Ed Harris
posted this
22 April 2008
George,
I fooled a bit with a 16-inch twist .30-30 barrel on my switch-barrel Remington 788 years ago, but only with fixed ammo. The barrel was a cut-rifled conventional 6-groove form by Obermeyer, 26” long in an AMU match rifle contour. It was part of an experimental run they were trying for Palma style match shooting with 144-gr. Cdn. C21 Ball ammo, but they later decided a 13” twist was best, so I got a 16 twist as scrap for “free." It shot extremely well with RCBS 30-150GC bullets over 2200 fps with a caseful of 748 and was a very effective hunting rifle. It also did well on groundhogs with 125-gr. Sierra spitzers at about 2700 fps. Sorry to say I never tried any plainbased bullets with it, as at the time I was obsessed with getting higher CB velocity from a strong-actioned .30-30....
I would think it would do very well with any .32-40 class load and I would encourage you to forge ahead. I would offer use of my .32 H&R Mag. reamer to start. When you get bored with that you could punch it out to .327 Federal, then when you get bored with that to your .30/.357 and finally do it again to .30-30 if none of the pistol cases are to your liking. Think of all the FUN you could have, and we would enjoy reading about it all.
73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia