30-30 to 38-55

[KCSO]

Now a disclaimer before I start, this is not a BUBBA job, in 1971 these rifles were a drug on the market and sold for $10 bucks LESS than a standard rifle. I have a TOTAL of $350 in this conversion and that includes the orifinal cost of the gun...

I had a Winchester C/C 30-30 that I bought as a shooter in the 1970's and decided that I would convert it to 38-55. I ordered the barrel from GPC and got a Magazine tube from them also. As my gun was a short rifle I ordered a forestock from Brownell's and I used a fore end cap from another old Winchester.
First off the new GPC barrel is a straight octagon barrel .875 wide and is bored on center and has a bore of .376 ( and I have 200 rounds loaded for a MARLIN) The chamber is fairly well centered and will chamber 2.082 Starline brass. The chamber is just tight enough that the .382 bullets loaded in Winchester brass are too tight for the chamber. The barrel has a decent blue job on it especially compared to the washed out blue on the old Numerich barrels. When the barrel arrived I had to clean up the threads lightly with a thread chasing file to remove a couple of small burrs and then it screwed in with just the right resistance. ( I want 80% or better thread contact for barrel work. To head space the barrel and turn it up to flat I had to take 3 thou off the shank and 5 thou off the face for a tight (minimum) headspace. The sight dovetails were square and the Marble sights slid in with just a little fitting. The fore end and barrel band slipped right into place and the magazine tube had to be shortened 3/4" to fit properly. All in all aside from finish sanding and fitting the fore end the rebarrel job took less than 3 hours for the whole shooting match.

The good news is that the assembled rifle is a real shooter. My indoor round ball loads will group into 1/2 at 25 yards and my outdoor plinking load of 10 grains of Unique and a 250 grain cast bullet will shoot under 1" at 50 yards. I hope to try the gun at 100 and 200 yards this weekend. The heavier barrel gives the gun a nice balance off hand. The bad news is that the rifle does have some feeding issues. As the round comes off the carrier you have to wiggle the lever a little to let the round chamber. I haven't had time to work on this yet but the rifle as a 30-30 wasn't the smoothest and the carrier is the old cheap stamped carrier they foisted off on us in the 70's I am going to try a milled carrier tonight and I'll bet that will cure the problem. I don't think it is the ctg. guides as they now list the same part number for 30-30 and 38-55.

I will advise anyone who is wanting to do this conversion to be sure and get a new magazine tube band as the old commerative 30-30's have a cheap band staked in place and the new barrel takes the old style turn in band. As to the nose cap will have to have a few file strokes to fit it unless you are lucky enough to get the GPC cap when and if they ever are in stock. All in all this is a worthwhile option if you are looking to take your 30-30 up to a top notch bear and hog rifle. Total cost for parts will run under $200 and if you are at all handy you should be able to do all the work except setting the head space and if you have a friend with a lathe that shouldn't cost more than a couple of beers.

[Alchemist]

I've been wondering lately what it would take to convert a 30-30 to 38-55....now I know. Unfortunately; I have no skills, no lathe, and no friends who do.

Out of curiosity, why would you have to replace the magazine tube? The case dimensions at the cartridge head are identical. What am I missing?

How 'bout some pics?

Cheers,
Alchemist

[August]

Send it to Marlin with a check for 300 bucks and let them do the work.

[KCSO]

The magazine tube was too short the original barrel wasn't 26" long. Send it to MARLIN??? I don't think they would like that if they were still in business.

[August]

Yup, still doing conversions for 300 bucks. Buddy has one there now.

[Beerd]

I tink KCSO is working with a Winnie donor gun, so Marlin might not have been able to help him.

[McLintock]

I helped my cousin put one of those barrels on an old Winchester (1901) in 38-55, with a shot out barrel and it definitely wasn't a simple job. The threads had to be turned down on a lathe before it would go in the action and once it was done and headspaced (all done by a gunsmith) I tried to chamber some simple cast bullet loads with 2.08" cases and it closed hard on them; chamber seemed to short or small in diameter, this was with Winchester cases. I ran my full length chamber reamer in it and took it out so 2.130" cases could be chambered. He had to put some forestock wood on it and it should be about ready to shoot now. I hope it shoots as good as your's seems to, so we can get the old Winchester back in business. When I re-barreld my Commemerative they didn't have those Gun Parts barrels so I used a Wind River from Brownell's. It has more taper and was a little easier to fit all the accessories to. A regular octogon barrel foreend tip wouldn't fit on the GP barrel without some file work, and they're so expensive, I used a tip off a round barrel one and fitted it to the larger barrel.
McLintock

[Le Loup Solitaire]

I had this conversion done some years ago, but the original caliber on mine was 32-40. The round had fallen into obsolescence and it was tough even finding a mold for it at that time so I went the conversion route to 38/55. I went to a gentleman named Buckingham up around the Miss/Tenn border area and he pulled the 32/40 barrel which was a coal mine, with no rifling anyway. He picked a good 26" 38-55 bbl off a rack of them (Buckingham runs/ran a Winchester parts emporium) and put it on my action. He also changed out the cartridge guides. When the work was finished he loaded 7 cartridges and fired them into a plastic milk jug that was nailed to a fence post 100 yards away. Thats all I need to see. I paid, thanked the man, and left. If I remember right it was $60. or $75, but that was quite a while ago anyway, when things were a lot more sane. So bottom line is that these types of conversions work and they work well. Some may now require some tinkering to overcome the lack of original parts, but they are definitely woth it as they get a good old rifle to do well again. LLS

[KCSO]

I solved the feeding problems for $10 ! Although 38-55 ctg guides are not available 375 Winchester ones are. I talked to another gunsmith and he has done several of these conversions and had excellent luck with the 375 guides so I had him send me a pair.

[missionary5155]

Four years ago I picked up a 375 win 1894 win barrel $35). Next bought an ugly speckeled 94 in 30-30 for $185.00. A week later found a friendly machinest who recut the larger 375 threads down to regular 94 threads for $12.... and walla.... I shoot with 375 Win brass using 38-55 loads.... SWEET ! Feeds..ejects.. and is deadly out to 100.

[KCSO]

I was going to post this anyway so I'll do it in this thread. I have done several conversions with GPC barrels and many re barreling jobs on 94, 92, and 73's so i will offer this up for what it is worth. Most of this is answers to questions a fellow asked me last night as we looked over my latest 30-30 to 38-55 conversion. GPC barrels are better than they were 30 years ago, they are closer to spec and don't have the run out thhey use to. The latest one I got in 38-55 ran 376 and was a 1-16 twist 26" long and fairly nicely blued. The threads were just a tad large and would have been a tight fit as is but I used a thread file to take them down a little and got the fit I wanted. As to re-loading the barrel had a decent chamber and the fitted rifle willl shoot any load that is safe in any other 38-55. Wiith discretion you should be able to push a 250 grain bullet at over 1800 fps with no problem. I am not a fan of convertiing a 94 to 44-40 as this is a waste of action length but if that is what you want...

Now...
#1 Before you start a project make sure you HAVE all the parts in hand and make sure they are the right parts.
GPC will NOT have everything you need all at one time, they are ALWAYS out of something and it has taken 6 months to get a nose cap or a magazine ring from them. There are shortcuts here is you are industrious. GPC NEVER has magazine bands in stock in the right size. They can be oreder from Cimarron as M 73 parts and with just a little work they will fit. Same for the fore arm brace and screws. The forearm cap can be filed and fitted from Winchester stock or if youu pinch a round barrel part in a vise it will work on the GPC octagon barrel. GPC tries their best but I have opened more than one KIT or parts package and found 1 part wrong, the last order I got a 32-20 mag band for a 38-55.

#2 How hard is it and what tools will I need?
The actual job of changing the barrels isn't that difficult. If you are taking off a round barrel from a carbine and don't care if the barrel is damaged you CAN do the job with a bench vise and a 24" cresent wrench lined with sheet aluminum or copper. A barrel vise and an action wrench are prefered. You WILL need to headspace the barrel and yo will need a go and no go gauge. For a rimmed ctg these are just disks of propper diameter and you can buy them fairly cheaply or turn your own from stock. I want a minimum headspace so I set mine 5 thou over nominal rim thickness. I have seen acceptable jobs done with just a fired case and disks cut from an old feeler gauge. I use a lathe to trim my barrels to dimension and set back the shank, but i have seen this done with FILES in an oldtimers shop and the finished rifle shot just fine, my suggestion is to have a gunsmith set the barrel for you and set headspace if you are not a REAL craftsman with good tools. The nose cap will need blueing and unless yo can live with it so will any magazine tube you get from GPC. Their tubes are machined and blued and I prefer to polish and re blue them. Cold blue will work but I prefer to take the nose cap and tube down to 330 grit and then rust blue with Pilkington's. The magazine tube willl need to be trimmed and fitted so you will need good files. You will need a safe file and brass punchhes to fit and tap in the sights. I get rid of the Winchhester sights and use Marbles but that is your choice. The fore end will need to be fitted and shortened. The blanks from GPC, Brownell's ect all need fitting, sanding and finish. If you are switching a commerative Winchester 30-30 barrel to a 38-55 ect, it will be a matter of luck to find one that will fit without problems, Mostly the Winchester factory ones are just a tad short and that means you need a replacment.

#3 willl it feed right?
A lot of this depends on what Winnchester you use to start with. A department store gun with the stamped parts probavly didn't do the best job with 30-30's so don't expect it to do better with 38-44'5 or 44-40's. I always put in a cast steel carrier when I work on 94's and that helps. If you still need help use 375 Winchester feed guides and that should make it work slick. On the 44-40 conversions you will get the carrier and guides as part of the converssion. On 38-55's if you want to use the long brass it helps to sliightlyy bevel the bottom the the barrel where the shell slides in, jut about 1/16" of bevel on the bottom only, this won't hurt the brass as this is where the case head is solid but DON'T over do it, you ant a bevel not a feed ramp.

How will it shoot? How hot can I looad it?
If you want a 375 H and H go buy one the 38-55 is not it neither is a 44-40 a 44 Magnum!!! But the 30-30 rilfe is good for 37,000 PSI and either ctg can be loaded to improve on factory ballistics. My 38-55 hunting loads shoot a 260 custom RNFP gc bullet at 1800+ fps and factory rounds hover between 12-1300. My 44-40's push a 200 grain gc bullet at about the same pace and I have never had any probllems in over 30 years of doing this work. I usually get 10-12 reloading from my hunting brass and I have some plinking brass that has been relaoded over 20 times. Accuracy on the conversions I have done is hard to gauge, they all shoot better than I can. My last 3-30 to 38-55 will hold under 3" goups at 100 yards with open iron sights and my old eyes. A sharp eyed friend used the rifle to put 3 shots into under 4" at 200 yards and now he wants the gun for deer season.

I hope this helps.

[GabbyM]

If I'd made that I'd want to show it off too.
Is it for sale?

[Chuck 100 yd]

Great report friend!! I want a .38-55 and just cant bring myself to modify one of my nice rifles so I guess I will just have to find one that is already a .38-55. :-D