I have a .30 Carbine Blackhawk and it is a neat gun that I enjoy. Even still, I most often find myself posting opinions on why it's NOT one that most folks should get, or would enjoy.
Honestly, my motivation is purely honest: I feel that the most helpful information is to reveal the warts and if any perspective buyer can look at those warts and assess them, and
still decide the gun is for them, then HECK YEAH! My opinions may be helpful. I know that when I'm looking for information on a gun that has my interest, what I
really want to know are the negatives. So that I can look at those complaints and see how they stack up before I buy.
So, my complaints with the .30 Carbine:
--that long barrel looks cool, but it's a bit unwieldy. Fun for shooting on range day, but would be a royal PITA to belt carry...and while riding around on a 4-wheeler? Perhaps a chest carry, crossdraw kind of deal, or stuck in a case mounted to the vehicle. I just know that when I'm hauling handguns to the range, there's always one big long goofy one and it's just not quite as easy to deal with.
--yep, it's loud. That doesn't bother me a bit because I've got very sensitive ears so I don't shoot anything,
anything without quality ear protection. But if you intend to go outdoors and snipe at critters -- you've got a tremendous problem on your hands if you don't intend to wear ear protection. You'll damage your hearing and I don't think that's just an assumption. It's an ear-splitting 40,000 PSI crack.
--with factory ammo, every .30 Carbine Blackhawk is a royal pain in the tuckus with regards to case ejection. I've never heard of one that isn't and mine is no different. I remember the horrified feeling I had on the first day I owned my revolver when I couldn't get through a full box of Federal American Eagle without removing the cylinder to get the brass out. This "feature" is mostly related to the .30 Carbine being a clearly tapered case, but it could probably be cleaned up a bit with some better chamber polishing & finishing. But this is a
real and not imagined phenomenon.
--with handloads, you can tailor the power level to a point where the brass ejects easier but it comes at the cost of velocity. It does help to mop out the chambers between loads or every other cylinderful. But a big ding against the .30 Carbine is that it's much more time consuming or difficult or just plain annoying to load at the load bench. The tapered case and high pressure means that it grows in length and in the B'Hawk, case length is
critical, and if you don't have that case length in a sweet spot, the revolver gets tied up like a bank vault. If you trim them too short, the firing pin will
not light them off. And this is not even addressing the lack of bullet choices for .30 Carbine or the fact that you must lube .30 Carb cases to size them.
It may sound like I
hate my .30 Carb B'Hawk. I definitely do not!
It's cool, it's louder 'n all holy hell and it blows a big fireball and all with very little felt recoil. It's just a big handful of fun and it's also fun to have something that's pretty much different than what most folks have at the range. It's exceedingly accurate and it does a terrific job at long distances -- I've played with mine at 100 yards on a few occasions.
I won't be selling mine. But I find myself much more drawn to the .327 Federal Magnum which is very, VERY similar when it all comes together. The .327 Federal fixes a bunch of my complaints about the .30 Carbine in a B'Hawk (while introducing a few new problems!
) but if the question is:
.30 Carb B'Hawk vs. .357 Mag B'Hawk for varmints & such in the outdoors: I'd go with the .357 Magnum. Or better yet, I'd take the .327 Federal over both, but -ONLY- if you are a handloader.