Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats 30 Gibbs

All,

Anybody here every have a rifle chambered for said round? I may have a line on a smokin deal for a donor Rem. 700 in 30-06 with a 24" barrel. I've always wanted to play with a 30 Gibbs , but never really had a chance to. Thinkin this may be my chance, but wanted some input from the "Fire" experts!

Thanks for your replies in advance!

Elk Country

My favorite rifle for 25 yrs. We have a shooting gallery of sorts here and after thousands of round the throat was getting out there so I had it bored to 35 Gibbs bye JES. I killed 2 40ish bull moose with 1 shoot use 165gr Hornady SP. I bought mine from a fellow in Florida who'd moved from Idaho and said that Rocky had done the work. It was (and is) a beauty of a pre-64 mod 70.. We still plink with 250 Speer Hot Cores @ 2500fps, for moose and bear I crank 280 SAF @2450.

Waterrat,

What load and velocities were the 165gr. Hornady's? Just trying to get a feel for the difference between the Gibbs and plain jane 06!

Elk Country

Elk We just put a new floor in and everything is in crates some around here, biirc I was use IMR 4350 and with WW cases 62grs or close to that. Wildcat has Bob Hagel using 67gr for 3083 and Stover at 65 just over 3000,, I could barely get 62 in and it was pretty hot at that!! Mine was accurate with 62 @ 2900fps.

Case Capacities:

30-06 - - - 68.2 gr

30 Gibbs - 71.12 gr

3 gr of powder... I have better use for my money and time.

I appreciate the Gibbs as a theoretical concept but I like the 30-06 more, it always does everything I need a rifle to do.

If you're impressed with the 30 Gibbs my 300 WM will absolutely blow your mind...!

Been kicking this one around myself as I happen to have stumbled on some .30 Gibbs dies for a song, have a mountain of ‘06 brass and .30 cal bullets of almost every flavor, a potential donor .30-06, and a good gunsmith that will punch it out for a reasonable fee.

No doubt gains are modest but most real world reports show 100-150 FPS gains (some of which could very well just be from hiding pressure signs).

I kinda view it as a long action .300 WSM with cheap brass and 4 in the magazine.

What kind of velocities are people getting with the 30 Gibbs.I'm not talking about 100-150fps gain over the 30-06,I'm asking for actual load velocities.

If I do mine the plan is to thoroughly wring the rifle out first as a .30-06 with a variety of 150-180 class bullets and then see what happens with it punched out to a Gibbs. Should give some pretty real world data but may be a year before it all gets done as fall is approaching and won’t have time for bench testing.

I've measured the gain in based on water to the top of the neck right @ 10%, not the <5% you have posted.

It's certainly a couple or more than the highly praised Ackley!

It's unclear where your numbers come from. I have a 30-06 Ackley & here are the weights I got with fired brass filled with water to the base of the neck at the shoulder junction. The #s are the water weight. Gibbs will be more of an increase, so your 71.12 may be right.

Sorry it's all different makes of brass but that's what's in my notes.

W-W standard 30-06.......... 55.6 gr
R-P 30-06 Imp.................... 63.3 gr
Federal 30-06 Imp.............. 62.7 gr
R-P 300 H&H .................... 81.7 gr

I got my Ackley in late 1990. It wears a 26" Douglas barrel. My Oehler 33 says I'm getting over 3300 fps with 150s, just under 3200 with 165s, & just over 3000 with 180s, all with good accuracy. It's warm but not excessive with my components in my rifle. Just this year I fireformed some new brass for this rifle due to some necks finally splitting. The old brass still works after quite a few firings but is tired after 30 years. Primer pockets still hold primers. Not bad for an 06 case burning under 65 gr of IMR-4350 & more recently some RL-17. Gibbs should do a bit more.

You mean the Ackley you can shoot factory ammo in? It's real pisser when you can do that.

Yeah. That one.

Bucket list curiosity items for sure for me. I'm to cheap to spend the dollars to rechamber for an Ackley imp or 30 Gibbs but if I saw a 03 or 1917 that it was done to I would be very interested especially if they had left the barrel full length at 24 or 26". Cheapest velocity in the world comes from a long barrel and I sure do like them. MB

If I saw the right m1917 chambered for the gibbs, I'd buy it. As of now, I'll just use my 30-06 or 308 Norma.


The 30 Gibbs is one I've thought about for a long time. It is intriguing, I'll give it that much..

I hear you, especially on good deals. That said, I can't think of a single time that I missed a shot and said 'Gee, I would have made that if my barrel was 3 inches longer (ex-wives and girlfriends not included)'

YMMV

BSA1917 and Rem mod 8 I have a lifetime supply of 22" and shorter barrels and I hunt mostly open country nothing gained by less barrel length on my end. I have an 03A3 Remington sporterized in 308 Norma mag 24" and 22.5" barreled 03A3 Springfield in 300 Win mag.,a couple of sporterized 03a3 in 30_06 with 24 " and 1 1917 Eddystone 30'06 with the full 26" in 06.i like long barrels cheapest velocity gain there is. I have allways believe you buy someone else's custom work for about a 1/4 of what they had to pay makes more sense than you paying out the butt. MB

A longer barrel seems to really get a few more fps out of a standard 30-06.Playing with different powders also makes a big difference in velocities too.I was working on some loads on a 23" Rock Creek barreled 30-06 a few weeks ago.I found 55.5grs of Big Game,Win Case,WLRM Primer,168gr Nosler Ballistic Tip gave me 2955fps.That same load gave me 2985fps out of my 24" Sako rifle.That same load out of my 28" Pac-Nor barrel was 3043fps.

That line is so good it should be a tag line. it's so good it's damn near profound.

Always thought it was interesting how a 30 Gibbs and a 223AI have similar dimensions in proportion to case size.