30 Luger snap caps
 

Where can I find them? Call me a coward but I do not feel comfortable testing my magazine by filling it with live ammo and then practicing/fondling the P08 in my living room

I have never found a source for 7.65mm Luger snap caps. Folks usually have to resort to making their own.

A simple way to do this, if you reload, is to remove the primers and replace with a cut down, pencil eraser. Next fill the case with sand, polishing media or similar and install the bullet with a good crimp.

I think that the first guy to produce a commercial available urethane plug, that simply slides into the case mouth and runs the full length of the inner casing, but protrudes out the top in a correct bullet profile to simulate a loaded round, could get rich. The base of this plug could have a peel off sticky that would hold the plug in place at the bottom of the casing and an additional sticky based plug could even be offered for the primer pocket. This would both create an instant, inexpensive "snap cap" but would also provide a display round for exhibition, belt carry for Cowboy Action shooting or for function testing.
If you do it, I expect a cut of royalties.

may want to ask this ebayer if they handle 30 luger.

http://stores.ebay.com/Lone-Star-Reloading

He has 30 Mauser - is there a difference>

30 Mauser wont fit in the chamber of your 30 luger. The shell case in longer on the Mauser ammo.:(
Amazed he has a 30 Mauser snap cap!:)
Bob

If you want to just check for feeding, extraction and ejection, then just remove the firing pin from the breechblock. Without that item, you will not ignite a primer.

Even easier.

Take a .30 luger round, pull the bullet, drop the powder. Insert the primed empty cartridge in the chamber. Point towards something that's relatively inert. Pull trigger. Remove used case, stick bullet back in: dummy created.

Of course any handloader that has 30 Luger dies can produce dummy rounds in nothing flat. I have produced dummy rounds for all of the different projectile profiles that I load in the 30 Luger brass. I use them in all of my 30 Luger handguns to check things out.


What Vlim's suggestion to do, I don't think will work out satisfactorily. Once you pull the bullet from the brass, in order to dump the powder and ignite the primer, you have lost the neck tension between bullet and case mouth. I have never seen a 30 Luger bullet with a beveled base, like seen in rifle and some handgun bullets. IF you could get the bullet to seat back into the brass case without belling the casemouth, there would be nearly zero neck tension on the bullet and when you tried to get it to feed into the chamber, you, for sure, would get marked set back and a jam.



I don't believe that one can ignite a primer with a flat surface......if you could, we would have a ton of primer ignitions when we seat a primer into the primer pocket with the primer ram of the press. I have no idea how many Ks of primers that I have seated since 1971-72, but quite a few. I have yet to ignite a primer. To me, the ram would be more prone to ignite a primer than would be a breach face to the sunken primer of a properly primed brass case. Just my thoughts.

Put a short dowel or some sand in the case to prevent bullet setback when replacing the bullet.

Put a short dowel or some sand in the case to prevent bullet setback when replacing the bullet.
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regards, -John S


What John said...

Additionally, back when when I still trusted my competence to hand load, I made some snap caps by filling the empty primer pocket with Dow silicone caulking. Easy to do and when fully set up it made a decent surface for the firing pin to contact.

Best Regards,

Gunny John