.30 Remington M141 Pumpgun

[NVcurmudgeon]

About the time I added this interesting and kind of funky rifle to my collection, I was getting ready to move. Yes, funky, you gotta love a rifle with an action that sounds like a bank vault, a seven groove barrel, a magazine with spiral grooves that moves back with the slide handle, chambered for an almost proprietary cartridge, and a weird looking and hard to find Lyman tang sight (Finally found one.) Now, 2 1/2 years PM (post move) it's time to give this rifle the attention it deserves. First thing was to make ammuntion that would function. Apparently this rifle was the inspiration for tight neck bench rest chambers. Cartridges loaded with standard length (2.040") cases, and Lyman 311291 seated to the crimp groove chamber hard, and you better shoot them because it's the only way they are coming out. Boolits are sized .3094" for the .3082" groove diameter. After a little experimenting, I trimmed cases to 1.960", or .080" short. This allows easy chambering, though boolits are engraved for about 1/4" yet loaded rounds can be easily extracted. Right now no crimp is used, just letting the seating die iron out the flare. The previous owner used the Lee factory crimp die, which I have always shunned, not wanting to mangle hard to find brass, or my mercilessly inspected boolits. If these .30 Remington Shorts shoot reasonabley well, next step will be exploring magazine feeding.

[Buckshot]

............Ah! The adventure and mystery of it all :-) . It keeps you young and vital Bill.

..............Buckshot

[Pilgrim]

I've got three of those in the safe (actually two M14's and one M 141) in .25, .30, and .35 Rem. There are parts (not complete though) for a 4th rifle in .32 Rem on the bench, but I haven't decided whether or not to complete it, or to use the receiver to replace the receiver on the .25 Rem. These were/are good rifles and accurate for their type. Not particularly light, but nice to carry. That receiver sight you found for your rifle is quite spendy now-a-days unless you got lucky. If I recollect correctly, they were selling for $100+ for anything in decent shape the last I checked (a couple of years ago). I bought some .30 Rem brass in bulk a couple of years ago, so keep watch on the outfits that sell bulk brass. Rem still makes it, but I suspect it's an occasional thing, not regular production. If you get desperate, you can turn the rim off of .30-30 and cut a small extraction groove in the case ahead of the former rim and you are good to go. I've done that just for the heck of it to make sure I can keep on shooting if brass gets hard to find or my guv'mnt gets more nasty re: guns in the future. FWIW...Pilgrim

[NVcurmudgeon]

Pilgrim, Huntington's in Oroville was a good source for .30 Rem. brass a couple of years ago. I have about 300-400 and probably won't need any more. Huntington's has a lot of brass in calibers much more unusual than .30 Rem. I paid $75 + postage for my tang sight, again, a couple of years ago, and was glad to get it. Got a a spare magazine dust cover?

[Denver]

I had a Model 14 in 30 Rem as my second deer rifle after using a model 25 Rem 32-20 that my Dad bought new in 1936. He bought a used Model 14 30 Rem and gave me the 32-20. I bought my 14 a couple years later. Killed a couple nice bucks with it before trading it for a Win 94 30/30 that I still have. The one my Dad had was given to a nephew and was later stolen from him. I never loaded for the 30 as it was before my ventures into hand loading and boolit casting. Still have the 32-20 tho, and shoot it occasionally with cast.

:castmine: :Fire: