An Old West Sibling?
Other than the necessity of the fourth die for best utilizing the taper crimping operation, the .30 Carbine reloads as easily as a standard straight-walled sixgun cartridge. The .30 Carbine is sure to be compared to the .32-20. The .32-20 has an all-important rim allowing bullets to be crimped for use in sixguns, but the .30 Carbine has much stronger brass. The necks of .32-20 brass were lost with regularity until the advent of Starline brass would solve the problem. This has never been a problem with the .30 Carbine brass. It’s as tough as the other Magnum sixgun cartridges.
Some have converted .30 Carbine Blackhawk cylinders to .32-20 and while it works, it does not work very well. The diameter of the .32-20 is big where the .30 Carbine is little, and vice-versa. Also, the .30 Carbine normally uses bullets of .310″ diameter while the .32-20 sixgun barrels usually call for .312″ bullets. Thompson/Center Contender barrels chambered in .32-20 are cut for .310″ and T/C reloading dies have two expanding buttons so either size bullet may be used.
I thought of having an auxiliary cylinder made for the .30 Carbine Blackhawk in .32-20, however my standard loads with the old .32 WCF cartridge would not have bullets matching up well with the barrel. It may not be a problem and accuracy may be fine, however I’ve not yet taken the step of having an auxiliary .32-20 cylinder made. Maybe someday. These days I spend much more time shooting the small bores than the big bores so this project is getting closer to fruition.
I assembled reloads with Speer’s 100-gr. Plinker; 110-gr. Remington, Sierra and Speer .30 bullets; and a generic batch of 110-gr. FMJs I had on hand. I used #2400; H110, powders I believe were originally designed for the .30 Carbine; H108, a non-canister powder I have on hand; and Accurate #9. I received an unwanted surprise from the latter powder as loads assembled with less than published maximum loads were too warm resulting in stuck cases in the Blackhawk cylinder. This Blackhawk turned out to be a very accurate sixgun with most loads in the 11/4″ category for five shots at 20 yards, with my most accurate load being the Speer 110-gr. JSP over 12.0 grains of #2400 for just over 1,400 fps and a 1″ group.
It is always said, “You cannot go back,” and this is generally true. However, once in a while a window opens to allow us to be young again. Shooting this Blackhawk made me feel young again, if only for a few hours.
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