.30 Carbine Reloads

[Tortuga]

Anyone used Penn Bullets or Missouri Bullets lead 110 gr. bullets to reload .30 carbine? Results? Loads? There doesn't seem to be any loaded ammo on the planet, at a reasonable price (there's a place near the fire for all the gougers). I've got only 50 rounds of Privi that came with the gun (NPM in very nice condition...mixed parts) so for now have to work with those few cases till I find some more.

[joem]

I've never used cast lead in my carbines because of velocity. .30 carbine is loaded to about 1900 FPS which IMO is too fast for cast lead as you could lead up the barrel and gas port. I have used copper plated bullets and had no problems. If there's a reloading shop check for plated or FMJ bullets. By the way I use a lot of cast bullets from Missouri Bullets but only load them for velocities under 1400 FPS.

[Maury Krupp]

I'd be leery of cast bullets at Ball ammo velocities as well.

The Carbine's gas system isn't that easy to clean and service. That's why, even with a war on, non-corrosive ammo was specified when corrosive was the norm. Once the staking on the Gas Cylinder Nut is gone you're going to be in for a real reliability and/or maintenance headache.

Plated bullets are OK at pistol velocities but when I tried to load Berry's plated up to milspec of 1900fps they scattered all over the place :(

Maury

[Tuna]

Maury is spot on with his info. Cast bullets have to be on the hard side to get them up a bit in velocity but if your going to match ball ammo then you really need a bullet that takes a gas check and that improves it's performance. Plated bullets no matter what the makers of them say are best used the same as lead bullets and should be in the 1600 fps area to prevent stripping of the plating off the bullets. Just because one doesn't see a real build up in the barrel doesn't mean it's not building up in the gas system.

[Johnny in Texas]

Most bullet makers use hard lead for the .30 carbine bullets gas check bullets are best. I have a bunch of .30 carb brass if you need it. I don't load .30 carb anymore.

[jimb]

Keep the velocity at 1600 or less and cast will work fine. I've used cast in over 25 different carbines without problems. Only one, a Saginaw SG had problems with cast. All the others were fine with cast. I even had a registered M2 that I shot 130 gr Lyman plain base bullets in and had NO leading problems unless I fired more than 60 rounds without cooling the gun barrel.