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.