375 Winchester from 30/30

[BAGTIC]

Nonte probably didn't put the muzzle within a few inches of his wife's sheets. Back up a respectable distance from the jug and see what effect it has. Substitute a fast powder such as Red Dot for the Unique and use a quarter sheet of toilet paper to keep the powder in place in the base of the case.

[BAGTIC]

They went the Roy Weatherby route. Of course the 6.8 was still rejected by the military because of high Pressures. We have a lot more powders available today than back then. Look for a more appropriate powder.

[BAGTIC]

If one shortens the case length by shortening the neck it should have no effect on pressure as long as the same bullet is loaded to the same OAL. It is not the gross case capacity that affects pressure it is the net usable capacity after the bullet is seated. One for example could either lengthen or shorten the neck of a 30-30 without affecting net capacity of the loaded round.

[nanuk]

Case capacity is not the deciding factor. Chamber dimensions are.

[justashooter]

much ado about nothing.

de-prime and resize 30-30 cases. re-prime and load 5 grains green dot or similar under a full case of cream of wheat. load into gun with muzzle pointing up. pull trigger. reload with .375 castings to less than 1500 foot pounds energy. recommended load around 10 grains unique under pillow stuffing for about 1100 fps. missouri bullet company has .375 and .379 castings. done this a lot, no ill effects, accurate enuf for plinking.

as far as containing the blast from forming: i made a bird box about 12" long from 1X6 and drilled a 1" hole in one end to fire into. the back side is a quadrupled bath towel. the box is clamped to a shelf side above my reloading bench.

[Twicepop]

Making .375 cases from 30-30s has a couple of shortcommings. The finished re-formed cases will be shorter than factory spec .375 cases. Another problem is that the .375 is a 50,000 cup loaded cartridge and the 30-30 is loaded to about 38-39,000 cup. The 30-30 brass is thinner from the neck through the lower case wall area than the .375 brass is, and could rupture if loaded to max pressure.

[EDG]

I have yet to section the base of a .375 case but the case walls thickness at the neck are exactly the same thickness as a fire formed .30-30 cases. For full power jay loads it might make some difference but at cast bullet velocities I don't think the case strength difference is significant. The cases are a little shorter. If that is a problem more expensive 38-55 brass can be used if shortened.

Making .375 cases from 30-30s has a couple of shortcommings. The finished re-formed cases will be shorter than factory spec .375 cases. Another problem is that the .375 is a 50,000 cup loaded cartridge and the 30-30 is loaded to about 38-39,000 cup. The 30-30 brass is thinner from the neck through the lower case wall area than the .375 brass is, and could rupture if loaded to max pressure.

[kopperl]

That is how I made my first loads. Bought 30-30 brass put 8 g of unique and a 150g 308 cast bullet and fired it in the 375.

[tygar]

Have you guys seen this by Buffalo Bore bullets?

Using Our 38-55 Ammo in 375 Winchester Chambered Rifles

Using Our 38-55 Ammo in 375 Winchester Chambered Rifles

Our 38-55 ammo is designed to work in all 38-55 chambered firearms made with modern metallurgy for smokeless powder. It operates at 38,000 CUP—the 30-30 Winchester operates at an average max. pressure of 38,500 CUP. For those who are not aware, the 30-30 case is simply a necked down 38-55 casing.
OUR 38-55 AMMO WORKS IN ALL WINCHESTER 375 RIFLES
Our 38-55 ammo is also designed to work in ALL 375 Winchester chambered rifles. ALL means ALL. Winchester, Savage, and Marlin all chambered rifles in 375 Winchester. All 375 Winchester rifles utilize chambers long enough to accept the 2.085 inch 38-55 brass, even though 375 Winchester brass is only 2.020 inches long. By using the longer 38-55 brass, we accomplish two things:

1. We get the bullet closer to the rifling’s and this creates a generally more accurate load. 2. The longer 38-55 brass, with thinner case walls than 375 Winchester brass, gives much more case capacity and this allows chamber pressures to drop immensely. i.e. our 38-55 loads give the same performance (a 250gr. bullet @ 2000 fps) as the original 375 Winchester loading, but at only38,000 CUP instead of the industry max. pressure of 52,000 CUP that the original 375 Winchester was rated at.

TIME-TESTED & WELL-PROVEN
The concept of using 38-55 brass to produce ammo for the 375 Winchester may be new to you, but it is not to us, so please simply read carefully and believe me. We’ve sold hundreds of thousands of rounds of this ammo and about half of it has been shot in 375 Winchester rifles. A couple years before I started making 38-55 ammo as Buffalo Bore Ammunition Company, I was shooting Marlin, Savage and Winchester 375 Winchester chambered rifles and was using good old every-day 38-55 brass in all of them. To be fair and give credit where it is due, it was both Brian Pearce and Mic McPherson that pointed out I could use common, readily available and affordable 38-55 brass to make full power 375 Winchester loads.
I’ve been doing it for almost 20 years now and have not over-looked anything. If I sound jaded on this subject, it is because I am. Trying to convince folks of anything new, can be a futile attempt, so I am publishing this short text on our site and those who choose to believe me are invited to and we would love to sell you our excellent 38-55 ammo for use in your 375 Winchester or your 38-55. You will love how it performs and you’ll be glad you found a source of high quality high performance ammo for your 375 Winchester. As a customer, we owe you this type of high quality ammo and this type of time conserving straight talk. In our 17 years of doing business as Buffalo Bore Ammunition, many thousands of 375 Winchester chambered rifles have gobbled this ammo up and I’ve not had even one complaint, which I cannot say for all of our ammo.
BARREL BORE
.375 BORE RIFLES
We use a bullet that is sized .377 inch. I am aware that 375 Winchester chambered rifles utilize a .375 inch bore. When fired, the .377 inch bullet will slug/size right down to .375 without raising pressures (we’ve tested the heck out of this) this is in part due to the construction of the bullet, but also due to our powder choice.
.381 BORE RIFLES
We are also aware that many old 38-55 rifles utilize a bore diameter of up to .381 inch, but most are between .377 and .380 inch. At 38,000 cup, there is enough pressure generated by this cartridge to cause that .377 diameter bullet to hit the rifling lands and slug up to the bore diameter (all the way up to .381 inch) and give wonderful accuracy.
HARD CAST SOMEDAY? - MAYBE
We’ve considered making hard cast loads for 38-55 also, (I personally shoot hard cast 270gr. bullets in all of my several 38-55 rifles) but they are too hard to slug up when fired, so the user would have to know his bore diameter and because of this and the numerous questions it would generate, I am still holding off on making any hard cast loads. Further, when firing hard cast loads, they are also too hard to size down to a smaller bore diameter without raising pressures and the thought of a customer trying to shoot a .380 inch hard bullet down the .375 inch bore of a 375 Winchester, has me a bit nervous. So to date, hard cast loads for the 38-55 are not in production and may never be.
If you email me and ask if what I wrote here is true, I will simply refer you back to everything I wrote here…..I will not tell you something more or different than what I have put in writing here on the site. What is written here is based on decades of my experience with my own rifles and with selling many thousands of rounds of this ammo to the shooting public…… Thank you for carefully reading this information.
Good shooting and God bless.
Best,
Tim

PS As an aside, because I love the utility of the 38-55 when loaded to full power, I’ll include the following; I own one of each of the Winchester 38-55 commemorative rifles…..Winchester made three different commemoratives. (Chief Crazy Horse, Legendary Frontiersmen and the Oliver Winchester) These are very functional and highly accurate rifles. I did not care about their collectability, so I installed aperture sights and sling swivel studs and have used them quite a bit. With proper loads, these collectable rifles will shoot 1 MOA @ 100 yards, which is super impressive for lever action 1894 design rifles. If you run across any of these commemorative Winchesters, do not dismiss them as useless collectables. They are pretty prevalent on the open market, because folks do not know just how useable a rifle they are. Part of the great utility of the 38-55 is that with our full power loads, they are capable of taking any North American game including grizzly or large AK Yukon bull moose, but they generate only about 50% of the felt recoil (this is a guess based on how the recoil feels to me) of our full power 45-70 loads……just sayin.

[M-Tecs]

I had not seen that. Thanks

[BAGTIC]

Case capacity is not the deciding factor. Chamber dimensions are.

Imagine the following

One gun
two cases sized in the same die
each sized case has a different internal volume due to case wall thickness
both cases loaded with the same charge
both cases have identical bullets seated to identical LOA.

When fired in the same gun which round will produce the higher pressure?

It is not empty chamber volume that determines the pressure. It is the net chamber volume that remains after the case and bullet have been inserted into the chamber thereby reducing the effective chamber volume.

[Oklahoma Rebel]

I didn't have time to read page 2, but does JES convert 30-30 336's to 375 win? I love that cal and am a little bored of 30-30, plus I already have another 30 cal, the 91/30,

[6.5x55]

Back in the 80's I owned both a .375 Winchester Ruger #3 and a 38x55 Ruger #1.

I still have the #1.

I shot cast boolits from a Lyman mold in both rifles using reformed 30-30 brass . My solution to identify the loads for each was to use a black marker on the cases heads of the cartridges to be fired in the .375. At the end I found a load of IMR 3031 that worked equally as well in either rifle.

IMHO I would not hesitate to use 30-30 brass in a .375 for all but hot loads, just seat the boolits out to optimum length for accuracy and feeding . Much like seating .357 boolits in .38 special cases to .357 OAL.

6.5x55

[ibgp3]

When I asked Jesse about boring out a '94 to .375 he replied that the Marlins are stronger and would be a better choice.
What I wanted, and have is a 38-55, with a .375 bore.
...but I took his answer to mean yes, he would.
... but why?
I can even use J-words when (or if) I want.

[jeepyj]

Marked as a referance.

[Harry O]

I picked up a .375 Winchester 94-BB some years ago. I had a 30-30 for years before that (which belonged to my father even before that). So, I had a bunch of 30-30 cases around. I read like everyone else that .375 cases were a lot heavier, so I looked around until I found some .375 headstamped brass. Before I shot it all up, I decided to see for myself if they were actually heavier.

Summary: Heavier, but not much heavier.

Long Story: I found about 25 unfired 30-30 brass and weighed and recorded each one of them. Then I did the same for the same number of my brand new 375 cases. The .375 **ON AVERAGE** was right at 5% heavier than the 30-30 cases. However, MOST of the cases overlapped each other. In other words, there were 30-30 cases that were heavier than .375 cases and there were .375 cases that were lighter than 30-30 cases. I wondered how much variation the weight of the cases had from production run to production run. There is no way I could test that, and it is probably a company secret for case making companies, but I doubt if that would be less than 5%. So I am thinking there is probably no real difference in case weight between the 30-30 and the .375 Win. in average production runs.

[omgb]

I use 38-55 cases in my .375. I have an early gun. The bore size is .380 and man does it have lead. It's got a ton 'o freebore. I've never had a problem with 38-55 brass

[Thin Man]

I am getting into this discussion a bit late. Since the election I have seen a steady increase in the availability of handloading components. Just lately I have noticed more and more Winchester brand brass available, and in calibers that had not been available for a long time. Last week I bought new Winchester brass in 38-55 from Chattanooga Shooters Supply which is a wholesaler for the trade. They have a retail outlet named Natchez Shooters Supply (also in Chattanooga) that sells retail but NOT to orders shipping to TN, GA or AL (this as a courtesy to the CSS customer base). Keep an eye on their site, 375 Win brass may show up there.