.30-30 BP pellets?

[TRX]

I've read somewhere that the original black powder load for the .30-30 Winchester was a solid pellet of powder instead of traditional loose powder. For some reason that has always fascinated me.

Questions:

1) is it true, or just old gun lore coming back around?

2) if it is true, what would the advantages have been? Presumably Winchester figured it would either save money or increase reliability or accuracy somehow.

3) how would they have filled the highly-tapered .30-30 case with a solid pellet?

[GabbyM]

That's all fishy to me. Since the 30-30 started life as the .30 WINCHESTER SMOKELESS.
Marlin and UMC named it the 30-30 S since it held 30 grains of the smokeless powder.

[twidget]

You might be thinking of the .303 British which started out as a black powder round. It was loaded with compressed black powder before the case was necked down. The .30 WCF (also known as the .30-30 Winchester) has always been fueled by smokeless powder.

[NickSS]

What twidget said above is correct. They started making compressed black powder cartridges during the civil war. There were some made for both 58 caliber muskets and various cap and ball revolvers. The original 45-70 cartridge used compressed black bowder that was compressed after placement in the case. The 303 British and well as several other European military cartridges started out with compressed black powder loads. The 303 used a pre-compressed pelet that was inserted in the case before it was necked down The charge was 70 gr of black powder.