Do 30's have more fun?
 

I took my 30 caliber â??23 Commercial out the other day to shoot for the first time. I bought it from Ralph Shattuck, and it is a â??clean one ownerâ?� type with very low mileage. I suspected that it would function wellâ??and it did. I was using GT reworked magazines and Winchester factory ammo. The gun operated flawlessly during the entire shooting sessionâ??which was over a hundred rounds. This confirmed my thinking that the 30â??s have an easier time chambering their ammo because the bottlenecked cartridge has more â??wiggle roomâ?� to get into the chamber. So my survey question to the membership is this: in your experience, have your 30 caliber Lugers functioned more reliably than your 9mm Lugers?
DougT

Interesting that the first two successful semi auto pistols (Broomhandle and Luger) were designed around the bottle necked cartridge.

rk

It's my impression that the 7.65 mm will feed better. Used to shoot cast semi-wadcutters and full wadcutters in mine with no problems. OAL length is important just as with the 9 mm.

The problems I have had with .30 Lugers is insufficiently powerful ammunition to properly operate the action. Ammunition availability and cost are problems as well.

I shoot 200 or so rounds a month 9mm with no function problem whatsoever.

So I would say that my 9mm function much more reliably than the .30 I have shot.

--Dwight

Dwight is right on with the 30 Cal. Factory ammo is tough to find & some are underpowered ( Fiocchi brand ) Up here, it's a mess just to find reloading components for it........so far only one bullet available !! ( makes it not so interesting for the reloader...)

Lugers I'm shooting are not collector pistols. I use ``built shooter type guns``...9mm is fun, powerfull but I've more jams with it than the 7.65mm.

My favorite is 30 Cal in spite of the reloading issue. Pistol is shooting 1 1/2 in @ 100 yds.......Ragged hole at 25 yds....That is more than enough for me !! In spite of various testing sessions, I was not able to get that kind of accuracy with the 9mm........

2 important things for shooting: powerfull ammo & good mags.

MARK :)

It's true that 7.65 Parabellum factory ammo is often underloaded. But that's the fault of SAAMI, the factories, etc., and not inherent in the cartridge. Given a proper load and recoil spring the 7.65 will feed wadcutters and I'd be surprised if that would work with a 9 mm.

Back when I was a knothead kid... way back (10, 11 years old)... all I shot was a .30 cal art. ... I shot many, many hundreds of round thru it, if not thousands... (never kept track, and dad was suppling the ammo!) NEVER, EVER malfunctioned! Only had the clip it came with... It was all Win. 93 grain ball... I cried when that gun went away! Pretty hard to convince me that the 9's are more, or as, reliable as the .30's.... Best to all! til...later....GT <img border="0" alt="[jumper]" title="" src="graemlins/jumper.gif" />

Once a 9mm has one of G.T.'s magazines, they'll work...

Doug, I got a chuckle out of your used car comparison of your luger particularily since you got it from Ralph. With his red coat, in his younger days, I would have sworn that Ralph was a former car salesman. TH

I hand load using the 100gr. Hornady XTP .312 bullets. They have worked great in all of the .30s
I have tried them in. I use 4.2 gr of Unique. Due to the slightly oversized bullet, and with the reduced charge. The chamber pressure is increased a bit. Which I believe inhances the function. Have never had a problem, and is a very accurate load. And pretty devistating on a can.
I am not recommending this load to anyone. Merely stating my personal preference and experience. So use it at your own risk. If you should choose to.

7.65mm vs. 9mm
 

Hi All:

Strange isn't it. The commercial 7.65mm is loaded too cold and the commercial 9mm is loaded too hot!!

If you load a properly designed bullet, at the proper AOL, I've found the 9mm to be very reliable (1,000 rounds fired without a malfunction).

The thing with the 7.65mm is the lack of availability of a proper bullet selection (weight, diameter, etc.)

Sieger