Old gun - older historic ammo...

PALADIN85020

PALADIN85020

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This old Ruger Blackhawk remains unfired, as new in the box. The low serial number indicates that it was made midway in the first full year of production. The .30 Carbine ammo is much older; the headstamp on these few rounds is "LC 43" (Lake City arsenal - 1943) and they have an interesting history.

This ammo was brought back from the European theater of operations in WWII. These rounds were retained by my former next door neighbor, who was a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge and the Hurtgen Forest. Moe Feld served in the 893rd Tank Destroyer battalion and on several occasions narrowly escaped death. Knowing of my interest in guns and WWII history, his widow gave them to me several years ago.

I will be writing an article soon on this interesting combination.

Moe took this impromptu snapshot of some visiting generals - you might recognize a few of them.

John

MOE_FELD_WWII-2-1280_zpsbeb64dae.jpgoriginal_zpsqolljbvf.jpg
 
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The Ruger Blackhawk in .30 Carbine is interesting because it is one of a very small number of handguns ever made in that caliber, and the only one which reached some level of marketing success. It is difficult to love when firing GI-level loads of .30 Carbine ammo as it has so much muzzle blast and produces so much noise. I wear double hearing protection when I fire mine - both ear plugs and muffs.

Back in my CAS days, I used a .30 Carbine Blackhawk, except I used .32-20 level handloads and lead bullets. My formula was a 115 grain .32-20 lead bullet, downsized to 0.309" diameter, over 3.7 grains of Bullseye (but about any of the faster pistol or shotgun powders would work as well). I once considered getting a spare cylinder from Ruger and having it rechambered in .32-20. After a little reflection I decided that there was nothing to be gained by doing that and dropped the idea.

Another item of note - the .30 Carbine round was the first U. S. military cartridge to use non-corrosive primers exclusively, until very late in WWII when some small amount of .30-'06 military ammunition was loaded using non-corrosive primers. Otherwise, U. S. military small arms ammunition continued to use corrosive primers until the early 1950s. During WWII, .30 Carbine ammunition was manufactured mainly at Lake City, but also at Frankford Arsenal, Evansville Ordnance Plant (steel cased), Evansville IN, and Peters Cartridge Co. at Kings Mills, OH. The Peters military .30 Carbine ammo is somewhat scarce as the plant wasn't in operation very long. Even more scarce, and some might say rare, is .45 ACP ammo which was also made at Kings Mills for a very brief period.
 
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I have a .30 Carbine Blackhawk that shipped in February 1969. It is a lot of fun to shoot. I often have it with me at the indoor range and if being pelted with empties by someone shooting a .40 cal in the next booth I let off a few rounds of .30 Carbine from the Ruger to get their attention.
 
One of my friends had one of these Rugers in high school and I bet we shot a train car load of military surplus .30 cal through it. My memory may be faulty but I think we got old ammo for .50 cents or a dollar per box of 50.

One of our favorite games was to get those wooden paint stirrers that they gave away at the hardware store—where we bought ammo sometimes too. We would sharpen one end to a point then stick them in the ground at various distances, then see how many shots it would take to shoot them in two. I remember the first one I shot straight through the middle and the perfect round hole in made. I was astounded by how accurate it was and I do remember it was LOUD! But we didn’t care, we teenagers liked loud music, pipes, etc. It really was a great gun.
 
I had an old model Blackhawk in .30 Carbine. It shot very well, but as already mentioned, it was LOUD! :eek:
One of the problems was I had to beat the empty cases out of the chambers. Sometimes I actually had to remove the cylinder and knock them out with a hammer and punch. :mad:
But like every other Colt/Cowboy style single action I've ever owned, the back of the trigger guard beat the snot out of the knuckle of my middle finger. This style handgun just doesn't fit my hand. :(
So down the road it went. :rolleyes:
 
Interesting back story, gun and ammo. Back in the early '70s, I got to shoot one just like it with some kind of surplus ammo. I was wearing hearing protection, so I don't recall it being any louder than some other calibers. What I do recall, was the light recoil.

I'll be looking forward to the article John.
 
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