Black Powder Loads for 30-30

I load my 3030 with cast bullets made with wheel weights. They weigh about 160 grains once they’re sized and lubed. I don’t recall the weight of the black powder but I fill it to the base of the bullet so I can get slight compression. Sends them out at about 1250 ft./s. Lots of fun tons of smoke.

The old gunsmith said:

Just out of curiosity, do any of you all have any real experience with BP loads in 30-30? If so, did you run across a combination of bullet hardness and sizing that produced decent results? Before the arm chair quarterbacks jump in, I know the 30-30 was never a BP cartridge.

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that would be amazing to shoot! 30-30 BP from my JC Higgins

That reminds me, I was handling a pack of old .577/450 original Black powder from the I don’t know what year. My collectors dealer picked it up in Vegas last week at the Collectors show

Give the case capacity of the 30-30 and 308 caliber, a full case of 3Fffg such that from a drop tube it requires only light compression to seat a bullet over a good lube cookie would be best, as would the use of pure lead to 1:20 alloy. Having said that, provided you are using properly sized cast bullets, BHN won’t matter that much because you aren’t going to get enough velocity for it to matter. I wonder whether a gas checked bullet would act as a scraper and help mitigate fouling?

How many shots one will get shooting from a Marlin microgroove barrel before getting smoothbore accuracy would be interesting to learn.

My question is, "why"? I can ask that because I did this same thing with a Remington Rolling Block in 7X57.
Three shots somewhere close and the rest wasted.
Fun but 5744 or Trail Boss is better.
Cleanup is easier.
This from a guy who, with his wife, used to go through a keg of fffg each year from 1968-1978.

PapaG said:

My question is, "why"? I can ask that because I did this same thing with a Remington Rolling Block in 7X57.
Three shots somewhere close and the rest wasted.
Fun but 5744 or Trail Boss is better.
Cleanup is easier.
This from a guy who, with his wife, used to go through a keg of fffg each year from 1968-1978.

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Because if you had to you could make black powder.

I read somewhere that 32 win special was good for smokeless and BP out of a '94.

I loaded up some 30-30 with pyrodex and 190gr barns bullets, filled each one to the bottom of the shoulder. They did about 1,250fps. Cast lead should do fine too.

Sacramento Johnson said:

I read somewhere that 32 win special was good for smokeless and BP out of a '94.

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Great point. Winchester marketed the 32 Special specifically for black powder and cast bullets, reducing the rifling twist from 1:12 in the ‘94 30-30 to 1:16 in the 32 Special. With traditional rifling, the fouling was probably more manageable as well.

Right, the .32 Winchester Special is pretty much a .30-30 chamber behind a .32-40 barrel.

Its been a while, but just for something to try, I cast some RCBS 150 fngc at 20-1 , from some leftover material for a 45-70 bpcr. Stuffed full of 3fg they worked fine, as I recall the poi was around a foot low from my usual smokeless loads. No apparent leading and as memory serves no real accuracy loss, if their had been I would have discontinued the practice, but the particulars are still in my pet load books.

Edit to respond to OPs questions, from shooting bpcr I usualy use a blow tube, and did with the 30WCF. Yes it did foul pretty quickly, but its pretty easy with Marlins to drop the bolt out and push a soaked patch or 3 to fix that. Humm thinking about it I may have to go revisit this....

Risky buisness said:

Edit to respond to OPs questions, from shooting bpcr I usualy use a blow tube, and did with the 30WCF. Yes it did foul pretty quickly, but its pretty easy with Marlins to drop the bolt out and push a soaked patch or 3 to fix that. Humm thinking about it I may have to go revisit this....

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With a Winchester, secure the rifle upside down, action open. Either push a patch through from the muzzle or run a loop down from the muzzle to the open breech to catch a patch and pull through. Either way, no goop in the action.

Kevin

Well I didn't know that the 30 30 was never a BP cartridge I always assumed it was being rimmed and shaped the way it is?
Thanks for the heads up ill look into it more. My first response in truth would have been fill it with BP and stick some lead in the end LOL.

More compression will give a cleaner burn. (back in the day, out of boredom and living way out of town, I used to play with BP in the .30WCF)

Gas checks will do some scraping. Jacketed bullets will keep the bore fairly fouling-free. With cast bullets I always used a hard lead bullet.

Since I don't want any smokeless loads to get into my Trapdoors, I load my Marlin 1895 with Micro-Groove rifling with black powder and a Jacketed bullet. Although I don't shoot many cartridges out of it at a time, I don't get any loss of accuracy. It actually shoots 1moa. But I heavily compress the powder (Swiss) getting 80 grains under the Speer 400 grain JSP. With a good compressed load, I think the .30WCF with Micro-Groove would be okay. But again, non-compressed, or just lightly compressed loads are going to foul much more.

Thinking about this brought me back to a method that I personally never subscribed to. Shooting duplex loads. Using an original Remington rolling block, a strong, but old action, 1879, I wouldn't do it but in a modern smokeless action that may be a different thought. While I still sort of think the unholy mixture ot the 2 propellants is blasphemy it would help with the heavy fouling I encountered and increase some velocities in the small bore 30.
I know folks who have done this with 40 and 45 cal rounds, but never a 30WCF.

Risky buisness said:

Thinking about this brought me back to a method that I personally never subscribed to. Shooting duplex loads. Using an original Remington rolling block, a strong, but old action, 1879, I wouldn't do it but in a modern smokeless action that may be a different thought. While I still sort of think the unholy mixture ot the 2 propellants is blasphemy it would help with the heavy fouling I encountered and increase some velocities in the small bore 30.
I know folks who have done this with 40 and 45 cal rounds, but never a 30WCF.

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Been there done that, without ever seeing any real advantage. "Risky Bizz-ness" for sure, and mad science. Duplex loads must be compressed, if the powders actually mix, that could not be good. Also small "kicker" charges of Unique under the main charge of black. Again, no real advantage.

I've never been a fan of duplex loads.

Does a cast bullet shot with black powder require a bullet lube specifically formulated for use with black powder?

Blackpower and smokeless mixed together make an unholy mix that explodes as fast and uncontrolled as it can like black powder but with high energy like smokeless.
Especially with a 2 base flake powder like unique. Don't do it.

gpb said:

Does a cast bullet shot with black powder require a bullet lube specifically formulated for use with black powder?

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Yes indeed it does.