Lee Loader

The brass grew by .011"! Couple more cycles to go!

I did some searching today while on my break from tractor work. A decade or so ago, you could buy 30-30 Win headstamped brass formed as a straight wall cartridge, in various lengths. The only thing I could find was the brass in a 3.5" length, but it was $86 for 20 cases! That was at Buffalo Arms.

I'm going to talk with CH4D about their forming die and follow up on RB's suggestion of using 32 Win Spl brass to see if that helps the length.

It would mean some extra work but what about the form die(s) and Starline's long 38-55 cases. Would require a trim after forming I'm pretty sure.

Make smoke,

That thought occurred to me also but I think he has a 38-55 or a 375 already and I remember someone else recently talking about the brass cost for those .

I spoke with a fellow at CH4D today, he said that they don't have a case forming die for the 30-30 AI, but some could be special ordered. The number of dies it takes depends on the diameter of the case you start with. This would get very costly and would take four months to get the dies. He told me to wait a bit as he looked at their die design drawing. He went on to tell me that the case length on the P.O Ackley drawings was 2.000", he is going to send me the drawing. Bottom-line, I guess, is that it can be anything I want it to be. I will go back to my drawings and make a fixed length that is doable within a few cycles of the brass, allow good neck tension (3/4 caliber ?), all within a COAL of 2.575" to minimize bullet jump.

Just received the drawing! This is the only spec drawing I've seen for this cartridge.



Thanks CH4D!

I have Ackley's book . I bet it's in there . I'll send you a picture of the page .

RBHarter wrote:I have Ackley's book . I bet it's in there . I'll send you a picture of the page .

I have both Vol. I and II of Ackley's Handbook for Shooters & Reloader. Nothing about the 30-30 AI in Vol 1 and one paragraph and a little bit of data in Vol II. What book do you have?

CH4D said that the drawing I posted is from P.O. Ackley.

I've used W748 in the standard 30-30 with good results and H4895 with 125 gr. Nosler BT in the AI version in a 14" Contender.
You mentioned BLC(2) and HLVR as being similar. I've never tried BLC(2) but a few years ago when W748 was scarce I found 10 lbs. of HLVR and have been trying it in the place of W748. I've found a pretty good load in 24" 5.56 with Nosler 77 gr. bullets.
Sorry for the hijack!

Hey, a picture of a dead coyote is always welcome!

First, I measure all the specs of 10 cases and the brass did not grow as much as I had thought. I must have misread the caliper. On average, it grew .001" to 2.012", well short of the 2.035" I need to optimize the fit for both chamber and bullet.

I followed RB's advice and fireformed some 32 Win Spl cases and they are measuring 2.030"! That's room to
work with. Thank's JB for the suggestion!

The book is volume 2 . Probably the same paragraph and data . It does include I think triplex loads for the 454 Casaull ....... Also a number of long gone powders ......