30 Carbine bullets

[Longone]

Can someone recommend a cast bullet mfg. that makes a good quality bullet for the carbine? I don't shoot my carbine much so I just can't justify buying a mold.

Thanks, Longone

[mto7464]

PM sent.

[mooman76]

Rainier makes a 30 cal. plated bullet.

[buck1]

I have shot a ton of the bulk remingtons 110gr . Very good results.

[Dark Helmet]

http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=160674

[Larry Gibson]

Last time I looked at quality .30 cal GC'd bullets a hundred of them cost more than a 2 cavity Lee mould.

Larry Gibson

[Echo]

Longone, if you already have casting equipment, what Larry said. The Lee 120 gr gc has worked very well for me. If you don't have the furnace &cetera - never mind.

[T-Bird]

I am, at present, getting the best results that I've had with the lee "soupcan" that many people on this forum have shot in a variety of 30 cal. applications. I'm loading it in a pistol but I'm sure it would feed in a rifle and the Lee mould is cheap. I shoot it over 12gr Imr 4227. Shoot Straight , T-Bird

[gds]

get the lee 120 grain mold. I shoot it without gas check and have an absolute blast with it. It really is worth it.

[jcwit]

Another good one to try is the Lee #90301, 311-100-2R, its not gas checked but works well. I size to .310.

[Longone]

Boy, you guys are tough. Here I thought I was just going to buy some boolits and that would be the end of the story, now I have to buy a mold and go to work.
From your experience is PB or GC better or does it even matter in a Carbine.

Thanks, Longone

[beagle]

PB is as good as a GC in a carbine.

I put about 2,000 rounds through one and checked the piston and it was still clean and functional except for the powder fouling so that's not a factor.

If you have a carbine, you have to have a good mould. Bananna clips and cast go right together...along with a lot of primers./beagle

[Larry Gibson]

Disagree with beagle, sort of. Depends on what you want for accuracy; the best your M1 Carbine will give or just rounds down range. A PB bullet (designed that way) will give pretty good accuracy if your loads are kept under 1600 fps. Many are happy with 6-8+ moa accuracy with PB bullets out of their M1 Carbines. The usual thing is to bless off these loads because the M1 Carbine is "inaccurate" anyway. M1 carbines can be quite accurate but you won't find it with PB bullets.

However, if you want the best accuracy and want to equal factory/milsurp velocity the a GC bullet is the only way to go. With a good Carbine and good loads accuracy of 3 moa or less is quite posible. I'm talking consistent accuracy BTW; not just a 3 shot group.

Get the Lee mould, you'll not regret it.

Larry Gibson

[beagle]

Larry, like you say, depends on what you want. Very few carbines are used for anything but plinking. Heck, I can get maybe 4" at 100 yards if I'm lucky and that's with a GC'd bullet.

The PB bullets are darn near as accurate and GCs are too expensive right now to enable you to shoot the carbine in quantity.

Face it, the M1 Carbine is a fun good and good for the occasional varmint target of opportunity. Just not worth the extra expenditure for GCs.

Just MHO./beagle

[mto7464]

I agree with Larry. I only shot a GB PB boolit for awhile, then I got a Lyman mold with a GC. What a difference. The GCed boolits shoots just as good or better then j-bullets, but my 6 hole PB mold puts them out a lot faster so I will continue to use both.

[medicstimpy]

Berry's and Frontier both make an excellent plated bullet for 30 Carbine. It's 110gr RN so works well in 30-30 and sometimes I even load them into a .308. Some say you can load them in 7.62x25Tokarev, too. I can't speak from experience how they shoot out of a 30 Carbine since I don't have one, but I'm happy using them in the two above mentioned rifle calibers.

Plated are great because they are a little cheaper than jacketed bullets and at least near me are available so that leaves lots of lead ingots available for my other calibers.