Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Question about handloading my 30 Luger P08 pistol.

I want to handload for my Parabellum pistol because factory ammo is so expensive. I currently handload for my other pistols and have for a long time. What I don't know is can I neck down 9MM cases to 30 Luger? I know the army wanted a larger bore cartridge so Georg Luger just straightened out the bottleneck 30 Luger case to .355 and gave us the 9MM. What do you think? Might have to inside neck ream? Thanks.

Sve yourself some grief.

www.midwayusa.com/browse/BrowseProducts.aspx?pageNum=1&tabId=1&categoryId=7571&categoryString=9315***652***670***9014***

I don't use handguns but $21 per 50 doesn't seem that expensive to me.

http://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/category/categoryId/8

To help with your question though, according to the Handloaders Manual of Cartridge Conversions the length of the .30 Luger is .849" while that of the 9mm Luger is .754"
This book says to use 9mm Win Mag brass to make the .30 Luger case.

My copy of "Cartridges Of The World" shows the 30 case length as .75" and the 9MM case as .76" long. I can't find that Fiocchi locally and didn't really want to pay all the hazmat shipping on it. I don't know what the quality of their brass is either. Starline is back ordered on it too. Rem and Win ammo is a buck a piece. Thanks for your response.

That's funny that COTW would show the .30 Luger to be .750".

All of my Lyman manuals from #43 on show ~.850" with a trim to length of .845".
As does all 6 references shown on Loaddata.com

Wikipedia shows 21.59mm which is ~.850"

The actual designation of the .30 Luger is 7.65x21 which indicates a longer case as well.

I'd say COTW is wrong on this one.

COTW is dead wrong.

I just remembered we have a few fired cases from this pistol. I found the bag of brass and measured them and I'm getting .843" thru .850". So yeah, COTW got that one wrong. I guess I'll bite the bullet and buy some factory ammo so I'll have some cases. I see Natchez SS has their RCBS dies for the 30 Luger on sale for 30 bucks so I'll grab those. Thanks for the info nsaqam.

I"ve noticed a lot of errors in Cartidges of the World, still a good reference source though.

As to the 30 Luger I just made a batch of them out of the 9x21 brass that was wasting away on the shelf. One pass thru the die and its done, no trim, no hassle in forming, just 9x21 in and loaded 30 Luger out. I had some 71gr acp bullets and a dose of Bullseye and shazzaamm, ammo..

Im going to try some heavier bullets for feed and function just because, I'm thinking a plated 100gr might be cost effective and a 85gr HP for whatever.

Errors in a work do not make it a good reference

I suppose not, I can always ask for the opinion of the day on the computer and hope that who ever answers knows his ass from a hole in the ground. The book has lots of nice pictures tho....

A good refferrence is accurate, errors cause many problems.

9X21 brass huh? Nice. I'll try that. Thanks SOFMatchstaff. I was just on Hornady's website and they list a .309" 90 grain hollow point XTP bullet. Got to get some of those for sure. This pistol is a family heirloom so I would never get rid of it but at the same time it's not really good for much but plinking so that's what I'm going to do with it. Maybe some .309 hardcast bullets if I can find any.

Grafs has both Fiocchi and Winchester brass in stock for the .30 Luger.

They also have Starline 9x21 brass but unless you insist on Starline brass I'd just get the cheap Fiocchi .30 Luger and give that a try.