30 Carbine Feed Problems

[thehouseproduct]

I have a Lee 113gr Boolit mold that I am having problems with feeding in my M1. Does anyone have any tips or tricks to get this to feed? Does the 120gr work better?

[Le Loup Solitaire]

Hi, The .30 carbine prefers round nose bullets and feeds them well. If the bullet is a flat nose or has a meplat then it could hang up on the edge of the flat and the rear rim of the chamber. Some folks have gotten flat nosers to work by bumping the edge of the meplat/flat against a round nose bullet punch, ( it can be done in a blubrisizer) and the feeding problem goes away. You can use this method to get your bullet to work ok, or else go for a round nose design-(120 gr. design). I think your bullet is ok if you get the flat rounded; its cheaper than buying a new mold. LLS

[mooman76]

I used the same bullet to load that cartridge. You did not say exactlly what you mean't by feeding problems. I did have allot of problems with this set up. I was just getting into reloading and this was one of my first rifle carts. loaded. I was just building up my confindence loading pistol and thought this would be easy being a straight walled brass. And before anyone says anything yes I know it has a slight taper to it. Anyway that was my first mistake and the second was to load up a couple hundred becaused I thought I was a seasoned loader. It fed them okay but because of the bullet design I could not get them to fire because the bullet kept the bolt from closing all the way even though it looked it. If you do use these bullets you have to set them very deep because of the meplat. I had many trips to the range trying to correct this problem so myself I will not use this bullet design in this any more. I believe the 120g Lee works good but have not used it(I don't even have that one). Lyman had a 113g one that is pointed that works well in that and also one similar but round nosed that is a little heavier, I believe some where in the 120-130g range. That prticular bullet woeks well in a variety of small 30 caliber carts and maybe some big ones too. Personally I would try a different bullet design.

[missionary5155]

Good morning thehouseproduct and WELCOME !
Carbines can be alot of fun... I taught my sons to shoot military semi-autos using my Carbine and cast boolits.
How smooth is your feedramp I polished mine with emory cloth to a very smooth finish. Just remove the tool marks..
FORGET boolits (flat nose) that do not have a similar nose profile to the round nose boolit. I found with MY rifle it was far easier to get a round nose 120+ grain boolit to feed and function. You need sufficient PRESSURE to cycle the system and LIGHTER boolits have to get pushed with HIGHER pressure to get the job done.
Unless you are much in Love with your present Lee mold why not change the nose shape on one cavity. I have done this with just a hand drill BUT use a drill press. Find what ever drill bit that is the same diameter as the nose area BUT that will NOT touch the greese groove rings. Better to be a little to small to start with... Clearly mark the drill bit as to depth in relation to the mold top (Masking tape wrapped around drill bit) Cuck the drill bit in the drillpress. Lock the mold in a padded table vise. OPEN the sprue plate. Center the mold under the drill bit. Clamp the table vise. Recheck centering... and slowly drill out the nose. You will will add about 7 grains of lead to the boolit wieght. Remember you only want to change the nose shape... not hog out a well.
So cast up several with the new nose. Load into EMPTY UNPRIMED cases. See if these cycle from the magazine into the chamber smoothly. Pull back the charger handle and release. A polished feed ramp and the new nose profile should get you shooting.
Attached foto in my Lee 90320 358 150SWC drilled out to about 180 swc this was done to increase wieght not just modify nose.

[Will]

I had the same set of problems. Hang ups and then the bolt not closing all the way. That mold has a sharp front band that can hang and will hit the lands when seated to the top of the grease grove. Polishing the ramp will help. Sizing to a smaller size (.308) will also help. I take the loaded round and twist the nose into some fine steel wool. This polishes the nose and removes the sharp edge of the front band. After doing this all of the rounds chamber easily and the bolt closes completely.

Will

[Patrick L]

I can't comment from personal experience with that mold, but looking at the picture on the Lee site, I would conclude that the flat point, and possibly the stubbiness of the bullet's length, are the problems. Experimenting with your overall cartridge length may help, but I'm doubtful. As someone else mentioned, you may be able to "radius" the nose a bit with an RN top punch.

I have owned 2 M1 carbines. Here is a picture of the two cast bullets I have for .30 carbine. Both are from group buys run on this site.
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb157/patrickl_01/Carbine/GunStuff045.jpg
The RN design on the right is currently being re-run on the Group Buys tab.

My Inland will feed either bullet 100% reliably. My Saginaw SG would not feed the flat point at all, which resembles your Lee 113 gr bullet in nose profile. The RN was 100% reliable. Since I didn't feel the need for two carbines, the Saginaw is no longer with me.

Both of these bullets are plainbase, or non gascheck. I like that, because the gascheck is an added expense and an added step in the processing that I don't think is necessary for the M1 carbine. Neither of my carbines showed any appreciable leading or lead buildup in the gas system after 100's of rounds fired without cleaning. And I have a castle wrench, so I removed the piston and looked for it. Different people have different opinions on this subject, but that has been my experience.

Here's a 100 yard target , which shows about how well it shoots, or at least how well I can shoot it
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb157/patrickl_01/Carbine/Picture016.jpg

My advice, since the opportunity is there, would be to grab one of these molds. In the meantime you can still experiment with your current mold, but this will give you another option. And if the new mold works, you'll have a six banger which will give you a PILE of bullets in a hurry.

[Larry Gibson]

thehouseproduct

I've shot literally thousand upon thousands of cast bullets through many different M1 and M2 Carbines (had 20 of them in my SF arms vault). I've been shooting SWCs and the Lyman 311316 almost exclusively for the last 25 years in the .30 carbine. Obviousll both bullets have flat meplats. A smooth feed ramp is benificial but I've found the critical place to be the edge of the feed ramp just as the cartridge is pushed forward out of the magazine and the bullet makes contact with the feed ramp. Many times there will be a small machined edge there. Smothing that edge off really makes feeding reliable. The other thing mentioned is the OAL. It also must be correct so that the edge of the meplat is coincidental to where the edge of a RN bullet would be on the ogive. Of course, as mentioned, the bullets must be seated deep enough so the bolt will close.

I suggest loading up several dummy cartridges and slowly adjust the OAL shorter testing the shorter OAL as you progress. Of course do this after smoothing the feed ramp as suggested.

The picture is of a 15 round mag ready to be loaded with cartridges having the 313631 SWC bullet loaded to 1950 fps. I HP them with the Forster 1/8" tool. Deady on varmints and extremely accurate. When my eyes were younger I could put 15 into 2-3" at 100 yards with my own 2 M1 Carbines.

Larry Gibson