pass was to pick the longest Super magazine available, there is some variation. Third try was to squash the magazine in a vise so it would just go up the well. The best combinations claimed 8 shots. There was no work done that I ever read of to lengthen the magazine well and make a new magazine like the ChiCom conversions.

The next assault on magazine capacity was to seat the bullets a bit deeper, securing with a Lee Factory (collet) crimp die. This allowed a full 9 or 10 in the magazine. It also led to some "pressure signs" with hot Iron Curtain SMG ammo.

Said SMG ammo has hard primers. A 25 lb mainspring was about the minimum. But with a light, although fast bullet, the recoil springs were rather light, I don't recall the rating. One early conversion had metal milled off the slide to reduce the recoiling mass with 86 grain bullets. The converter said his next one was not so lightened and still shot OK.

When the surplus started running out, handloading, preferably with hollowpoints handled the OAL and hard primer problems.

 

[Jim Watson]

When the US Army looked at the 9mm in 1903 they compared it with the 7.65 which gave 1164 fps in the light load and 1334 in the heavy, from the 4 7/8" barrel of the day. I don't know which one the Swiss used.

But when Thompson and LaGarde ran their famous tests guaranteed to bring back the .45, they claimed 1420 fps from the .30 Luger. And 1048 fps from the 9mm, which is about what the Army had seen before. .38 ACP was doing 1107 fps.

The .45 Colt they used was only 720 fps, not even as much as .455 and .476. Was that perhaps really .45 Government/Schofield?

The present CIP standard for 7.65 Luger is 2350 bar, about 34,500 psi. This gets 370 mps, 1213 fps.

 

[Captain O]

The 7.62 x 25 is the way to go. I have a Crvena Zastava (Yugo) M57 in the caliber and it "kicks bootie". Believe me, this cartridge is what's going to get the job done. It is the .30 Luger on steroids. The 9mm Parabellum is fine, but the .30 Soviet (7.62 x 25 Russian) blows it's doors off! Accuracy, penetration, low recoil and power. It has it all.

Simply put, It works.

 

[rcmodel]

How can you seriously say that?

Every military power in the world abandoned the .30 cal pistol calibers, even in SMG's, 50 to 100 years ago, due to lack of performance in combat.

It didn't 'Kick Bootie' in combat then.

And certainly nothing has changed to make it 'kick bootie' in civilian life any harder now.

rc