That's close to better than you can do by re-loading, and softpoints are the carbine ammo that's effective and open up. If I had $250 I'd be all over it.
Yeah. The Georgia Arms stuff is quite a bit pricier, but it is softpoint, and the price makes me look at my labor time and wonder if it's worth the effort.
The hardball stuff at 25¢ each, though...
Hardball killed a bunch of Nazis, North Koreans and Chinese, not to mention Greek communists...
Pats Reloading has the pulled down brass, unfired, probably primed: 500 for $49.99. And the bullets: 110gr Rem SP: 100 for $14.54
14gr H110 pushes that bullet to 2000fps. 14*500=7000 ie one pound of powder. $20 or less usually.
I'm assuming you have a press and dies and all the necessary reloading goodies already.
So you're looking at $142.69 + S&H plus your own labor to make 500 rounds (90 minutes on a progressive press). Call it $20 more than buying milsurp ball. But the softpoint stuff is useful for hunting ... it's your call.
I have a Dillon 450. The caliber change kit for it is $40.95. I also do not own a .30 Carbine die set. A set of Lee dies is $32.49 from Midway. (RCBS is $68.99.)
I've found pulldown .30 Carbine brass for $60/1000. Remington 110 grain SP are $112.99/1000 from Midway. A thousand CCI #41 primers is about $29, and 4 lbs of W296 is about $70. Using 15 grains of 296 that makes 1000 rounds cost $0.24/shot not including the initial outlay of $73.44 for tools, nor my labor. This is opposed to paying Georgia Arms $0.37 per round. (I figure the freight is a push, since I'd be paying freight on the components anyway.)
Or I can pay Pat's 25¢ a round for hardball. Tough choice.
I have experience with GA stuff in general and their .30 carbine softpoint in particular and I can recommend it without hesitation. Excellent quality, very consistent, good ammo.
The hardball vs softpoint question depends on what you're planning on using it for.
If you're shooting paper or steel hardball works fine.
The first time I shot pins with my Carbine, I used FMJ. I was hitting the pins with every shot and knocking them down and rolling them around, but I wasn't getting them off the table. The hardball was just punching right through and not transferring enough energy to push them off the table. When I switched to soft point for the next pin shoot: Five shots, five pins off the table. The difference was amazing.
I'm pretty sure that energy transfer would be just as important in a self defense situation.
I try to keep a pretty good supply on hand for both. I keep my mags loaded with soft point for home defense and I keep some more of that on hand for pin shooting, but I also keep a good supply of hardball on hand for the less particular (and, therefore, less expensive) tasks of plinking and punching holes in paper.
I had a discussion about Georgia Arms last night with td.
He bought a bunch on Tam's recommendation and has been happy with it.
I've seen a lot of problems with GA rifle ammo. I've got a case of .30-06 that wasn't correctly re-sized. Forcing me to literally jump on the oprod to extract a round out of the Garand. Live round. Which didn't chamber it was so big. But stuck like hell. (And 5 more in the clip.)
Another shooter there that same day had bought some "premium .243". Three rounds out of the 20 weren't charged with powder. Luckily, the bullets weren't crimped well, and had fallen into the case to denote the bad rounds.
Pretty much my last straw came when I was looking for match-grade 7.62x51, and their booth at the gun show had a great price.
I picked up the bag, and looked - and there were no less than 5 different headstamps on the brass. On the ones pointed toward me. I didn't look hard. But I grabbed my friend the Xman and said "WTF? OMGBBQ!??!!" Different cases. For "Match" ammo. (Which cost more than the match Lake City I ended up getting. Which all had the same headstamp).
"Match" my ass.
...
I'll also note that at local IDPA matches, GA is almost never seen.
Draw your own conclusions - most of our shooters have to drive by their site to get to IDPA.
I'm very, very leery of GA as a result. Most locals are - and we all went there excitedly at one point.
Hate to be negative -really! I do! But be warned. Maybe they just had some quality issues that was what I saw, hey, it's possible. And, granted, all the problems I saw were with rifle ammo. I've heard of some pistol issues, but they were 2nd-hand.
But around here, GA is used for reloading components by all the "gunnies" I know.
YMMV. If you get it and it works well, I might give 'em another try.. I need to get some good, quality M-1 Carbine fodder.
Wow. I've never bought Georgia Arms stuff over the internet, they always have a table at the local gun shows (which I'm ALWAYS at working the VCDL table) so I've been buying their stuff regularly. .45 acp, 9x18mm, .30 carbine, .30-06...I've never had a problem with it. I wonder if they have franchises or some such and the people who work the gun shows around here just do a better job at loading quality.
No Idea...but thanks for the heads' up. If I ever start having issues with their ammo, I'll be sure to mention it.
Obviously you're not listening to Markadelphia if you're still able to do math. :)
They're not anything I plan on shooting a LOT of. I need about 100 rounds to verify functioning, and then, hunting/SHTF.
I've been hearing things about those rounds that are just stunning.
I might get the bullets first and handload some and see how they do, too.
Note:
All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost;
references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>
JS-Kit/Echo comments for article at http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2008/08/30-carbine-ammo.html (11 comments)
Tentative mapping of comments to original article, corrections solicited.
That's close to better than you can do by re-loading, and softpoints are the carbine ammo that's effective and open up. If I had $250 I'd be all over it.
Yeah. The Georgia Arms stuff is quite a bit pricier, but it is softpoint, and the price makes me look at my labor time and wonder if it's worth the effort.
The hardball stuff at 25¢ each, though...
Hardball killed a bunch of Nazis, North Koreans and Chinese, not to mention Greek communists...
Pats Reloading has the pulled down brass, unfired, probably primed: 500 for $49.99. And the bullets: 110gr Rem SP: 100 for $14.54
14gr H110 pushes that bullet to 2000fps. 14*500=7000 ie one pound of powder. $20 or less usually.
I'm assuming you have a press and dies and all the necessary reloading goodies already.
So you're looking at $142.69 + S&H plus your own labor to make 500 rounds (90 minutes on a progressive press). Call it $20 more than buying milsurp ball. But the softpoint stuff is useful for hunting ... it's your call.
Drew:
I have a Dillon 450. The caliber change kit for it is $40.95. I also do not own a .30 Carbine die set. A set of Lee dies is $32.49 from Midway. (RCBS is $68.99.)
I've found pulldown .30 Carbine brass for $60/1000. Remington 110 grain SP are $112.99/1000 from Midway. A thousand CCI #41 primers is about $29, and 4 lbs of W296 is about $70. Using 15 grains of 296 that makes 1000 rounds cost $0.24/shot not including the initial outlay of $73.44 for tools, nor my labor. This is opposed to paying Georgia Arms $0.37 per round. (I figure the freight is a push, since I'd be paying freight on the components anyway.)
Or I can pay Pat's 25¢ a round for hardball. Tough choice.
As I said,
I have experience with GA stuff in general and their .30 carbine softpoint in particular and I can recommend it without hesitation. Excellent quality, very consistent, good ammo.
The hardball vs softpoint question depends on what you're planning on using it for.
If you're shooting paper or steel hardball works fine.
The first time I shot pins with my Carbine, I used FMJ. I was hitting the pins with every shot and knocking them down and rolling them around, but I wasn't getting them off the table. The hardball was just punching right through and not transferring enough energy to push them off the table. When I switched to soft point for the next pin shoot: Five shots, five pins off the table. The difference was amazing.
I'm pretty sure that energy transfer would be just as important in a self defense situation.
I try to keep a pretty good supply on hand for both. I keep my mags loaded with soft point for home defense and I keep some more of that on hand for pin shooting, but I also keep a good supply of hardball on hand for the less particular (and, therefore, less expensive) tasks of plinking and punching holes in paper.
I had a discussion about Georgia Arms last night with td.
He bought a bunch on Tam's recommendation and has been happy with it.
I've seen a lot of problems with GA rifle ammo. I've got a case of .30-06 that wasn't correctly re-sized. Forcing me to literally jump on the oprod to extract a round out of the Garand. Live round. Which didn't chamber it was so big. But stuck like hell. (And 5 more in the clip.)
Another shooter there that same day had bought some "premium .243". Three rounds out of the 20 weren't charged with powder. Luckily, the bullets weren't crimped well, and had fallen into the case to denote the bad rounds.
Pretty much my last straw came when I was looking for match-grade 7.62x51, and their booth at the gun show had a great price.
I picked up the bag, and looked - and there were no less than 5 different headstamps on the brass. On the ones pointed toward me. I didn't look hard. But I grabbed my friend the Xman and said "WTF? OMGBBQ!??!!" Different cases. For "Match" ammo. (Which cost more than the match Lake City I ended up getting. Which all had the same headstamp).
"Match" my ass.
...
I'll also note that at local IDPA matches, GA is almost never seen.
Draw your own conclusions - most of our shooters have to drive by their site to get to IDPA.
I'm very, very leery of GA as a result. Most locals are - and we all went there excitedly at one point.
Hate to be negative -really! I do! But be warned. Maybe they just had some quality issues that was what I saw, hey, it's possible. And, granted, all the problems I saw were with rifle ammo. I've heard of some pistol issues, but they were 2nd-hand.
But around here, GA is used for reloading components by all the "gunnies" I know.
YMMV. If you get it and it works well, I might give 'em another try.. I need to get some good, quality M-1 Carbine fodder.
Hmmmm...
One pro, one con.
Perhaps I do need to invest in the necessary tooling.
And don't forget - Cor-Bon has DPX out now in M1 Carbine.
http://www.defense-training.com/quips/2006/28May06.html
http://www.defense-training.com/quips/2006/18Oct06.html
It is on my Oh, I Shall Have It One Day List. It's near the top.
Midway sells the Cor-Bon .30 M1 Carbine ammo.
$36.99 for a box of twenty.
(Carry the one...) that's $1.85 per ROUND.
Sorry, but I'm a cheap bastard. The Barnes projectiles cost $0.66 each.
Sorry. Softpoint Remingtons will have to suffice.
Wow. I've never bought Georgia Arms stuff over the internet, they always have a table at the local gun shows (which I'm ALWAYS at working the VCDL table) so I've been buying their stuff regularly. .45 acp, 9x18mm, .30 carbine, .30-06...I've never had a problem with it. I wonder if they have franchises or some such and the people who work the gun shows around here just do a better job at loading quality.
No Idea...but thanks for the heads' up. If I ever start having issues with their ammo, I'll be sure to mention it.
(Carry the one...) that's $1.85 per ROUND.
Obviously you're not listening to Markadelphia if you're still able to do math. :)
They're not anything I plan on shooting a LOT of. I need about 100 rounds to verify functioning, and then, hunting/SHTF.
I've been hearing things about those rounds that are just stunning.
I might get the bullets first and handload some and see how they do, too.
Note: All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost; references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>