I recently acquired a Virgin Valley Custom Guns carbine barrel in 7mmx30-30AI. Can anyone educate me on this round? How does it compare with the 7x30 Waters or 7x30 Waters AI?. Any case forming tips? Loads? All info is greatly appreciated. BTW, its a shooter

I'm not sure. I have a 7mm Int-R, which is the 30-30 necked down to 7mm, and the case blown out, I can't remember the shoulder angle. 140 gr bullets at 2200 fps out of a 14" Contender. If you use 375 Win brass, I'm told you can get another 100 fps, but I've never tried it. I don't know about case capacity on this one (I'm not at home, so I can't just check it). The 7-30 Waters is supposed to be good for another 100 fps yet, as I don't own one, I don't know for sure. FWIW - Dan

Looking at a case diagram, the 7-30 waters has a rim to shoulder base lenglth of 1.586" and shoulder diam. of .399" with a slightly steeper shoulder. The 30-30 has a rim to shoulder base of 1.441" and shoulder diam. of .401" I would think the 30-30AI has just as much capacity with that blown out and moved forward shoulder as the 7mm waters. Anyway, the .30-30AI is said to give 200 to 300 ft/sec more velocity at standard .30-30 pressures.