Reloading 30 Remington (Not 30 Rem AR)

[aggie_2010]

My dad has an old 30 Remington pump that he has always liked to shoot. However, I don't think ammo is made for this caliber anymore, and from the searching I've done I haven't been able to find a good (economical) source of 30 Rem. brass either. Anyways, can you convert another, more available, cartridge into 30 Remington, or am I out of luck?

[SHR970]

You are out of luck. The only other cases that have the same head diameter that I know of is 6.8SPC, 40 S&W*, and 10 mm auto but the case was shortened to fit the AR platform. 30 Rem. is big greens rimless 30-30 Win. If you can get brass, you use 30-30 load data and components and you will be fine.

* some sources show the 40 S&W to be about .001-.002 larger.

[hammie]

Not totally out of luck. .30 Remington can be resized from .25 remington or .32 remington. Unfortunately that brass is usually even harder to find and more expensive. .35 remington brass will NOT work. You can also turn the rim of a .30-30 down to .422 and re-cut the extractor groove.

The best alternative is to just buy some .30 remington brass. Graf and sons has it for about 48$/100 and they show it in stock and available. Their website is grafs.com

[44 AMP]

Your issue seems to be the cost of the .30 Rem brass. Afraid that with this round there is no alternative. Obsolete and niche rounds cost more. Thats just the way it is in a capatalist system. Low demand means low supply, and low supply means higher prices. The actual physical material used has less to do with the price in this case than the supply and demand situation.

9mm Luger is about the lowest price centerfire handgun ammo out there, due to the huge volume made. Smaller rounds like the .25, .32, & .380 use less raw materials per round, but cost more, due to the lesser demand. And its about the same with rifle cartridges too.

You are looking at reloading for an obsolete round, and one that has not come back to full life due to nostalgia and the cowboy action shooting game. Its not going to be as cheap as more popular rounds. Sorry.

Many obsolete rounds have been put back into limited production, due to the general nostalgia interest that was boosted by cowboy shooting. Many rounds that are not used in cowboy shooting are again available, where before they were not. But they aren't cheap, and usually are more expensife than more common ammo. Suck it up, open the wallet, and pay what they want for a decent supply of brass. The important thing is that you can get, and make ammo for the old Remington. The fact that you can't get it as cheap as you would like is less important than the fact that you can get/make it. There are still many, many obsolete calibers that you cannot get any new ammor for, at any price. Ask the guy with the 5mm Rem Mag, or the .41 Swiss (both rimfires) how easy it is to get ammo.

I've got a .350 Rem Mag. Ammo is running about $2 per round, when I can find it, and brass is about $1 per case, and only Remington ever made it. I even have couple guns that commercial ammo either was never made for, or only made in tiny quantities, decades ago. Fortunately, those guns use ammo that can be formed from other brass. Still expensive, in terms of cost and labor, but not completely unavailable, like an out of production rimfire round.