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A Winchester Lever in .35/.30-30
Click on photo for larger pic…
A few years ago
I acquired a much-used 1894 Winchester .30-30 with shot out barrel. Factory loads keyholed and cast loads
wouldn’t shoot acceptably. In the 1980s
Roy Dunlap showed me a wildcat .35/.30-30 Marquart on a Remington 788 which
worked well, so I thought a lever-action in this caliber would make sense. I
sent my 1894 to John Taylor for relining because due to condition it had no
collector value.
My old 1894 now uses .30-30 brass necked up
to .35 cal. with no other
change. John recommended relining
instead of reboring, because the old nickel steel Winchester barrels often are
difficult to get good interior finish on a rebore. Cost is about the same either way. Original
markings and patina are preserved. My new bore is 16-inch twist with rifling
dimensions the same as for the .35 Remington.
I wanted a cast-bullet rifle which I would use common jacketed or cast
bullets 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 exactly that.
Sinclair
provided 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. There being no pressure tested
load data for this wildcat, I measured water capacities of the .35 Remington
and .35/.30-30 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 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 determined that using .35 Remington load data was OK as a
guide as long as I stayed a grain or so below maximum loads. This has worked
well in practice.
I sent Saeco
#351 blocks to Erik Ohlen at Hollow Point Moulds 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
that’s necessary, because velocity will not exceed about 1400 fps and this
plain base bullet will be slobbered all over all over with Lee Liquid Alox
anyway. The modified bullet weighs 200 grains in soft BHN 10 alloy, vs. 208
grs. for the original Saeco spitzer.
Overall
cartridge length when crimped in the reformed .30-30 brass is 2.52", which
is ideal to feed perfectly in the Winchester 94. The bullet shoots better than
I can hold with 8 grs. of Bullseye at about 1300 fps. 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 just like a
.38-55 slug which has been “shrunk in the washing machine.”
Open sight
groups shot at 100 yards, 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. Charge establishment
tests were shot with Bullseye and 201-gr. plain base Modified Saeco #351, by Hollow Point Moulds ,
Ten-shot strings.
7.2 grs. of Bullseye 1050 f.p.s. -
Sd 37, necks smoky. DO NOT REDUCE
7.8 grs. of Bullseye 1250 f.p.s. -
Sd 19, clean shooting hot weather load
8.4 grs. of Bullseye 1313 f.p.s. -
Sd 11, Max. useable without any leading
9.0 grs. of Bullseye 1371 f.p.s. -
Sd 17, Some leading. DO NOT EXCEED.
Subsonic loads
with the 200-gr. plain based bullets were quiet and low noise. Ballistic uniformity with Bullseye was not
acceptable below 1000 f.p.s. I didn't
use any case filler and made no attempt to orient 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. 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 didn’t
flatten.
7.2 grains of
Bullseye is a bit light, but is fairly quiet and shoots well. I don't recommend loading less than 7 grs. of
Bullseye in this case.
Loads
bracketing 8 grs. 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 fps. Shoots as good as I can hold.
Other powders
were, #2400, RL-7 were disappointing. I decided that for loads with anything
other than Bullseye I needed a heavier bullet to provide enough shot-start
resistance to build pressure for a clean burn.
LBT to the
rescue! I sent an upset chamber slug and
fired case and 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. 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 an Sd of 18 over a 10-shot string.
A charge of 16 grs. 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 grs. 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?