This article written by CBA member, Ed Harris, appeared in the Sept/Oct 2012 #219 issue of the Fouling Shot.
A year or so ago I acquired a very much-used 1894 Winchester .30-30 with a shot out barrel. Factory loads keyholed and I couldnt get cast loads to shoot acceptably. Back in my NRA days I had a Remington 788 cast bullet silhouette rifle chambered for the wildcat .35/.30-30 Marquart which worked well, so I thought a lever-action in this caliber would make sense. I sent the 1894 to John Taylor for relining. My rifle does not have barrel bands because it was built pre WWI as a short rifle, not as a carbine. Due to its condition it had no real collector value, so I felt that relining it would be forgiven; better for getting the old girl back into the deer woods, where she belongs.
My old 1894 now uses .30-30 brass necked up to .35 caliber with no other change. John recommended relin-ing rather than reboring, because old nickel steel Winchester barrels are hard to get good interior finish on with a rebore. The cost is about the same either way. The original markings and patina are preserved. The new bore is 16 inch twist with bore and groove dimensions the same as used for the .35 Remington. I wanted a cast-bullet rifle with which I could use common jacketed .35 Remington, cast 38 Special or .357 pistol bullets I already had, and common .30-30 brass which I have in abundance. The objective was to split the difference between the .32-40 and .38-55 Winchester. It does that.
Thanks to Sinclair I obtained a custom Redding die set which easily necks up .30-30 brass to .35 in one pass. I can use either .32 Winchester Special or .30-30 brass as feedstock. My first firing tests used the RCBS 35-200-FN bullet, cast of wheel weights, with 16 grains of #2400, which was OK, but my focus shifted to plain based bullets, for simplicity and economy.
There being no pressure tested load data for this wildcat, I measured water capacities of the .35 Remington and .35/.30-30 because I wanted to see how close they were. Brass in both calibers was Winchester; the .35 Remington case was once-fired from a Marlin. Capacity in grains of water when filled to base of neck:.35 Remington - 39 grains; .35/.30-30 - 34 grains.
When a 200-grain bullet is seated in the .35/.30-30 case, its base is about 1/3 the way up the neck, so I took another measurement, this time filling the case neck with water and carefully squeezing out the excess pressing a bullet to the crimp groove in the fired case. That result was 37 grains. I decided that using .35 Remington load data was OK as a guide as long as I stayed a grain or two below the maximum loads.
A year or so ago I acquired a very much-used 1894 Winchester .30-30 with a shot out barrel. Factory loads keyholed and I couldnt get cast loads to shoot acceptably. Back in my NRA days I had a Remington 788 cast bullet silhouette rifle chambered for the wildcat .35/.30-30 Marquart which worked well, so I thought a lever-action in this caliber would make sense. I sent the 1894 to John Taylor for relining. My rifle does not have barrel bands because it was built pre WWI as a short rifle, not as a carbine. Due to its condition it had no real collector value, so I felt that relining it would be forgiven; better for getting the old girl back into the deer woods, where she belongs.
My old 1894 now uses .30-30 brass necked up to .35 caliber with no other change. John recommended relin-ing rather than reboring, because old nickel steel Winchester barrels are hard to get good interior finish on with a rebore. The cost is about the same either way. The original markings and patina are preserved. The new bore is 16 inch twist with bore and groove dimensions the same as used for the .35 Remington. I wanted a cast-bullet rifle with which I could use common jacketed .35 Remington, cast 38 Special or .357 pistol bullets I already had, and common .30-30 brass which I have in abundance. The objective was to split the difference between the .32-40 and .38-55 Winchester. It does that.
Thanks to Sinclair I obtained a custom Redding die set which easily necks up .30-30 brass to .35 in one pass. I can use either .32 Winchester Special or .30-30 brass as feedstock. My first firing tests used the RCBS 35-200-FN bullet, cast of wheel weights, with 16 grains of #2400, which was OK, but my focus shifted to plain based bullets, for simplicity and economy.
There being no pressure tested load data for this wildcat, I measured water capacities of the .35 Remington and .35/.30-30 because I wanted to see how close they were. Brass in both calibers was Winchester; the .35 Remington case was once-fired from a Marlin. Capacity in grains of water when filled to base of neck:.35 Remington - 39 grains; .35/.30-30 - 34 grains.
When a 200-grain bullet is seated in the .35/.30-30 case, its base is about 1/3 the way up the neck, so I took another measurement, this time filling the case neck with water and carefully squeezing out the excess pressing a bullet to the crimp groove in the fired case. That result was 37 grains. I decided that using .35 Remington load data was OK as a guide as long as I stayed a grain or two below the maximum loads.
For a plain based bullet I bought a Saeco #351 originally intended for use in the .357 Contender pistol. The mold I got from Midway did not look like the catalog picture; otherwise I probably wouldnt have gotten it. Its original spitzer nose was too long to feed through the 94 Winchester if crimped in its crimp groove. The .12 diameter meplat was smaller than I wanted to chance using in a tubular magazine. Its bore riding nose of .350 was too small in diameter to engage the rifling. The bearing surface of the bullet was less than 1.5 times its diameter, so wasnt sure that it would shoot well. Almost everything about this bullet was wrong, but I couldnt return the mold because I had cast a bunch of bullets from various alloys to try. I am a sucker for frustration.
Left to right: .30-30, .35 Remington, .35/30-30
Although not obvious in this B&W rendering, the rifle still retains its old-age patina.
Firing tests confirmed the Saeco #351 didnt shoot as well as the RCBS 35-200-FN, so I remelted the lead and was stuck with the mold. Mom always told me as a kid that when you have lemons, you make lemonade. So, I sent the Saeco blocks to Erik Ohlen at http://www.hol-lowpointmold.com with an upset throat slug from my .35 Winchester model 1894. Erik did his inset-bar conversion, truncating the nose to a .25 diameter meplat, shortening the nose length to .50 from crimp groove to meplat. The cup-point nose cavity is of 60 degrees included angle and 0.6 of the meplat diameter.
Erik also cut a new front driving band ahead of the crimp groove which is .175 wide and .359 diameter to fit the throat of the relined rifle. He also widened and enlarged the rear driving band while reducing the width and depth of the lube groove to strengthen the base. Having a crimp groove and one small grease groove not much larger than the crimp groove is all thats necessary, because velocity will not exceed about 1400 f.p.s. and this plain base bullet will be slobbered all over with Lee Liquid Alox anyway. The modified bullet weighs 200 grains in soft BHN 10 alloy, vs. 208 grains for the original Saeco spitzer
Custom 35 rifle bullets for the 35/30-30.
The LBT bullet fits the neck length perfectly.
Overall cartridge length when crimped in the reformed .30-30 brass is 2.52, which is ideal to feed well in the Winchester 94. The bullet shoots better than I can hold with 8 grains of Bullseye at about 1300 f.p.s. The bullet was modified to provide a longer bearing surface ahead of the crimp groove and its forepart now fits the throat of the relined / rechambered 94. It looks like a .38-55 slug which shrunk in the washing machine.
My first open sight groups shot at 100 yards with my hand rested on the deck rail were about 4 inches, eyeballing strikes on a freshly painted steel gong; no different from any other open-sighted 94.
My first open sight groups shot at 100 yards with my hand rested on the deck rail were about 4 inches, eyeballing strikes on a freshly painted steel gong; no different from any other open-sighted 94.
My first firing trials with the 200-grain RCBS GC bullet and 16 grains of #2400 gave 1430 f.p.s. with the powder charge leveled and 1570 f.p.s. when the powder was tipped back against the primer. Increasing the charge of #2400 and moderate charges of RL-7 did not improve ballistic uniformity. Best results with the 200-grain plain base bullet were with Bullseye. For a hunting load with the 35-200-GC RCBS bullet 29.6 grains of RL-7 gave 1900 f.p.s., approaching the .35 Remington.
Subsonic loads with the 200-gr. plain based bullets were very quiet and low noise. Ballistic uniformity with Bullseye was not acceptable below 1000 f.p.s. I didnt use any case filler and made no attempt to orient the powder charge, but just shoved em past the loading gate, levered them into the chamber and banged them off, multi-tasking feed check, velocity measurements and gong music.
Subsonic loads with the 200-gr. plain based bullets were very quiet and low noise. Ballistic uniformity with Bullseye was not acceptable below 1000 f.p.s. I didnt use any case filler and made no attempt to orient the powder charge, but just shoved em past the loading gate, levered them into the chamber and banged them off, multi-tasking feed check, velocity measurements and gong music.
The mold, dies, bullets & cases.
Groups eyeballed in the spotting scope observing strikes on a freshly spray painted 12 inch gong, judging against the gong diameter for each string averaged about 4 inches, typical for an open sighted 94. Winchester LP primers showed no pressure signs and didnt flatten.
A charge of 7.2 grains of Bullseye is a bit light, but is fairly quiet and shoots well. I dont recommend loading less than 7 grains of Bullseye in this case.
Loads bracketing 8 grains of Bullseye shot very well and gave uniform velocities without any bore leading using 10 BHN alloy. The bore began to lead at 9 grains of Bullseye. Accuracy declined as velocity much exceeded about 1300 f.p.s. It shoots as good as I can hold.
Increasing the charge of #2400 with the RCBS GC bullet was disappointing. RL-7 didnt give acceptable ballistic uniformity until I got close to nearly a case full of powder, when it finally began to show some utility.
I decided that for loads with anything other than Bullseye I needed a heavier bullet to provide enough resistance to build pressure for a cleaner burn.
LBT to the rescue! I participated in one of the CBA group buys and sent an upset chamber slug and fired case. I asked Veral to make as heavy a plain based bullet as would stabilize in a 16 inch twist which would not exceed 2.54 inches overall when loaded in necked-up .30-30 brass. He returned a 4-cavity mold which casts a 260-grain plain base bullet 0.99 inch long, .361 diameter, with .225 meplat, crimp groove 0.5 back from the nose, with three driving bands 0.11 wide and two grease grooves. It is absolutely beautiful, casting good bullets immediately, giving splendid shooting results just as easily. A charge of 7.8 grains of Bullseye gave 1095 f.p.s. with a standard deviation (Sd) of 18 over a 10-shot string. A charge of 16 grains of #2400 gave 1421 f.p.s. with an Sd of 30 with only slight leading on the driving edges of the lands. Reducing the charge slightly to 15.4 grains of #2400 gave 1383 f.p.s., with round, open-sight, 4-inch groups at 100 yards without leading.
Who could ask for anything more?
A charge of 7.2 grains of Bullseye is a bit light, but is fairly quiet and shoots well. I dont recommend loading less than 7 grains of Bullseye in this case.
Loads bracketing 8 grains of Bullseye shot very well and gave uniform velocities without any bore leading using 10 BHN alloy. The bore began to lead at 9 grains of Bullseye. Accuracy declined as velocity much exceeded about 1300 f.p.s. It shoots as good as I can hold.
Increasing the charge of #2400 with the RCBS GC bullet was disappointing. RL-7 didnt give acceptable ballistic uniformity until I got close to nearly a case full of powder, when it finally began to show some utility.
I decided that for loads with anything other than Bullseye I needed a heavier bullet to provide enough resistance to build pressure for a cleaner burn.
LBT to the rescue! I participated in one of the CBA group buys and sent an upset chamber slug and fired case. I asked Veral to make as heavy a plain based bullet as would stabilize in a 16 inch twist which would not exceed 2.54 inches overall when loaded in necked-up .30-30 brass. He returned a 4-cavity mold which casts a 260-grain plain base bullet 0.99 inch long, .361 diameter, with .225 meplat, crimp groove 0.5 back from the nose, with three driving bands 0.11 wide and two grease grooves. It is absolutely beautiful, casting good bullets immediately, giving splendid shooting results just as easily. A charge of 7.8 grains of Bullseye gave 1095 f.p.s. with a standard deviation (Sd) of 18 over a 10-shot string. A charge of 16 grains of #2400 gave 1421 f.p.s. with an Sd of 30 with only slight leading on the driving edges of the lands. Reducing the charge slightly to 15.4 grains of #2400 gave 1383 f.p.s., with round, open-sight, 4-inch groups at 100 yards without leading.
Who could ask for anything more?