Everyone, I am looking for info on any wildcat based off of the 30-30 winchester case. In particular, .257, 6mm, and 6.5 mm. I know you have the BRM rounds, but would like real world experience from some of these rounds. I am looking at taking a stevens 325 C and pulling the barrel off, doing away with the barrel nut, and buying a blank to have threaded for this action. Any help with any of these rounds please?

Maybe it's just me, but the single locking lug and generally crappy trigger of the entire Savage 340 family seems like they would be a poor platform to put $$ into.

I understand your valid points .260. But I bought the rifle for little to nothing, and figure why not. I am going to do away with the barrel nut, and just thread a barrel for the action. Kind of thought it to be a nice rifle myself. The lady likes it, so thought a shorter range deer rifle would be nice to make her

I think that a 25-35AI would be pretty cool.

Bullberry Improveds (from Bullberry Barrel Works)

I was reading about the .25-35 tomcat last nite. A very interesting round to say the least. Does it share the same rim dia as the 30-30?

i have owned a couple of guns chambered for the .25x30/30 Ackley Improved for a few years...it is not too far from .250/3000 speeds. Reloder15 has worked well for me with bullets from 75-90gr. Both my guns are TC's, a 15" pistol, and a 22" carbine.

i use virgin 30/30 brass, neck down to 7mm with a 7x30 waters die, then neck to .257 using my .25x30/30AI dies. After necking to .257, i trim to 2.05", load, and fireform.

If you anneal you may be able to go .257 in a step, but without annealing i was crushing a bit of brass in going from .30 to .25 in one pass. Both my .25's are 1-10 twist and shot everything from 70-100 gr fairly well. The 15" shoots about any 85-87gr bullet great. In the 22" barrel, the barnes 80gr TTSX has become my do-all bullet.

I had a 6.5x30/30AI built recently, 22" barrel, and it is a 1-8" twist....also shoot the standard 30/30 ackley. In necking down 30/30, i think we only lost a few cases when necking down to .264.

also been shooting the regular 30/30 ackley for a long time, been happy with it as well.

Both my .25 and 6.5mm -AI dies are from Ch4D.

Thank you very much for the post FyrePowr, I definitely love that rifle in your hands. The .25 and 6.5 are probably more of interest to me than some of the other rounds. I wanted something that would be a good fit to the rifle, while offering reloading components that are readily available. I have nothing against the 30-30, but would like to extend its range a bit and at the same time mess with a wild cat as this. Partly because, I have been wanting to mess with some of the same bullet diameters based off of the .303 and the 30-40 krag. I know case capacity is very different, but feel that if I mess with a lesser capacity case first, I can figure out if I really want to step to the larger rimmed cases. With your 25 and 6.5 versions, what ballistics are you getting?

what about the 7mm Eastern Times Whatever? Its based on a 307 case, but might work.

Micky, you know I have read about that one in the past but forgot all about it. I might have to check it out. If someone has the case dimensions, that would be a start. This is one of those cases where I know I can not expect magnum ballistics, but I feel I can better the 30-30 by going another route while staying within the same rim dia.

Wild thought here so bear with me. Can you turn the .444 marlin rim down to fit a 30-30 bolt? If so, would the case be to large in diameter to function? I ask because if it could work, it could offer more case capacity and a stronger case to work with

Regardless of which cartridge you pick, you may find that getting them to work though the Savage 340 series magazines might be a challenge.

My pick would be a .25 based on the .30-30 or 25-35 either one Ackley Improved. For somewhat more power the .25 Ackley Krag would be my choice.

That is one thing I have put a little thought into. That is more the reason why I want to stick with a round based off of the 30-30 case

I do really love the looks and sound of the 2 original rounds I was asking about. The 25 and 6.5 in the Improved versions. And yes, I really do like the looks of the 25-35 and the improved versions of it. For the purposes of this rifle, I think it may fill the needs I am after pretty well. Perhaps some members here can offer some ballistics on some of these rounds?

Check your magazine and make sure it will accept an overall length for the bullets you plan on using. I had dreams of shooting "pointy" bullets in my Remington 788 30-30. The problem was my magazine would not allow it.

I will do that and get back to you on this. If I go with a necked down version, I would or rather could make do with the lighter weights of the bullet diameters. If by chance the round(s) are still to long, the 25-35 with up to 100 grain bullets may be the better choice

Micky mentioned the round on the 307 case. That was known as the 7mm Shooting Times Easterner. It was built to be used in the Marlin 336 series and is basically a 7-08 shooting a flat nosed bullet. Developed by Layne Simpson. Just might be a little much for the rifle in question. Not sure, just threw that out there. Good round though.

80's will be running a touch over 2900, 85's at about 2850 in the .25 variant. Probably could hit 3000 fps with 80's if you tried, and 70 gr blitzkings would hollow out some varmints pretty good at over 3100fps.

I seem to recall reading from a fellow TC shooter who is on here also said his 6.5mm version was getting around 2600-ish with 120's...Bobby, if you see, this, correct me if i'm wrong on that....

As for the .444, i have owned a couple of wildcats on that case, but case head diameter would essentially be .473 (308 sized) even with rims turned, and if you could make it feed (unlikely) you'd still have the issues of that size case head giving a bit too much bolt thrust/pressure to work in that action unless you hobbled loads down to very low speeds....dont think it'd be worth it...

.303 and 30-40 Krag,with rims turned down, abut equals the .35remington as far as case head size. I use both to make .35rimmed (load using .35rem dies, but formed from either of those cases trimmed shorter and fireformed.) Again, dont think you'd gain much going to those, with feeding/pressure constraints.

i've killed several deer, several 'yotes, and a few hogs with my .25x30/30AI, kills stuff well, and very low recoil.....







If bobby sees this, he's killed enough stuff with the 6.5 to fill a dump truck, so i'll let him give you the scoop on the 6.5mm.....

Many moons ago, I had an E A Brown single shot built in 6.5 BRM for my then infant son. He turns 21 in a month! It is a bit different in that it has a 21 inch light barrel with a 12.5 inch lop. With the short barrel, it will easly do 2300 fps with 140 gr bullets. 120gr BT are accurate and do 2500 from my short barrel. My son killed his first buck with a 100gr partition at 2500fps - a really lite load. I have loaded them to 2750 in this rifle. Bet you could do 100 - 150 fps faster with a 24 - 26 inch barrel and still have a handy single shot.

Well then, I like the sounds more and more of the .25 version. I will have to speak to my local gunsmith to find out some things dealing with it first. One thing that does intrigue me is tho it will not be a magnum round, the ballistics of the .25 caliber version seems to offer pretty good velocity figures from a shorter length barrel. It looks like you were pretty close in saying in compares to the .250 savage, at least with the smaller weight bullets. I think that would be more than enough to do what I want it to. On your .25 version, what is your length you are loading to?

Seems like I heard about an old wildcat for the M94 called the .30 Leverpower...not even sure what case it's based on but it may be worth a look.

.30 Leverpower Googled it.

I want to say it was based on a .30-40 krag case with the rim turned down to fit a 30-30 bolt. It is a case I have wanted to get to down the road, the 30-40 case that is. My end goals with this rifle are a simple rifle with a peep sight, 22-24" barrel and decent ballistics that will take a deer cleanly out to around 200 yards. I will have to check in to that leverpower tho. Thanks for the new idea

If you can get it to feed, should be pretty stellar in the 325.

Why not 7-30 Waters?

The 7-30 waters is one I have never tried or even been around. How hard is it to form brass from 30-30 cases? On a side note, I have also had the thought put into my ear about sending the rifle to JES and having it re-bored to either 38-55 or .375 winchester.

I put together a 7-30 Waters for my wife - she likes it. One pass thru the 7-30 die makes brass from 30-30. I then fireform with a cast bullet.
Another option is a 6.5 Bower - 307 Win necked down (and improved - I think). Mine likes slooow powder (surplus BMG powder) and heavy bullets.
If you go the rebore route - the 35-30 is popular.

I don't know about the .444, but a buddy of mine used .38-55 brass to neck to 7-30 Waters. It worked pretty well, although he did crush a couple of cases. The .38-55 cases were ready to shoot without much fire forming needed. Pretty much load up and shoot and the first firing took the case to finished form without the need for a lesser case forming load.

Cowboybart, pm me. I am very interested in the 6.5 bower. I have never heard of this round at all. Could you tell me a bit about it please

Years ago I had a 7x30 waters in a TC contender carbine. Used ordinary 120 gr and 139 gr cup and core bullets and 156 gr cast
The 139 hornady fb will work in the 340 mag.

Never chronographed the loads but the deer and coyotes died just the same.

30-30 brass and one pass through the dies and the loads were good to go

Flyer

I never really thought of the .30-30 as a very good case to wildcat (even in my looney days of cartridge conversion). The .30-30, .25-35 and .22 Zipper pretty much cover all the bases that I consider useful.

A second problem was the rifles typically chambered for the .30-30 also limit what can be done due to basically weak actions or tubular magazines (or both).

However, there was one conversion I did try and find extremely useful......the .35-30. This is sort of in the opposite direction you are talking about (necked up....not down), but is very easy to do and filled a perceived need I saw at the time.

I always liked the Winchester 94 rifles for woods use, but didn't like the .30-30 as well as other lever action rounds I'd used. The .32 Special came pretty close, but wasn't in the same class as a .35 Remington for close range work.....but the .35 Remington wasn't available in the Model 94.

With a .35-30 I could duplicate .35 Remington ballistics in a Model 94 rifle by simply necking up the .30-30 case to .35 caliber. This was great in the early 1970's (when I was experimenting).

Since that time the .375 Winchester was introduced which accomplished the same objective with a factory round (and even more bore size....a good thing) and makes the .35-30 a bit less attractive. However a rifle looney doesn't NEED a really good reason to experiment, so the .35-30 might be just what you are looking for.

I have not over looked going up instead of down TexasRick. Actually I have given it much thought. Since I do not see this rifle as a long range rig anyway and being as I am not going to scope it but rather put a peep on. The 35 version has appealed to me as I have thought of sending the rifle to JES to get it rebored to the .35

Here is some Don Bower info:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_UsW5Ms1pP0dlNrSkJycmtPTk0/view

http://specialtypistols.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/4766056864/m/4350046676

Since you are interested in a 25 or 6.5 on a 30/30 case, perhaps consider a rimmed version of the 25 Remington (which is a rimless 30/30 design). Unlike the 25/35, it has a reasonable case design and should feed much better than more extreme AI type designs. Dies are available which would leave you to find someone with a reamer.

I'd be concerned with the availability of brass using any of the rimless remington cartridges as a base. The Savage 340 is already set for the 30-30 rimmed case.

Fun project I did a switch barrel for a guy in 219 zipper..there are som thing you can do to improve the action....we made a single shot and welded in a piece to thread for a second screw...it shot unde 1/2 inch with both barrels...trigger is going to be tough....

In case I wasn't all that clear, the chamber is cut with a 25 Remington reamer (and a separate operation to cut the rim). The dies are 25 Rem but the shellholder is for a 30/30. The cases are formed from regular, rimmed 30/30 brass. The formed cases will look ike a 25 Remington with a 30/30 rim.