m94 magazine tube detonation

[Walt]

I have read in the past that ONLY flat-nosed bullets should be used in Winchester m94 .30-30s.

Has anyone here EVER heard of or experienced a magazine tube explosion using round nose bullets such as the Lyman 311291?

I use somewhat reduced loads with this bullet for killing those evil gongs and have never had an issue.

[FLINT]

From memory it seems that some of the jacketed soft nose bullets for 30-30 are roundish. Core-lokts are pretty round, and the reduced recoil 30-30 core-lokts are quite round.

[JimT]

Remington Factory loads are fairly roundnose

Remington-Core-Lokt-30-30-Win-150-grain.png

[Old Savage]

He asked if anyone knew of detonations .,, for real.

[JimT]

He asked if anyone knew of detonations .,, for real.

The only incident I know of was not caused by pointy bullets. Ian McCollum (Forgotten Weapons) was loading reproduction 1860 Henry .45 Colt. The magazine was half full and he let the magazine follower fly and it set off some of the cartridges in the magazine. He stopped some of the shrapnel with his body.

https://www.forgottenweapons.com/the-st ... el-kaboom/

I have always heard stories of pointy bullets setting off cartridges but I have never seen it or talked to anyone who had it happen. But I would be cautious about using the less blunt bullets, especially in a hard recoiling caliber.

[earlmck]

I have heard of two such instances -- both were loads using wide flat-nosed bullets. And since both caused damage to the shooter I think the rounds had to be back on the lifter within the action when they went off and not out in the tube magazine. My guess is that somehow the cartridge sliding back onto the lifter (high primer?) hit the cartridge stop just wrong and it had nothing to do with the shape of the bullet.

Some years ago a fellow did some experiments with deliberate detonations inside the magazine tubes, and with any cartridge smaller than 45/70 from inside the tube he didn't get anything that would damage a shooter other than maybe some poop in the shorts. Seems to me that writeup was in a Gun Digest from maybe 15 years ago or thereabouts. I know I was quite interested at the time because I was contemplating a levergun in a zipper or improved zipper or something fast and would want to use pointy bullets. After reading about the tube magazine test I did some of my own tests to see what it took to set off a primer with a pointy bullet and It was so impossible to accomplish I have decided it is quite possible there has never been a pointy bullet/magazine detonation outside of some gunwriter's typewriter. One of my 35 Remington loads uses the 180 grain spitzer bullet, and I have shot a fair number of 30/30's using 110 grain spitzers.

I never did get my hot 22 going but if I did I'd be shooting whatever bullet it liked and wouldn't worry about the shape. But that's just personal opinion of an olde phart with the philosophy of "question everything".

[LeverGunner]

I don't know of any myself. Interesting discussion though, thanks all for sharing.

[OldWin]

I don't know of anyone who has had this happen. I also don't know of anyone around my neck of the woods who shot pointed bullets in their 94s, however.
I always figured there was as big or bigger risk of this happening from foreign objects in the tube. I have seen all kinds of garbage come out of magazine tubes over the years.

[gcs]

any factory bullet loaded for 30-30 is safe, probably any lead tip bullet is fine too. Maybe a full jacket spitzer might be problematic, so just don't load the tube up with them.
I read once years ago that a detonation happened but didn't hurt anybody.