.30 Luger/.30 Mauser

[cneider]

Originally Posted by rhuff

You didn't get hosed, as that is how Lee sells them. The 30 Luger and the 30 Mauser both take the .308-.309 bullet . Check out the interior of your Lee sizing die for mirror smoothness. I purchased a set of lee 30 Luger dies, and the sizing die was totally unusable due to poor finish(it looked like it had been finished with a rat tailed file).

I have loaded .308 in dia bullets with success in 30 Luger brass. Hornady makes a .309 dia. XTP HP bullet, and Natchez Shooting has them in stock currently. I have also had good luck with western Bullets LRN in .310 dia..

Look at the thread just below this one and a search will get you more information.

Thanks for responding. I checked the sizing die and see what you mean. It's not a mirror finish-there are some machining marks. I've read that about Lee dies before. It didn't seem to affect the one case I ran through it before I tested the expander die. If it DID become a problem, I'm wondering if I could polish it out with a Dremel felt bit and some rouge?

How are those hollow points feeding for you in your Luger? I've always been leery about reloading anything except ball ammunition for my automatics ever since I loaded a batch of 9mm hollow points and flat points for my Walther P38 in 1975. Feeding problems-they kept hanging up on the feed ramp when I fired them, although they seemed to feed just fine when I hand cycled them. I wasn't adventurous enough to take me Dremel to the feed ramp on my commercial P38.