Hi, ref: 30 carbine plinking... just to let everybody know that I will try to keep my repudiation as the cheapest redneck in the woods ...
..... in my wasted youth ( hunting, shooting and fishing every day, in between doing pesky farming ) ... my favorite slacker load for my 37 Winchester 16 gauge with brass hulls ... was a big scoop of cornmeal over some fast powder ... great for blasting those big wasp nests on the buildings around the farm. SHOOT! RUN!
...... oh, and I carefully reloaded the shotshell primers with the help of those Fiocchi caps.. must have saved 10$ over 10 years ...
........ oh, as for the 30 carbine, _ The American Rifleman _ had a tip to make a second hole in the right hand rail for that little hold-open button, just back of locked, but that let the operating rod be back far enough to not get a whack from the gas piston up front upon firing. thus making it a single shot for reduced loads. This scheme worked fine, and so a lot of popgun loads followed. ( otherwise a short stroke could cause a jam ).
BTW, AR later advised to stop doing that, apparently peening of the gas piston was occuring ... a few thousand poppers never hurt mine, still shooting just fine ... since I paid 23$ for it in 1964. Had no need for the newish 1911's ( $19$ ) I coulda/shoulda bot with it.
Here is an intersting use for the 30 carbine .. last Dec., after the big ice storms, we had lots of half broken off limbs around our buildings ... after trying various firearms, turns out the best was the little 30 carbine, with a 1.5 K Weaver .... about 3 or 6 shots across the cracked limb would drop it right out of the tree .. kinda like all those coon hunts in my wasted youth....
I guess with the current bunch of incompetents in Congress, we had better start figuring ways to be easily ( cheaply ) entertained again ... ( sigh ) ...
regards, ken campbell, popping away in Iowa