I have a beautiful 44 1/2 Stevens with two barrels....38-55 and 219 Zipper. I want to have CPA build me another barrel somewhere between the two with the same cartridge head (30-30)

What do you recommend for target shooting at 200yds and less?

8.15X46R A real good oldie.

I take back what I said about having a decision to make. I forgot how cool stop-ring bullets are.

cmargs wrote on Mar 29^th, 2016 at 8:34pm:


And for a long time the standard by which all Schuetzen cartridges were judged.  Brass is easily made from several 30-30 case head size cartridges.  Superb old cartridge.

If you don't mind working up loads for the 33-47, then I'll 2nd JLouis recommendation.

Another interesting cartridge would be Steve Baldwin's 35-40 Maynard  based on the 38-55 case (easy to source brass for). Would be a delightful Schuetzen rifle. Steve also shoots it as his BPCR rifle (master shooter).

25-36 Marlin......just to be different.

Get a .308" or .311" barrel with rifling twist of 16", 14" or 12", (whichever your judgement tells you will be perfect), and chamber it for the .32-35 Stevens.  Have the reamer just a little generous at the head so that .30-30 shells, resized in a .32-40 sizing die and cut to length, will drop into the chamber without the need to thin the head in front of the rim.

You will have your choice of any .30 caliber mould design you think would be best. There are probably more of those designs than the .32s, .33s, .35s and .38s put together. Longer ones will need the tighter twists, and if you need to be "legal," you may have to mill off a gas check shank or ream it out, a trivial job.  Like the Poor and Disenfranchised (and their advocates), .30-30 shells will always be with us, so there will be no future ammunition scarcities to worry about.

I have a Stevens 107 original that fits such shells and am planning on testing out a Krieger .308 barrel chambered for the shell and the Ideal 311403 design.  Everything I've seen so far shows a lot of potential in both.  It's a real Stevens cartridge, of the head size you seek, and the "modernization" amounts to only a few thousandths of an inch on a couple dimensions, so it doesn't set the Traditionalist's teeth on edge.

I will second the 32/35 (.308 - .312 groove) and it's a Stevens cartridge. I successfully shot it for 10 years and have a "ton" of loading data, including 2000+ fps CBA loads, both fixed and Bsed. It's the same rim diameter as the 32/40 but, a smaller case head so, the extractor will still work.

Curiously enough, it's a 2.2cc full case capacity, the same as the 7.62 x 39.

DO NOT use a 30/30 case head, it's NOT a 32/35 if you do.

Frank