Rem 30-s info

[brotherdarrell]

I am hoping someone here could educate me about these rifles. I saw one today in the LGS and more than a little taken by it.

Took it to the backroom where the gunsmith was and had him look it over. The head-space checked out good. Looked it up in a ref. book and all seemed to be as it should be. It appears to have the correct peep sight installed. Rubber recoil pad instead of metal. I would say it is in well used but not abused condition. No rusting or pits and has probably 65-70% blueing. Took a peak at the bore and rifling appears to be sharp the whole way. The stock shows a lot of use but no abuse. The bad? Some one in the past drilled and tapped for side mount scope leaving 5 drilled and tapped holes behind. It has also been drilled and tapped for a Redfield type base and has a 2.5x Bushnell mounted.

ser# - 24xxx
I don't know why I want it so bad, but 7mm mausers are few and far apart around here. It is a consignment rifle and is tagged $250, but the LGS owner said I could likely get it for $200.

Can I go wrong? I would appreciate any info regarding this rifle.

brotherdarrell

[HARRYMPOPE]

Good rifle.And a good price for a 7 x 57 30s even though it has extra holes.

George

[JHeath]

Buy it. My '06 30-S Express had the original Lyman aperture sight, a great two-stage trigger, and super smooth bolt. It's a bombproof action. My stock was cracked and the last 4" - 5" of barrel badly pitted. I bedded/floated and cut bbl at 19". Loaded some 200gr Speers over H4831 iirc. Got on paper at 25 yards. Sighted in at 200yds and the first three-round group was 1.75 inches !! With the Lyman sight!

[JHeath]

These rifles also have nice features like the stripper cutout, and some came with very good detachable sling swivels. Also a cross-bolted stock. I think they are underrated and undervalued. Mine was about $250 14 years ago even with the condition problems.

[brotherdarrell]

Hmm, this is'nt helping me much, makes me want it more. The person that brought this rifle in also left the same rifle in 30-06. I don't even know what it is priced at, when I saw 7mm I forgot everything else.

brotherdarrell

[JHeath]

Hmm, this is'nt helping me much, makes me want it more. The person that brought this rifle in also left the same rifle in 30-06. I don't even know what it is priced at, when I saw 7mm I forgot everything else.

brotherdarrell

Are these the "Express" model with 24" bbl? Or the standard with schnabel forearm?

My own choice would be the 7x57, without hesitation. It will do nearly anything the '06 will do, with less recoil. I'm recoil-sensitive, but with the bobbed bbl, no scope/ring mass, and that 200gr load, it was uncomfortable off the bench after a few rounds. i would shoot it (i.e. practice!) more if it were 7x57.

Another thing I liked about the Model 30 is that the stock drop is set for aperture sight use, which I prefer. Most bolt rifles have high combs for scopes.

The Model 30 came from the factory with cock-on-opening (unlike its parent M1917) I liked the two-stage trigger, RH safety, stripper cutout, low comb. All features you cannot get on a newer rifle. You could not have a rifle built with that combination of feature for 10x the price.

I think M30s are a teriffic bargain. Guys spend thousands converting M1917s to .416 Rigby sporters, to get essentially the same rifle you are buying for $250, and they have to convert to cock-on-opening. Check out A-Square's beautiful work for example. The wood is nicer than yours, but for the price difference you could pay for a hunting trip to Alaska.

[brotherdarrell]

Yes, they are both the Express w/24" barrels. I did'nt even put my hands on the '06, but it appeared to be about the same as the 7mm and I am pretty sure I saw the receiver sight on it also.

The 7mm had all you listed except the 2 stage trigger. The gunsmiths ref. book stated that the 30-s did not have this feature, but reality may be different. I have a bubba'd 1917 in .303-06 with the 2 stage trigger and all I can say is it must be an acquired taste.

These are not small rifles and I can't imagine the '06 would be much of a kicker. I'm still trying to scrounge the cash and if the 7mm is gone and this one is still there I would take it in a heart beat.

brotherdarrell

[JHeath]

The 7mm had all you listed except the 2 stage trigger. The gunsmiths ref. book stated that the 30-s did not have this feature, but reality may be different. I have a bubba'd 1917 in .303-06 with the 2 stage trigger and all I can say is it must be an acquired taste.


brotherdarrell

Mine had the typical military two-stage trigger with long take-up pull. It's straight from the M1917. But the second stage was 54oz and crisp. i shot high power a little with an M1A and am used to it. The lock time on the 30 is good. They refined it slightly, changed the bolt handle and made the Model 720, which might have had a single stage trigger.

[CLAYPOOL]

Get $400 and buy both..life is too short...Credit Card, I know, I know...refer to the middle comment...:violin:

[brotherdarrell]

Get $400 and buy both..life is too short...Credit Card, I know, I know...refer to the middle comment...:violin:

That's how I ended up with my new NOE mold. Gotta give the card a break for a while. But then again,..........NO, NOT GOING TO DO IT!!!!

brotherdarrell

[bob208]

i had one in .30-06. they are good rifles. 7mm is not that common in this model. they are built like mack trucks. which means you or your grandchildern are not going to wear it out.
$200 aeound here will mget you a bubba 93-95 mauser. i would take the remington for that money.

[brotherdarrell]

If it is still there on Wed. I am going to putt some money on it until I can scrape up the rest. Had to check to make sure the owner was good with that. This thing is built like a tank. I would guess w/scope it is close to 9 lbs. It is made of steel and real wood. There is no doubt you are holding a RIFLE.

I have a mold, checks and sizer die, now I need to round up brass and reloading dies.

brotherdarrell

[JHeath]

If it is still there on Wed. I am going to putt some money on it until I can scrape up the rest. Had to check to make sure the owner was good with that. This thing is built like a tank. I would guess w/scope it is close to 9 lbs. It is made of steel and real wood. There is no doubt you are holding a RIFLE.

I have a mold, checks and sizer die, now I need to round up brass and reloading dies.

brotherdarrell

According to Wikipedia the non-'06 calibers may be worth more, FWIW. But since the rifles are not mint it shouldn't matter, buy the caliber you prefer (if bore condition is equal). The weight is given as 7.25lbs - 8lbs w/o scope. My chopped one was on the light side of that and my shoulder bruises quickly, hence my preference for the 7x57.

Thse actions are so robust, and the stock design good for iron sights, and rear sight so good, that I think M30s are worth considering even if the barrels are scrap. A barrel change would make either of those rifles into a .416 Rigby as good for safari as a $20,000 custom rifle. Or .35 Whelen for Alaska, or whatever long-action caliber you always wanted. The mags are 5-round in standard calibers.

[Idaho Sharpshooter]

just PM me the gun shop's phone number. I can deliver you from this insidious scheme to empty your wallet...


Rich

[Bent Ramrod]

Remington 30s are very uncommon. Most of those few I see are in .30-06, with .257 Roberts next most often encountered and other calibers, especially the Remington proprietary calibers, being very rare. I understand that Remington made a number of them up in 7 mm for some military order for Uruguay or some such country in the 1930's.

They are much more nicely done than all but the best of the "sporterized" P-14's and 1917 Enfields, but the Model 30 couldn't compete with the Winchester 54 and the Model 70 and the flood of war-surplus arms dumped on the market after WWI. On the other hand, a 30 owner is always assured of a supply of spare parts (such as ejectors) from the military models.

I have a Remington 30 in .30 Remington which is one of my favorite cast-boolit toys, and one in .25 Remington which is an excellent, and tragically underappreciated, deer/varmint caliber. The early stocks were sneered at by the contemporary gun writers, because they weren't suitable for prone target shooting with sling, but are perfect for offhand shooting. I've seen two each in .25, .30 and .35 Remington and none in .32 Remington in 35 years of gun shows, and maybe a dozen in .30-06 and four or five in .257. And one action from the 7 mm military model. They're genuine sleepers, IMHO, and at $250 I would dive on it if I wanted a .30-06.

[brotherdarrell]

It was still there today at noon[smilie=w: And you guys are correct about the stock. When I ignored the scope and looked through the receiver sight it was a perfect fit, and I love to shoot peeps. All my range trips start out with a couple of boxes through a Brno #4 w/match sights. Out to 100 yds every bit as good as a scope.

The 30-06 is no longer part of the picture. There was apparently some mis-communication the other day. I looked at it yesterday and it is not a 30-s, it is an '03 sporterized. A very good job was done on it though.

brotherdarrell

[Frank46]

Buy the darn thing the suspense is driving us nuts. These were made based on the model of 1917 30-06 enfield of WWI fame. Good strong actions and the extra thickness in the barrels is a plus. If the stock is anywhere origional for the money you got a great deal. Missed one some years back. Frank

[brotherdarrell]

Buy the darn thing the suspense is driving us nuts. These were made based on the model of 1917 30-06 enfield of WWI fame. Good strong actions and the extra thickness in the barrels is a plus. If the stock is anywhere origional for the money you got a great deal. Missed one some years back. Frank

I put $100 down last week and will pay the other $100 next week.:mrgreen: Thanks to the generosity of a member I have a set of dies on the way. I scrounged through all the old brass at the LGS and have found 11 pcs. of brass and trying to trade/swap for more. The Lee soupcan is waiting on the bench and I have lots of checks. Still need to get batteries for the camara.

The suspense is killing me too.:violin:

brotherdarrell

[brotherdarrell]

The best my cheap camcorder will do. My good camera is either dead or needs batterys.


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The holes on the side of the receiver are obviously ugly, but not a lot I can do about it. The fore end has been repaired sometime in the past. It is a very smooth repair with checkering added to match existing. The dark mark on the pistol grip is a stain of some type. All checkering is nice and sharp. Very nice patina over the whole rifle with a few pit marks, nothing major. Under the stock metal parts are spotless and dark grey colored. Serial # under barrel on fore end matches rifle.:mrgreen:

Over all I am just happy as a can be.

55433

I ran a couple patches through the barrel and the fourth was clean. It was also smooth as glass. Ran a slug and near as I can tell mics @ .285"/.276". The impact slug shows .2885" immediately in front of the chamber taper quickly to .286" at the beginning of the rifling. Rifling starts about .130" from end of chamber, though that measurement is kind of subjective. The case with the Lee soupcan boolit shows sized @ .285", seated long and allowing chambering to engrave and seat. Rifling shows on the first drive band below uppermost gg. OAL is 2.811". Looks like cases need to be trimmed to 2.255" and since I am re-forming brass from -06 brass that will not be a problem.

This rifle just might make a cast boolit shooter. It appears I may be able to shoot .286"-.287" but am open to suggestions.

Thanks for looking.

brotherdarrell

[nicholst55]

A skilled welder (or welding gunsmith) can make those scope mount holes go away. It would require refinishing the rifle, but it might be worth it.

[brotherdarrell]

A skilled welder (or welding gunsmith) can make those scope mount holes go away. It would require refinishing the rifle, but it might be worth it.

I was thinking more along the line of a shiny brass plate and a few screws.:shock:

brotherdarrell

[Frank46]

What you can do is find some plug screws to fill the holes. If welding up the holes is needed, find a good tig welder or someone who can do it. Tig welding concentrates the heat in a small localized area and if he walks out with an oxy acetelene torch run. There is a micro tig welding process out there that is used on small items. Look under precision welding in the phone book. Nice 7mm. I took the rather cheaper option as I had a cut down 1917 in '06. Sent it out after I trimmed the ears and had the shop tig weld a plug I made, d&t for weaver grand slam bases, bead blast and blue. Now all I have to do is get a set of burris zee rings with the inserts. Frank

[Bent Ramrod]

You also got the uber-cool Lyman 48 peep sight, probably worth $100 on its own.

You should be able to get oversized plug screws from Brownell's. You can run them into the holes, peen them down and file them off to the surface of the receiver. Properly done and blued, it would take a magnifying glass to see the plug circles.

Great score, congrats!

[JHeath]

Don't obsess about the screw holes or stock repair. Enjoy the rifle. Make it a great shooter through good loading and whatever tinkering is needed. Enjoy that it's not pure and untouched. If it were, you would not have been able to own it. That's the beauty of it.

Mine had a cracked stock wrist when I bought it, for a little higher price than you paid (and 12 years ago). I had it epoxy-bedded to stabilize the stock, and floated the barrel, and it turned out a tack-driver. If it had been mint-condition I would not have felt free to bed/float it.

A cosmetically imperfect classic rifle is a gift. You get all the engineering benefits, plus the freedom to scratch it up. And you get to feel like you OWN it.

I "owned" a '38 Model 70 in excellent condition. Nice rifle. But you never own a rifle like that; I was its custodian, obliged to pass it to future owners in the same condition, not free to ding it up. What's the fun in that? It owned me.

[brotherdarrell]

Well, it appears this rifle may be a lost cause. It has some serious chamber issues that showed up upon firing it for the first time yesterday.55767
The neck portion is seriously oversized. A loaded case with j-word mics .316". After firing it mics .332". I annealed some formed cases and will try again for grins and giggles but I am not holding out any hope. Oh well, you buy used you take your chances.

brotherdarrell

[JHeath]

So sorry about the trouble. Not something I would have foreseen. What's the bore slug at?

Maybe try re-chambering to .280 Rem or .280AI? A little short to clean up the neck 100% but might work. Probably would fire-form a slight step at the neck/shoulder. Might not be too noticeable.

Or you might be able to form 7x57 cases from a longer cartridge, to get thicker necks and fit the existing chamber.

There may be enough meat on the barrel to set it back and re-ream the chamber. Certainly to .280, maybe to 7x57. That's an expense if you don't have a lathe. Does the shop you bought it from have a gunsmith? Maybe they'll help you out a little.

In case you try that: not sure about Model 30s, but M1917 barrels are notoriously tough to remove. The only one I did, I sprayed penetrating oil around the breech for a few days, leaving the rifle inverted to let it soak down in the threads. That barrel practically fell off.

I guess you can't justify a rebarrel on this one. But if you ever do, look into .416 Rigby. M1917s are converted to that, and the novelty of a .416 might make it marketable to somebody who wouldn't pay as much for a medium caliber. In that case plug the screw holes like everybody says. For three hundred bucks you could be the envy of any pig hunt.

You might find a takeoff barrel in 06 or .303 .

[Ben]

Send it to JES and have him rebore it to 338 - 06 or 35 Whelen.
You've got a brand new chamber and new bore when JES is finished.
I know of 6 different rifles that he has
done locally , all are " Shooters " !

$225 for 3 groove

$250 for 4 or 5 groove

http://www.35caliber.com/

[jaystuw]

The neck is also oversized on model 1897 and 1902 remington rolling block 7mm rifles. They must of used the same measurements on the model 30. You took a chance and lucked out, a remington model 30 in 7mm mauser caliber is a very rare rifle.
Jay

[JHeath]

Cheap solution: you can form 7x57 from .30-06 brass, and the necks will be thicker. I don't know by how much. But it sounds like you only need it to be about 5 - 6 thou thicker (per side) for a total diameter increase of 10 - 12 thou (once bullet is seated). If commercial brass doesn't form thick enough, try milsurp brass (like Lake City).

[frnkeore]

this is my mod 30, it's in 30 rem caliber. it's un-drilled and un modified. i think it was made in '24.

[brotherdarrell]

Cheap solution: you can form 7x57 from .30-06 brass, and the necks will be thicker. I don't know by how much. But it sounds like you only need it to be about 5 - 6 thou thicker (per side) for a total diameter increase of 10 - 12 thou (once bullet is seated). If commercial brass doesn't form thick enough, try milsurp brass (like Lake City).

Actually, in the pic above two of the cases are 7x57 brass and two are re-formed -06 brass. The re-formed brass only gave neck thicknesses about .002" thicker than the 7x57. I initially started with formed brass because I am cheap and have a fairly good supply of -06 brass. I was also hoping for thicker walls in case the chamber was a little large, but I did not expect what I got. I am seriously considering Ben's suggestion. One of the big questions is if the collector value of this rifle is worth more than what I have into it at this time. I am going to take some time before I decide.

brotherdarrell

[CLAYPOOL]

Haste ALL WAYS makes waste...!

[JHeath]

Just ran a piece of Lake City '06 brass through a .308 die (no 7mm dies here) to push the shoulder back, cut the neck where the old shoulder was and measured . . . don't think milsurp will help.

I think yours is a shooter because of the D/T issues. It would make a great .35 Whelen or .338-06 shooter. Those are useful chamberings. It would make a great anything shooter from 7mm up.

There must be a way to make 7x57 work for cheap though. Try the Castboolit/Single Shot forum and ask the rolling block guys what they do about oversize 7x57 chambers (tip to JayStuw above).

[brotherdarrell]

Haste ALL WAYS makes waste...!

Not sure where you are coming from with that?

brotherdarrell

[NYBushBro]

The neck portion is seriously oversized. A loaded case with j-word mics .316". After firing it mics .332".
brotherdarrell

Is it possible that someone in time past reamed this chamber with an 8x57 JS chamber reamer? (Tech savvy Mauser guys would know the OD of a fired 8MM case neck...)

If that is truly the case, it might be possible to get the bore re-cut to .323" and have a REMINGTON 30-S in 8MM (Lord knows, the action will take it.)

[NYBushBro]

PS: If you don't want this gun, I'll buy it off of you for what you paid for it...

[gnoahhh]

I had a pretty little Mauser 98 with ribbed barrel, DST's, etc.- a fancy commercial job, not a run-of-the-mill Guild Gun- that had a similar issue. It was chambered/bored for 8x57. The bore slugged at .323. The fly in the ointment was the neck was cut like yours: one caliber oversize. Fired cases were a precise fit for a 9mm bullet. Conjecture was that it was intended for tropical use where hot temperatures could cause pressure spikes and the oversize neck was to alleviate a bit of that. Who knows.

What I did to get around it was to anneal the brass before loading it. I did it for every loading- probably overkill- and only partial neck sized them, just enough to cover the length of the bullet that was inside the necks. Made for odd looking cartridges! Anyway, brass life was ok with very few split necks. Accuracy was phenomenal. With the old Lyman #35 rear sight, it would group inside 2" all day long.

[brotherdarrell]

gnoahhh - It has been a long slow day at work and I pretty much concluded I needed to do exactly as you did with your rifle. The way I see it is if I can keep the shoulder solid in the chamber and get the boolit seated straight in the throat a little extra room around the neck may not account to much. Thanks for "agreeing with me"[smilie=1:

brotherdarrell

[brotherdarrell]

A quick update"

Annealed the necks, hand lubed some NOE hunter boolits w/ Ben's Red and put on top of 16 and 17 grains of Alliant Steel. It has possibilities.
50 yds & 100 yds
5620956210

I may get there yet.

brotherdarrell

[Bent Ramrod]

Looks like you're on your way. My .25 Remington has a slight overexpansion of the chamber neck and I partially necksize the cases in the manner described by the other posters. I haven't shot any cast in it yet, but it will go under 2" at 200 yards with jacketed bullets on those days I have it together. My rifle was drilled and tapped on top of the receiver and now sports a Weaver K-8.

Even with the scope holes yours has, it would be a shame to change that barrel to something else unless it was absolutely ruined inside. Remington 30's in 7mm are rare enough so you might never see another one.

In my years of collecting the Good Stuff I've gotten philosophical about minor modifications. I figure if somebody was excited enough about the accuracy to go to the expense and bother of mounting a scope (a Big Deal in the old days), then it must have been a pretty accurate rifle. Don't recall ever being wrong about that.:mrgreen:

[gnoahhh]

Looking good. Fill the screw holes, load up a pile of ammo and enjoy the old girl!