THE CARTRIDGE COLLECTOR'S EXCHANGE

Return to Home Page

Email The Old Ammo Guy

Home of the Old Ammo Guy's Virtual Cartridge Trading Table


Picture Page

 May 2016


Please note: Unless otherwise indicated, the pictures on this web site are my property, and should not be used by anyone without my permission.


An unusual .30-30 WCF Cartridge

Last month I included the copy of a page from the 1907 C. J. Godfrey Company catalog with my write-up on .30-30 Remington head stamped cartridges. At that time, I noticed the U.M.C. .30-30 S. head stamp on the cartridge illustrated at the top of the page; the 'S' in the head stamp was apparently intended to identify the cartridge as a smokeless load. 

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Years of collecting head stamp variations have taught me that cartridge illustrations in catalogs and on cartridge boxes sometimes can't be trusted, but I recalled having one of these head stamps in my collection. As it turned out I did, but it was identified as a .30-30 WCF short range load, which I assume was how it was identified when I first obtained it. The short range loads typically have a high neck cannelure and this cartridge had none, so I should have suspected that my identification may have been incorrect. This smokeless head stamp is an unusual .30-30 WCF variation that isn't likely to be encountered very often and probably wasn't used after the merger of Remington Arms and UMC in 1912, if not sooner. What is really odd about this special head stamp is that the .30-30 WCF cartridge was introduced by Winchester as a smokeless load, and as far as I know it was only available factory loaded with smokeless powder from all of the ammunition manufacturers. Any firearms that were made to chamber the cartridge should have been made to use smokeless powder cartridges, so there really shouldn't have been a need for a unique head stamp to identify it as a smokeless load. In addition, had the .30-30 W.C.F. cartridge been available loaded with either smokeless or black powder, the 'U' on the primer in the illustration of the cartridge should have been adequate to identify the cartridge as a smokeless load. For a period of time following the introduction of smokeless powder in the early-to-mid-1890s, UMC used these 'U' marked primers on their smokeless cartridges and unmarked primers on their black powder cartridges. Other ammunition makers employed this same method of identification, Winchester using a 'W' on it's smokeless primers, Peters a 'P', and REM-UMC continuing to use the 'U' marked primer after the company merger. So, to summarize, there really should have been no need for UMC to have a special head stamp to identify this as a smokeless cartridge, yet they did as evidenced by the cartridge in my collection. However, their use of the 'U' marked 'smokeless' primer coupled with the 'smokeless' head stamp would have been redundant. Note that the cartridge in my collection has an unmarked primer, an indication that they probably didn't actually use the marked primer with this head stamp, contrary to what is shown in the illustration.

.

.

Return to Home Page

.