New .30 barrel...

[Rick W.]

I have used a lot of the Sierra and Hornady 30 cal pistol bullets over the years. Expensive, but a nice jacketed bullet. I shoot them in my 30 Lugers and 7.65x19's. Speer plinkers and carbine bullets are heavier and longer, so one has to be ok with that. I might note that my shooting 30's have 308 barrels made by myself.

I read that you are a barrel maker, so with that in mind, there are plenty of 30-06 takeoff barrels for a song. Just takes some time at the lathe. I find that the front ramp is the hard thing for me, I have no mill or rotary table; so I have to do with two piece barrels, barrel proper and ramp soft silver soldered on. Of course, with a scoped Luger, irons are a moot point.

I bought two barrels years ago oem, replicas, one chamber was ringed, the other was ok. Neither one timed to my particular receiver.

I have no real information on "real" Luger barrels timing or headspacing wise. I rely on the SAAMI specs for chamber numbers and gage information. 30 Luger finish reamers are about 80 bucks or so, gages 25 or so if you want one.

As I recall most real 30 Luger barrels are larger than the 308 number, so perhaps why casting your own bullets is a ticket, make them like you want or rely on the movement to the barrel sides during time down the barrel. Of course, your local range has to allow lead bullets, mine does not.

If one ventures into the 312 bullets, then they can be swaged down to 308-309 or whatever in a single pass thru a die. I read about such on a thread here some years ago.

Don't know how things will always go here, some folks enjoy making their own stuff, others prefer to buy it already to go; both seem to work ok I reckon.

If one has problems with pushing of the bullet down the case, might take a looksee at the expander button and make it right for the components of the day. Most bullets do not have a roll crimp groove, so we just give them a little extra usually. I seem to recall that Lee offered a taper crimp 30 Luger die at one time fwiw.