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?