Reeder Custom Guns - From Twenty Years Ago

and an old article I did on the .30-30. This is part of the article ...

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I tested all the available factory ammo at the time as well as handloads with jacketed bullets. One of the interesting factory loads was the Remington Accelerator .. a .22 caliber 55 gr. jacketed bullet in a plastic sabot advertised at 3400
fps. From my rifle they clocked 3200 fps which is pretty good.

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I once guided a friend's wife on a Javelina hunt. She used an old Model 94 Winchester and the Remington Accelerator loads to take a nice Javelina from about 100 yards. It worked just fine, creating massive internal damage in the chest cavity.

I fired a round into a piece of 3/8" steel and it punched a nice hole.

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My favorite was the RCBS 30-180-FNGC cast bullet. My alloy ran right at 190 grains. I experimented with several different powders.

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50 Yards
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110 Yards
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I used the H335 load shooting at the White Buffalo on the Whittington Center. At 1123 yards the 190 gr. bullet starting out at about 1800 fps took a few seconds to make the trip. And it took a little time for the sound to come back if/when you hit the target.

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It's a long way out there!

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Me working on trying to hit it. It took me awhile but I did manage it. Good thing I had lots of ammo with me.

The sign ..
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I am old enough and set in my ways that I still prefer the .30-30 for most things. It'll do the job if the shooter can.

The 30-30 gets more game than almost any other caliber... I think the .22LR may be the top game getter though.

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This one came in rough. scratched, no finish, just used up. We replaced all the internals and I did a bit of engraving on the sideplates which took well over a week. It will be deluxe Black Chromex'd later this week. So far, so good.
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Gary, I have one in the shape you described that I would like to do the same thing to.
What would be the ballpark price?

Some scratching on!

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to it to bring it back to life. The gun shown was bad. Here is what we would do for this gun...
clean up the bore...$250
full engrave the action...$600
reblue the whole gun, deluxe Black Chromex...$750
refinish the stock & forend. (this gun was a Walmart, K-Mart gun) so the wood was OK but not a really nice walnut. We took all the dings and scratches out and did a little darker refinish on it...$250.
So if this were your gun it would cost you right at $1850 to get it back to "as new".

Mine would need about the same. My grandfather found this one, a 22 and a shotgun in a hollowed out tree in a river bottom in Texas about the mid-fifties when I was born. It was loaded at the time and the shells were corroded. He got it freed up, cleaned it up with steel wool and painted it black. My Uncle bought it from him and it has been shooting whitetails and hogs in East Texas ever since. Despite all of that, the metal is not in bad shape at all. It is sloppy and the hammer follows the bolt when it goes forward.

I have an old M94 "Antique" model version post 64 in .30-30. It has some pitting on it and is not anything special. I think I can fetch fair money retailing it online. Doug has a nice M64 at my house that has some repaired stock damage I reworked. I hope to sell the M94 and parlay that into Doug's 64 which I'm not really excited about trying to sell and explain the repairs. It is of course a pre-64 action and has the long barrel, half mag, pistol grip and lever. It's not much a candidate for scoping but I'd sure like to source a receiver sight for it.

I love casting for the .30-30 and your loads are some good foundation. Thanks! Maybe we can ring some plates at the next gathering.

(If I were Jim Taylor I'd bob the barrel! lol Actually that might be pretty cool. No one really likes the 64's all that much anyway.)

and prefer it over the longer gun. :-)

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