Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats .30 Gibbs Project 2020

About a year ago I was also on my weekly vision quest through the local gun stores and pawn shops when I stumbled into an old set of reloading dies. They looked like standard garage sale junk, maybe even a little worse, wrapped in clear shrink wrap and simply marked “Reloading Dies - $19”. I looked a little closer and was surprised when I rolled them over and saw they were marked .30 Gibbs. After a brief discussion with the clerk about how it would be hard to find an idiot dumb enough to buy this old wildcat junk and an exchange of barely enough currency to buy a couple tacos (if you like cheap Mexican restaurants and went on a Tuesday) I was on my way.



They were placed in a cardboard box and put on my reloading die shelf next to the .358 Norma and other oddball stuff for “someday” projects when I grew bored with what I was currently shooting.
In about the same time frame I acquired a nice Remington KS take off stock that I used on another project. That project resulted in me sending the barreled action down the road after the rifle came out slightly heavier than I wanted. Hey, math is hard and in rifle looney world a few extra ounces can turn a perfectly satisfactory rifle into something loathsome that has no place in my safe. Although not the stiffest (that’s what she said), it had a nice feel to it (she said that too), and I kept it around for a future build.

Fast forward to the end of this summer and I was just about done wringing out a few summer rifle projects. I realized that I may have just enough pre-hunting season time left for one more project before the “Big Show”, Montana’s General rifle season, starts in late October. Worst case, I could get one started and resume next spring. The Gibbs had been in the back of my mind since I picked up the dies and it seemed to have a lot to offer, at least to those of us that tend to get excited by minutiae.

The potential ability to get close to .300 H&H and .300 WSM performance with cheap brass, easy to find rifles/parts, and four down in the magazine held a lot of appeal to me.
The simplest way to get a Gibbs, outside of inheriting one from your uncle, is to simply have a good shooting .30-06 reamed out to the longer cartridge dimensions by a competent gunsmith. I happen to know one of those but did not have any .30-06s that I wanted to sacrifice for the project. I did however end up with a Remington 700 with a bad .270 barrel.



An early morning run through the campfire classifieds resulted in a near mint older 700 barrel in .30-06, complete with factory sites, for less money then I would have paid to get sites installed. I rummaged through my work bench and found a nicely tuned 700 trigger, scope bases, rings, and had a proven Leupold Vari-X III 3.5-10x40 that had worked well for many years on a .300 Win Mag.

I rounded up as much random Winchester brand factory ammo as I had on hand (40+ piece of various weights and bullets construction) and used them to sight in the Leupold VX3 and then proceeded to make some chamber specific once fired brass.
I selected Winchester because I had virgin Winchester .270 brass (longer neck than the .30-06) available locally to fireform to .30 Gibbs but wanted to first test the rifle as a .30-06 to determine max velocity with 165, 180 and 200 grain bullet using once fired .30-06 brass. By keeping the brass the same manufacturer I figured it would be as close to an equal test as possible.

After max velocity was determined I would load up a few rounds to see what kind of accuracy was possible at upper end velocities. I was mostly interested in the 180 and 200 grain accuracy as that is what I planned to shoot and hunt with once chambered as a Gibbs.

After testing as a .30-06 I would have the chamber punched out and then duplicate the test with the same bullets and once fired (virgin brass fireformed in my Gibbs chamber) Winchester brass. I figured this test was as real world as I could get and if it failed I could scrap the barrel and re-use the parts for something else.

Exactly one day after dropping off my parts I had a complete rifle in my hands with properly indexed sights and crisp one pound trigger pull (more on that later).

To index the barrel for the sights the headspace was was tight enough that it allowed factory ammo to snuggly chamber and fire. The action fit nicely in the stock even after having been previously skim bedded for a different action and the inletting resulted in a fully free floated barrel.

The velocity tests started shortly after that. All test were completed using the same lot of RL 22 powder and Fed 210 primers. Of the powders I had on hand, RL 22 was listed in the Nosler book as producing the highest velocities for all three classes of bullets. Nosler data was also shown because it had the added benefit of including .30-06 AI data, which would be a helpful after rechambering.

The 165 Hornady BTSP was seated to the bottom of the cannelure which gave me a 2.662” CBTO with trimmed brass. I started at 61 grains and went to 63.5 grains, slightly over book max. At 63.5 grains I got an ejector mark and the chrono read 2894. 63 grains gave me 2869 and no indications of pressure. This is about 133 fps below the book max velocity but not unreasonable given a 22” barrel.

The 180 Nosler Ballistic tip was seated .005” off the lands at 2.841” CBTO which resulted in a COL of 3.468” (SAAMI is 3.34”). The long Rem 700 mag box really paid dividends here as a book max charge o 62 grains gave me 2856 fps and no pressure signs which was actually 44 fps faster than the book max with a shorter barrel. There were no pressure signs. Regrettably I stopped there so not sure on the exact max my barrel would produce with this bullet. I was gaining about 20 fps per grain of powder so a max around 2875 or even a little better is not out of the realm of possibility.

The 200 Nosler Accubond was also seated .005” off at 2.845” CBTO (3.455 COL) and a book max load got me to 2715 FPS (book max is 2688). Like the 180, I was already running a compressed load and my chrono was saying stop so I didn’t push it even further. Still, I think I could have pushed a little more out of it before I hit any typical pressure signs.

What the velocity test showed me was that, at least with heavy bullets seated long (the light bullets can only be seated so long before you run into problems of insufficient neck tension), this particular barrel was capable of producing respectable velocities with bullets I would actually use on big game.

For accuracy testing I only tested the 180 and 200 grain bullets as they were the ones I would most likely hunt with. I did not test multiple powders. I simply used RL22 at upper end charges to assess if I though the rifle had potential to be a 1 MOA shooter. I was hoping for good dispersion and initial accuracy of 1.5 MOA or less.

With the 180 Nosler Ballistic tip 61 grains gave me a 0.492” three shot group. 61.5 had a flier and opened up to 1.813”. Both groups averaged 1.15”

With the 200 Nosler Accubond 58 grains gave me a 2.24” three shot group with one called jerk (remember that super light trigger), 58.5 gave a 1.14” three shot group, and 59 gave a 1.422”. All three averaged 1.6” even with a called jerk.



With both bullets producing at least one group close to or less than 1 MOA I was confident I could find a bullet, powder, seating depth combo that should get me to the magic 1 MOA mark. That was all I needed to make the decision to go ahead and punch the chamber out to a Gibbs. That afternoon I got online and had 4D reamer rentals send a reamer and go gauge directly to my Gunsmith.

Less then a week later I had a .30 Gibbs rifle in my hand with the .30-06 stamp nicely milled out/blued and .30 Gibbs cleanly engraved on the barrel. I was extati…exsta…ecstat…I was happy.

Brass was initially formed with a pass of well lubed virgin .270 brass through a .35 Whelen die and then necked down to .30 cal till the bolt would close with a little effort. In the pic below, .30-06 is on the left, .270 on the right. That little bit of extra neck is helpful.



This would be a great point in the process to anneal your brass but I chose to simply fireform. Some was made with 150 Hornady FB Spire points and a stiff charge of IMR 4350.



Others were formed with 12 grains of Bullseye, corn meal to the base of the neck or so, a quarter of a toilet paper square, and a pistol primer.



The brass formed with bullets gave sharper shoulders and the satisfaction of actually shooting something (the fireforming load turned out to be pretty accurate…about 1.25 MOA). The corn meal load had the benefit of being able to be completed in the middle of the night in my shop while my kids and neighbors slept peacefully. The barrel has a little water in the bottom (unnessary) and helped to contain any mess from the cornmeal loads.



I lost no cases with corn meal and bullseye but had some failures (splits right at the shoulder/body junction) with bullets. Annealing would have minimized those losses I think.
With brass fireformed to my chamber I repeated the velocity test.

The 165 Hornady had a very faint ejector mark at 68 grains and 3,058 fps. There were no signs at 67 grains and 3028 fps.

The 180 Nolser Ballistic Tip had some inconsistent results. At 65 grains I had a VERY faint ejector mark that I had to look at from several angles to even see and am still not 100% positive it is truly an ejector mark. That charge gave me 2932 fps. At 65.5 and 66 grains I had no marks and velocities of 2972 and 3005 respectively. Jumping to 66.5 I got a solid ejector mark and 3047 fps.

The 200 Accubond got a faint mark at 62.5 grains and 2812 fps. Two charges at 62 gave me 2750 and 2763.

Never, in any of the testing did I get a sticky bolt lift, hard extraction, or flattened primer.

From this testing, it looks to me like my rifle should run 165s comfortably to 3000-3025, 180s around 2950-3000, and 200s to about 2750-2775. To me these are respectable figures from a factory 22” barrel and represent about 125-150 +/- fps gains over the standard chambering for the 165-180 class bullets and about 50 fps for the 200 class bullets. I am very happy with what I saw from the 165-180 class bullets. I was a little disappointed with the 200 grain bullets. I guess at some point the law of diminishing returns comes into play and there is only so much RL 22 you can jam in a case this size with a heavy bullet.

I plan to work up an accuracy load soon with the 180 Nosler Ballistic Tip and Accubond. For me, that is where the rubber will meet the road. My Ruger 24" .300 Win Mag can shoot 180s much faster but its best accuracy is at 2975 with a 180 TTSX. That rifle does not care for 180 accubonds. This rifle with the 180 TTSX has been my go-to elk, bear and deer load the past several years and I know what it is capable of. If I can get good accuracy at upper end velocity out of the Gibbs and the 180 accubond I would come close to duplicating my .300s velocity but with slightly higher B.C and in a much lighter, handier package.

To be continued…

Nice write up and good looking rifle!

Your loads with the 165gr Hornady, "68 grains and 3,058 fps. 67 grains and 3028 fps" That was with RL22 powder also?
Thanks

Mark

Yep, about all I could cram in there.

Sounds interesting,.

That was quick. Good to see positive results. It seems your expectations were met. Wondering, if you were inclined that way, if you could improve velocity a little more on the 200s with RL26?

I am guessing I probably could. Biggest challenge there might be getting some RL26!

Ditto on the RL 26 availability. Glad your are posting your 30 Gibbs results they are interesting. MB

Nicely detailed project with before and after chronograph readings, most interesting.

Great write up. Thank you.

I tried some 165 Accubonds with Superformance yesterday. Velocity is close to RL22. I hit faint pressure (very faint ejector mark) at 64.5 grains and 3004 FPS. RL22 got me comfortably to 3025 before hitting pressure with a 165 Hdy BTSP.

Similar with the 180 Ballistic tip. Started hitting pressure at 2988 (64 grains Superformance). The same bullet and RL22 got me right around 3000 at comfortable pressures.

Looks to me like either will work, just depends on what the rifle likes once I start working on accuracy. For some reason I just can’t seam to get the 165s moving as well as I would think. 165s and 180s both seem to max out around the same place.

Just got in a new Leupold VX3i 4.5-14x40 SF-ZL 30mm. I mounted it yesterday and boresited. Got some office work done early so I could be at the range at daylight. Using my fire forming loads it was the easiest sight in I have ever done. First shot at 25 was about 1/2” low and a hair left. Went to 100 and put two within a half in of each other at 3” high and 1/2” left. Adjusted down four clicks and over two. Next shot hit 2” high and within 1/4” of center.





Went out to 250 and commenced dusting clay pigeons. Looks like the Gibbs and my firefirming load are heading to eastern Montana tomorrow to go antelope hunting!

That’s a sweet set up. Thanks for the write up!

Yes great read ,Congrats and aGreat hunt thks !!!

Yup, that’s a cool danged set up buddy! I dig the rifle and cartridge. I’m using the 30-06 with 212 ELDs at 2720 with Staball 6.5 in my 22” M70 Featherweight and it’s been a complete blast. Hits out at distance have been really easy and man, it’s a pleasure to shoot. I’d bet the Gibbs would be a bit more juice on that.

Good luck with it. It looks great. Great write up.

I like to punder too, but why?

I have a long track record of poor decision making. Not sure why my choice in cartridges should be any different

The Gibbs went to eastern Montana for the antelope opener. Between us and our friends we had seven tags and 1.5 days.

My standard MO is to get a kid or my wife in position and then take whatever out of a herd that offers a clear shot after they shoot theirs. This is a meat hunt first and foremost for me and I am not picky.

It didn’t take long to find a victim. Got my son set up on a buck and his dropped at the shot from his .25-06. The herd milled a bid at 275-300 and a little guy cleared and gave me a slight quartering face on shot. The 150 grain Hornady flat base from my fireforming load found the boiler room. The buck made a 40 yard dash and piled up without drama.



The combo worked great but didn’t make much brass

Dropping it off this week for a cerakote job. I think tungsten will look sharp with the black stock.

Out of stock right now,but already formed .30 Gibbs brass.
https://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/category/categoryId/740?

Thanks. I looked a quality-cart website a couple weeks ago. They said they would have a run when there was sufficient demand. I am not unhappy with Win .270 brass but would be handy to have some properly head stamped and ready to go.

May have to try some of that Staball 6.5. Could be a contender.

Med river you bn use the Gibbs on deer yet? Mb

Not yet. Took it out one day on a timber hunt for elk. Was a joy to pack. Stock seems prone to showing abuse which is a little disappointing but most of my rifles I hunt with have a fair amount of character. I don’t baby them.

The next trip out I took my old reliable .300 Ruger out and punched my elk tag. Still have another cow permit for a different area. Would like to use the Gibbs for that.



With the rut approaching I am going to be more serious about buck hunting and plan to pack the Gibbs. I did take it out a few days ago to verify zero. It put 3 180 Accubonds into less than an inch and the cold bore was within 1/4” of where I expected it. That should work!

I guess I was a lax on posting. After my antelope hunt I dropped it off to get cerakoted only to find out the gunsmith was sent the wrong color. Rather than leave it there I picked it up and did some load work up with the 180 Accubond. My chrono went belly up so I didn’t have great data for a while (new one showed up this last week). I was mostly just looking for a hunting load. Best accuracy with the bullets seated just off the lands was with 65 grains of RL22. I started playing with seating depths and found my groups were much more consistent letting the Accubonds jump a ways. I ended up at 3.36” COL.

That seating with 65 grains put my average velocity at 2866, well below max velocity. I may play with some other powders next summer to see if I can get more speed and accuracy (not that it matters much, or at all).

I must say, I measured a few of the Accubonds to see how consistent the ogives were. I was not impressed. They seem to shoot plenty adequate for a big game rifle, I just expected a little more consistency.

Cool write up. The 30 gibbs cartridge is one I remember seeing in the cartridge of the world book a long time ago and wondered why it wasn't more popular. Seems like it would be a great cartridge. Supercharged 30-06 so to speak. Keep us posted.

Great and interesting write up! Been considering a 30 Gibbs ever since reading about Rocky(?) Gibbs in an old HANDLOADER magazine years ago. I’ve come close to starting a couple other projects that reading about the Gibbs cartridges fired up at least to the thinking phase: 270 Win Improved (got the reamer) and the 35 Brown Whelen or the 35 Gibbs. Thinking’s cheap, doing takes a few dollars.

I think they are fun projects as long as you don't expect magic and are good with burning a few dollars and hours for marginal gains. I am, so it worked for me.

Med River my nephew used his 338 boat paddle in Colorado to take a big cow a few weeks back with Fed Premium 210 npt's. Did you ever run that comparison between std 06 loads to same bullet weight loads in the 30 Gibbs? MB

Yeah, it is in the write up. 165-180 class bullets gained about 125-150 fps. 200 grains only gained 50. Interestingly, my current accuracy load with the 180 Nosler Accubond is fairly close to where my velocity topped out as an '06 with the 180 NBT, which erases some of the advantage (assuming I could have got comparable accuracy with it in .30-06 maxed out...I only tested for what I considered accuracy potential, did not do a full accuracy workup).

Rifle loony cartridge for sure. I bet R26 could be a winner as it almost gets the 30-06 up to the Gibbs velocities. When you got the ejector mark at a lower charge rate the case could have been a little short on head space and the sort of running start can give pressure indications. It was probably one from the bulls eye batch, with spring back the head space can be reduced especially if the FF load is light. Had this happen when forming 280 AI with Red Dot and going up one grain of powder fixed it.

I also annealed the necks and that helped to get more of a uniform shoulder and head space too.

Tejano,

Do you have load data for RL26 and 180gr. bullets in the std. 30-06?

Elk Country

Great info! Thanks

A little update...

After what seemed like forever and about 5,000 text messages and phone calls my cerakote guy finally got his stuff together and got this rifle coated. I had him weld the sight holes shut and smooth them out so it looked like a smooth barrel from the factory. He did a great job but felt terrible about the time it took and wouldn't let me pay him. Class act.

The CDS scope that had been on it went belly up and wouldn't track so that was replaced with a 3.5-10 with the B&C reticle.







He was supposed to leave the bolt body uncoated but now that it is coated I don't hate it. With the scope it is 7.6 pounds and the 22" barrel is sure handy.

Took it out Monday to zero the new scope and make sure everything was still good. Once I had the scope zeroed with the 180 grain Accubond load I easily started busting rocks at 300 with the 300 yard hash. Just need to take it out with a spotter to confirm my 400 and 500 yard drops.

I have lots of rifles but this one just feels good and I expect it will probably become my most frequently used mountain hunting rifle. Even with a modest starting velocity the accubond is still north of 2,000 FPS and over 1,700 ft-lbs at 500 yards. I can't imagine anything in NA I wouldn't shoot with that combo and it looks like the accuracy is there.

Great write up.
Interesting project.
Enjoy.

dave

I enjoyed reading your write up. There is almost nothing worse, when it comes to costing you money, than a set of dies, or a box of bullets, or brass! I have saved myself a bundle, on numerous occasions, by giving items away. One set of dies, which I kept, cost me well over a thousand dollars which I will never recover.
I think you might do better with 165's if you switch to 4350 or something closer to that burn rate.
I met Rocky Gibbs when I was 15 years old, and he was an interesting guy; especially to a young rifle looney. GD

I may have to give that a shot on the 165s. The more I shoot the 180s the more I wonder if I would shoot anything else.

I may drop down and see what kind of max I can get out if a 150 just for giggles and maybe antelope.

Read up on Hammer bullets.
That would be an interesting combo..
dave

I have heard a lot of good things about the Hammers. Sounds like they are super easy to get to shoot and perform well on the terminal end.

That can't be. You must not have a good rifle and/or you've got Leupold derangement syndrome.

Signed,
John Burns

Yep, I have been a gold ring fan for a long time...probably have them on 15+ rifles. That is the first I have had with a real problem. I have a VX-Freedom here on my bench that was sitting on a new Savage 7-08 of my buddies. He was pulling his hair out with the rifle because he couldn't keep it on paper at 200. We threw a Bushnell I had laying around on it and he was immediately making consistent hits at 200 and 300 yards.

I will continue to shoot Leupolds because I have had very good luck overall even though the do throw out a lemon every once in a while.

I still use a bunch of them even though I've had a number of them repaired/rebuilt. Maybe I'm hard headed.

A hard headed gun guy??? Rare combination but I suppose it is possible.

Good review there
I need to get on my 30 Gibbs one day I have the dies and reamer

Great write-up MedRiver! I've never been a fan of iron sights on a scoped rifle, and your finished rifle looks great.

I had my .30-06 rechambered to .30 Gibbs by Les Bauska in Kalespell in the late '70s. He didn't have a Gibbs reamer, so he used an Ackley reamer and pushed it deeper to the Gibbs dimension.

That was my favorite elk rifle, shooting 180 grain Partitions for over 20 years. I was just starting to try 180 grain Barnes TSX bullets in it in the late '90s when a fireforming mishap pretty much ended that rifle's career. A gunsmith in Billings set back the barrel and cleaned up the chamber, but he couldn't completely fix the extractor, that rifle has been sitting in the back of my safe for 20 years.

I had admired the .300 Weatherby since I first started big game hunting in the mid '60s, so with the end of my .30 Gibbs I finally bought a .300 Wby which is now my favorite elk rifle.

Great read. When I was a kid, I had all the Gibbs info. from the shop. Finally gave it to a friend. Cool rifle and great story.

Thanks guys. Glad you enjoyed the write up. Didn't catch up to an elk yet this year but has been a joy to pack and is quickly becoming one of my favorites. My son doesn't seem to mind packing extra weight so he is packing my .300 Win mag these days.


Can you give some insight on the "mishap"??? Hoping to avoid one of those

That is pretty dang awesome. Congrats on a successful hunt.

Well, this project finally came full circle last week when I was able to fill a couple elk tags with the Gibbs on a shoulder hunt. The shots were just over 300 yards steep uphill and the wind was whipping a little (lot) harder than I thought where the elk were. I didn't hold enough for wind and both were hit farther back than I would have liked but the 180 grain Accubonds did their job and both cows went down within 50 yards of being hit. One made it to the timber so we gave her a little time before hiking up to recover.





It was just me and my buddy on the hill for the shooting part. The ranch manager brought his boy and mine up for the recovery which is when the pics were taken for all the internet wardens wondering why there are underage boys holding rifles with dead elk and no orange vests



Should have them all cut up in the next couple days.

Sure glad I had this rifle as they died much quicker then if I had been shooting my .30-06 or my .300 Win with the same bullet.

Congrats on the elk!

Ttt

Interesting you should bump this Bob...I am actually set to get this back in the next day or two after an unscheduled trip to the (rifle) doctor...

Seems that if you are a dumbass, get in a hurry, and forget you swapped the powder in your Chargemaster you can get a 180 Nosler Ballistic tip going 3,236 fps from a 22" barrel. Unfortunately, it will also lock up the bolt tight enough that the barrel has to be removed to get it out and the bolt will be damaged to the point where it is cheaper to replace the bolt rather than re-machine/repair the original. Don't be a dumbass.

Hoping to be hunting with it again this year.