Has anyone ever necked the .38 case down to .30 caliber? I've tried the usual search engines and came up blank.

What I have in mind is to simply run the brass through a .30 Mauser (7.62x25) size die. This produces a sort of rimmed .30 Mauser with about 1/8" of extra neck. It looks like it would be the ticket for plinking and small game with 110-150 grain cast boolits out of a small carbine such as the T/C... or it just might be interesting out of a revolver as well. It would offer just slightly less capacity than the M1 Carbine, probably similar to the .32/20- only with cheaper, stronger, much more easily available brass. The reamer and dies already exist, so it shouldn't be too expensive an undertaking. Just wondering if anyone's been there and done that... and what the results were.

Porosonik.

I did exactly that, and put it on a martini cadet. Take off barrel, miltary stock, just to see if it would work. It does ..... sort of. You get a little more bulge at the base then I would like, but as you say, brass is cheap.

why not take a 38 sp. and neck it down to 25, 24, 22, and 204 calibers. esp in encore and contender
barrels.

quote:

Originally posted by tdoyka:
why not take a 38 sp. and neck it down to 25, 24, 22, and 204 calibers. esp in encore and contender
barrels.

Don't really need the velocity. There's already the .22 Hornet, .222, .223, etc for that. What I'm thinking about is something to drive .30 cal. cast boolits at cast boolit velocities without downloading an oversized case to the point it becomes position sensitive, powder wise. Oh, and cheap brass would be a plus as well!

Porosonik.

in the early nineties I remodeled the 32 Miller cartridge over a picnic table at Golden with the Millers. I had been to the Super Shoot that spring with Russ Hayden, and was impressed by the 100% loading density with the 6PPC.

Dean offered to build me a Schuetzen Rifle over that winter. I took a swag, and suggested to Dean and Cyle that they simply reduce the case length by 1/4". I had a credit for a set of reamers from Jim Cuthbert, and the next spring I owned the first 32 Miller Short. It owns Schuetzen. It is basically a 38 Spl shortened to 1.270".

The 256 win mag kinda sorta fits.

I did that (necking down 38 spl to 30 cal for trigger practice indoors. I used a primer and a 110 HP bullet. Remember this is not accuracy practice but trigger control and sight alignment practice. The practice took me from AA to AAA class in about a month. It teaches muscle memory without a muzzle blast or any felt recoil. The bullets come out tumbling but are stopped by an inch of cardboard.

I never tried to chamber a barrel for the cartridge and actually fire for real use but there are stranger rounds out there.