Why cant you shoot a 110Gr. out of a 30-30?

Question

I seen that all of the factory rounds usually come in 150 ofr 170gr. flat or round noses, my question is, why cant you put a 110 or 90gr. hollow point or a JSP handgun bullet in a 30-30 case? The 150-170 are .308cal. as well as the 90-110. It would be a faster round, shoot flatter, but probably not hit as hard at greater distances. But you only need 500 ft.-lbs. to effectively kill a whitetail. Just wondering if anybody else ever thought of it before. Just think about it, a 110gr. JHP moving about 3000 ft. per sec. out of a 7 round 30-30. pitty the deer in the peanut field. Just wondering if it will work? Will IT?

The bullet that I would use would be a jacketed hollow point or a jacketed soft point, not a pointed bullet. Thanks for the concern, good looking out.

Answer 1

The rate of twist is probably 1:10 or 1:12 more suited to heavier bullets.

Unfortunately this is still a major safety hazard because the jacketed soft point of the hollow point is still a pointed bullet. The meplat (tip) of the bullet is a smaller diameter than that of the primer and could ignite the primer.

Answer 2

The reason behind the round nosed bullets is because most 30-30s are tube fed and the pointed bullets would be resting on the primer of the one in front of it. I think if you look, you will find some lighter bullets but again, they will be round nose or maybe a hollow point.
The 308 I believe is a bit larger diameter than the 30-30 also. I bet you could cast your own if you could find a mold somewhere!!

Answer 3

You can. I believe that Federal still lists a 125 grain .30-30 Winchester bullet in their catalog. And it was Federal or perhaps Remington who loaded a 55 grain varmint load for the old 'thurty-thurty.' If memory serves me it was called the 'accelerator.' A friend of mine once showed me one. The bullet itself was short with a red plastic body. He used it in his Marlin 336 .30-30 to shoot javalina. I don't know if it is still available.

You could hand load for your .30-30 using lighter bullets, but the twist-n-turns of the rifling in your barrel may or not adequately stabilize a bullet lighter than 150 grains. That is something that the barrel maker determines.

You could experiment, however, as someone else mentioned, remember the tube magazine of you rifle--you can only load flatnose or really blunt round nose bullets if you plan to load more than one in the magazine.

If you want more speed out of a thirty caliber rifle, why don't you just switch to a .308 Winchester? Interestingly enough both are 7.62x51 although NOT interchangeable. The .30-30 Winchester is known overseas as the 7.62x51(R). The "R" is for rimmed.

H

Answer 4

You may not find them in "factory" loads, but you can surely reload or have some loaded for you. Like others have pointed out, be careful of the pointed tips and loading your tube full. My advice, if you are using non-round nose bullets, would be to only load two rounds in the weapon at any time - one in the chamber and one in the tube. Wouldn't want that recoil to ruin the rest of your day....

Answer 5

The shorter bullet may not feed right with a lever action. If you do be sure it doesn't have a point or it will set off all the cartriges in the tubular magazine

Answer 6

Nosler makes a 125 grain at 2600 feet per second.
http://users.sisna.com/ericl.rasmussen/3030_win.htm
Speer's goes down to 110 grains
http://www.levergun.com/articles/3030_Rifle.htm

Answer 7

u need to contact bound on this one.bounds hubby knows his stuff.