Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors 30 30 Win in a 303 Savage

I was just reading on another forum where a guy was looking for 303 Sav. ammo and he said a few individuals had hold him to fire form 30 30 rounds in his rifle. Apparently he did it and got away with it. More balls than brains I would think. Has anybody seen this before,and what is the possible downside?

Looking at the dimensional drawings for the two cases, I don't believe you could close the bolt on a 30-30 round in a 303 chamber. Has anyone tried to do this? It looks like the neck would bottom out before you could close the bolt. However, if the 303 chamber is oversized it might work.

Well according to him, he fired 3 rounds of Federal 150 grain factory 30 30 in his 1899 then neck sized and reloaded and fired them again without a hitch.

Bad idea. Use 303 brass or 303 ammo for 303 rifles.

I wondered the same thing once upon a time. I brazenly stuck a .30-30 round in a .303 chamber and it wouldn't discharge. I don't know why, and didn't investigate further. I felt nervous about doing it and figured it was kismet that it didn't work.

No, No, No.
303 savage for 303 Savage,

You Can reform 30-30 Brass into 303 Savage, But Not Form Fire It.

1) The 30-30 brass is narrower at the base, which means it's going to expand by .02" when you fire it risking case failure.
2) The 30-30 brass is .02" longer, meaning that if it even chambers it very likely will be up against the rifling and could crimp the bullet in raising pressures.

Even if resized, the .02" difference at the base would keep me from EVER using 30-30 brass in a 303 Savage rifle. It's just not worth the chance of serious case failures.

30-30:




303 Savage:

Thank You Rory, That makes it very clear...bad idea switching 30-30 for 303

I've had several different opportunities to buy a 99 in .303 Sav., but passed on them since I am a shooter not a collector. Having shot .303 Brit for several years, I would love to shoot .303 Sav., but I know I could never get any amount of ammunition to enjoy one at the range. Too bad there is no relatively easy way to make up that cartridge.

RORY
TNX FOR POSTING, I Have Seen 30-30 REFORMED into 303,, Plenty guys did in the past, and I shot Some, worked o.k. when i st got started, but,,, there plenty of brass and ammo out there to be f'in around
I Know Les did from 307 Winchester a few years back and Also heard guys do it from 30-40?
STEVE

I've got 20 pieces of 30-40 Krag reworked to fit the 303 Savage, from back when it was next to impossible to find any. The 30-40 is actually oversized, and so can be worked down to fit the 303 Savage. Now that 303 Savage brass/ammo is so much easier to find, I wouldn't recommend that route either. Way too much work to trim the necessary brass off just right to make it work when you can find Norma or PRVI brass.

30-40 Krag:

Over the years I've tried all the above except crunching down the .307 cases. I do think the .307 is the best donor for a resize effort but with brass getting more available I didn't bother.

I resized some .30-30 cases for the .303 and about a third of them showed small splits on the first firing. I knew a guy in Texas that just used straight up .30-30 rounds and forced them into the chamber. He died of cancer so that didn't get him but not something I'd dream of doing.

Handloading is the only way to go if you really like to shoot more than once a year.

You can pound on live hand grenades with a hammer too.

They usually don't go off....

30-30 win will not make good brass for the 303sav it can be hazardous to fire one in a 303 even if it chambered.
the base of the case will split.. the 30-40 krag will work if turned down on a lathe. I've also used 220 swift. head spacing with the swift case can be a problem as the rim is thinner.
hoard ur 303 brass. I do

plab

I shoot 30-30 ammunition in a 30-30 chambered rifle, but what do I know?

If you've ever fired a cartridge with too long a neck, (ie. forgot to check case length and trim after 4 or 5 sizings) you'd know that you would not EVER want to do that again. I damn near blew a .308 apart because the neck was a few 1/1000's to long. Crimped the bullet and case neck in the throat and as a result blew the case to pieces in the chamber. That was a Remington 700 action. If it was an 1899, I'm bettin' I'd a lost a chunk of flesh or an eye ball.

Not so. Brass is pretty much constantly available these days and once you've got brass, given that it uses .308 bullets, its a done deal.

Just did a quick check for .303 Savage brass. It ain't cheap, but it is available. Makes the 30-30 thing a non-issue.

http://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/product/productId/12638

.303 brass and ammo is to available to risk it imo.

Sounds like a good reason to buy another 99 in .30-30 to me.

I should quantify my experiment by saying I ran the .30-30 case into a .303 die before trying this. It didn't go off, and I'm still puzzled why. I still have the round laying in my range bag if someone else wants to try it. I guess I ought to deep six it.

PLENTY BRASS HERE
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=458665779

this is good brass. couple of guys throw in on it and your all set

plab

A good rule of thumb for making brass from other brass: If the cartridge has been around a long time and almost nobody does the change, it is probably a bad idea.

Still it’s an interesting topic from a survival(ist) perspective. You wouldn’t want to try it if there’s no necessity to take the risk but someday or in some circumstances it may be necessary to try it. I would hazard to guess that if the story about the guy who routinely fired factory 30-30 rounds in a 303 were true, it’s probably because the larger dimension of the Savage chamber at the base caused the case to instantly shorten as it expanded so that catastrophic pressure at the case mouth was avoided.

Cartridge dimensions in loading manuals and reference books are chamber dimensions (don’t forget) and loaded cartridges are always some measure narrower and shorter than chamber dimensions. The 30-30 chamber is additionally .020 narrower at the base and .025 longer (1/50” and 1/40”) respectively than the 303S. Either is roughly the thickness of the paperboard used to make bandaid or cigarette boxes. The rims are effectively the same, .505 and .506, they do not expand so are not a factor.

I haven’t tried it but I predict that the 30-30 shoulder is further forward enough that you couldnt chamber and fire a factory 30-30 round in a 303S chamber (being a lever action). I do think that you could take a 30-30 case and essentially neck size it by running it thru a 303 sizing die, trim it to 2.015, load it using the 303 die and then you could fire form it. There would be a substantial pressure ring and you could probably only do it once but I think that it could work IN AN EMERGENCY

303 Savage ammo is not hard to get just have to pay for it

Normally reasonable people will take bigger risks in an emergency, so if shooting 30-30 ammo in a 303 SAV in an emergency situation was your only option, it would also be your best option. Of course that begs the question of why you would ever find yourself in an emergency/survival situation with a rifle chambered for 303 SAV in the 21st Century.

IMO, shooting ammunition in a chamber that isn't cut for that cartridge is a sub-optimal choice to make unless you know what you're doing. I shoot handloaded 308 ammo in my 307 and 358 in my 356, but it isn't loaded to factory ammo pressures or factory ammo COAL.

about halfway through last century i acquired a 94 win in .32 win spcl. being young, dumb, and full of ideas, and due to a situation where 32 win spcl ammo was unobtainium, i fed it 30-30.
case dimensions being close i got fire formed brass. accuracy was non existent.
at that time the Lyman manual had a conversion list in the back. using that i never got into trouble but with good head stamped brass available, that is the way to go.

I’m a neophyte to loading. I ask Gary questions, and do all of my loading with my friend John. I’m pretty stocked up. I don’t have any guns without ammo, and if I find I have ammo with no gun, I give it away or go buy one. There is no imaginary matrix that can be made up to force me into using the wrong ammo. I’d rather take my chance with a stick than blow the trigger finger off my right hand. I practice shooting left handed, and don’t like it.

I have been told that the 32 WS was popular in northern Canada during the 1st half of the 20th Century and maybe beyond because in a pinch 30-30 ammo could be safely fired in a 32 WS rifle with enough accuracy to harvest an animal for food.

If I was freezing, hungry, and unarmed while in the Woods and there was an old trappers cabin, and a hungry bear chased me into it, and all I could find inside to fend of the hungry bear was a Savage 99 in .303 and a box of 30-30 cartridges, I would try it! 😄

1. the 32 Special was brought out with a slower twist than the 30-30 to allow reloads with black powder and cast bullets.
2. 30-30s will fire in a 303, they swell a lot but cases usually stay intact.

I'd wait for you and see how it turned out?

I'd make a video for Youtube.

You're welcome.
LOL

Not to get too far off in the weeds but one thing I can tell you is that 1000s of rounds of 257 Roberts went through 6.5 Japs that WW ll veterans brought home from the war, that resulted in 1000s of lbs of venison.

Well, even if you can safely fire the 30-30 in a 303, which is doubtful in my mind, the next question is can you hit anything with it. Years ago I ran an experiment with cases .010" undersize in a group of 6 22HPs, many with oversize chambers. Firing them initially, I got about 6 moa accuracy. I indexed them all according to where the case swell was most prominent, usually upward. I then tried some with the swell up and got around 4 moa. Those I fired with the swell down often missed an 8 1/2 x 11sheet of paper at 100 yds. Case life was horrible, usually less than 3 firings.

I ended up doing the opposite of what we are discussing here. Thinking I had an inexhaustible supply of 303 cases, I first swaged them in a 30-30 die, then turned them in a lathe to fit the chamber in question. That led to a study in bullet, primer and powder, but the general result was around 2 moa for bullets shorter than 70 gr. None of the 70 grainers I tried ever consistently beat 4moa.

I can't imagine what the result would have been had I used cases .020" undersize, like the 30-30 in a 303 chamber.

😂

There appear to be multiple "reasons" for Winchester introducing the 32 WS, including the one that you expressed.

Who's gunna try it?

Lots of things that I'd like to try in this lifetime.

Shooting the wrong cartridge out of a gun isn't one.

I might fireform some cases if it's the same family (243/308/358 type stuff), but that'd be all.

Winchester wanted to do something bigger on the 30-30 case as they had already done smaller with the 25-35. They already had the .33 WCF so they skipped that caliber although that's what I think they should have settled on. Apparently 35 caliber didn't interest them and they already had the 35 WCF. The .32-40 was reasonably popular and they knew a bottlenecked case would improve on that calibers performance. So they initially advertised it as "more powerful than the 30-30 but less so than the 30-40". So it was advertised as an in between. It would take another year or two until their literature promoted the blackpowder reloading angle. I've used the 32 Special a good bit and am fond of it but I can't say it's any better than the 30-30. I personally wish they had brought out the ".33-30" instead

This thread is a real case study about how we gun-nuts think...,

the original thought - "how can we keep shooting our 303S if we can't find ammo?"
next - what "make-do" ammo will really work if SHTF occurs?
then - what we can do if OUR particular SHTF
ultimately - Why did they even invent what cartridge we'd "really like to have", or "wished they made"

- If all I can find is 30-30 ammo, then I need to start hording 30-30 rifles, instead of 303's...,
- I just need more brass and powder, then I'm ready
- I have always been suckered in by the odd-ball/one-of-kind mystique in every thing/one
- I'm not qualified,... at anything really,.. so I'm not gonna try to re-think long&well-established firearms and ballistic engineering, K.I.S.S. , me

...so, our questions seem to boil down to;
,what REALLY trips Your trigger?
(..,what's stashed in your bunker?
.., OR,
..what are You hunting with this season?!)

A blunder bus full of nails.

I thought the 30-30's shoulder was a bit farther forward than the 303 Savage.

Yah, it is. Ya just gotta squeeze the lever a little harder to close the action.

It's just crazy enough it might work!

LOL

I knew a guy in Texas that did it when the .303 brass and ammo was unobtainium. Never had a problem.

I discovered Bertram mfg. down under and bought a couple thousand .303 cases directly from them. Shared with the folks here at the fire and life was good.

I have shot 30-30 cases in a 303 with cast bullets and light charges of 4198.
It worked fine, cases swelled but no failures. Accuracy was the same as the same load in 303 cases.