Anyone make .30 Luger barrels for the Hi Power?

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Mike Irwin

Staff
I've always wanted a Hi Power in .30 Luger, but the prices for factory ones are, well, stupid.

So, I'm looking for an aftermarket .30 Luger barrel, but I'm not having much success.

Anyone know if anyone makes one?

I'm pretty sure that 9mm magazines will work for .30 Luger, so I don't think I have a problem there.
 
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BillM

New member
Have you contacted Barstow? I found reference to a 30 Luger
HP conversion barrel that they made--but it's not listed on their
website.
You might also try KKM. They list 9mm, 40 S&W and 357 Sig
HP barrels---getting one made in 30 cal might be fairly easy.
 
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RickB

New member
Bar-Sto.
You could have a 9mm barrel sleeved.
Didn't factory .30 HPs have extensive lightening of the slide, to cycle reliably?
 
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rodfac

New member
I have a 1920 DWM .30 Luger ... arguably one of the most accurate handguns I've fired, but was a real PITA to load for. I ended up with die sets by Lee, Redding & RCBS trying to get a good fit between that miserable bottle neck case and what ever bullet I was trying to seat. This was with W-W brass and a variety of bullets. Starline offers brass in .30 Luger now that may be thicker in the neck area...a good thing IMHO.

The main problem I encountered, was that short neck and getting enough neck tension/crimp to keep the bullet from telescoping back into the case on chambering. The case has a very thin neck and crimping was tough to do even with bullets with a good canelure.

I tried a variety of bullets, finding many that were very accurate if I could keep them from telescoping. Hornady's .32 cal. LSWC did very well in that regard and the soft swagged alloy allowed me to crimp enough to prevent movement. Hornady's JHP of that era (this was mid-1990's) did well too and the canelure really helped.

Good luck with your project Mike...let me know if you're interested in my loading notes from back then and I'll send them along. Best Regards, Rod
 
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Jim Watson

New member
Lee makes a collet crimper that will no doubt sock it to those short thin necks.
I have used one for .44-40 to go in tube magazine.
 
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RickB

New member
I've never had bullet set-back in my Luger, even with cannelure-less, uncrimped bullets.
Were you using .308" bullets? I've used .309s, and .311/.312 run through a .309" sizer.
 
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Mike Irwin

Staff
I think something like this I'd primarily stick with factory ammo. I hate loading bottleneck cases, especially bottleneck pistol cases.

I'd LOVE to have a Luger chambered for 7.65, but hold hell, talk about stupid prices...
 
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RickB

New member
When I was experimenting with forming cases from similar cases, I made some .30 Luger cases from 9x23 WIN brass.
They need to be trimmed and inside reamed. which is a pain, but I suspect there'd be no trouble loading them hot enough to cycle a 9mm HP slide; 90 grains at 1600fps?
Of course, losing even a single ejected case would be something of a tragedy.
 
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rodfac

New member
I've never had bullet set-back in my Luger, even with cannelure-less, uncrimped bullets.
Were you using .308" bullets? I've used .309s, and .311/.312 run through a .309" sizer.
Click to expand...
Rick, I tried several...Speer plinkers, .30 caliber carbine fmj's, and 93 gr Remington FMJ's specifically manuf. for .30 Luger. None wanted to stay in the case as seated.

My groove dia. on the DWM Luger measured 0.310" so that's what I sized my Lyman cast bullets at. WW alloy air cooled did not group well at all, nor did quenched.

I did have good success with Hornady .32 cal. swaged LSWC's, crimping into the soft lead, as well as early versions of the ~100 gr & 85 gr XTP, and also with the Speer & Sierra versions of the preceding. All of these jacketed bullets had a cannelure which facilitated crimping and that stopped the telescoping problem. Accuracy with all of these was well below 2" at 25 yds from a rest...and that's saying a lot considering the Luger's barley corn front sight and V-notch rear, not to mention the rubber band feel of the trigger when it broke (a precursor of the famous or infamous Glock rubber band 'feel').

Powders: Win 231, Bullseye & Unique in about that order of usefulness at mid-levels from Lyman Loading manuals worked well. Velocities in the 1150-1200 fps range with good/excellent accuracy.

It was and is a fun gun to shoot, accurate from a rest, but flips its brass 7-ways from Sunday on ejection. Over 20 years ago, Midway got rid of their 93 gr .30 cal. Luger bullets at a couple cents a piece...I bought 'em all, nearly 2000, figuring I could eventually come to a loading method to prevent telescoping. I did, and it was the use of a "CH" brand canneluring tool.

With it, I was able to manually groove any bullet I wanted and also to adjust the cannelure height where it was needed. Voila....problem solved.

It's been many years since I've loaded for the old Luger, & still have several boxes of super accurate ammunition for it; both factory and home made, that I haul out when someone wants to see what a "real" Luger shoots like. We spread a poncho, and find most of the spent brass, and everyone marvels at the precision machining and beautifully contoured grip design...but no-one, and I mean no-one ever went so far as to buy one and try loading for it.

Best regards, Rod
 
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