Tubular mags & round nose bullets

Glaciers

Alaska Land of the Midnight Sun
Ok help me out here. Why should I not use my cast round nose in a tubular magazine?

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L to R: 30-30 150g Remington Power Point, 32 SPL 170 Remington Core Loc, center NEI 220, 35 Remington 200g Core Loc, 348 Win. 200g Remington Core Loc

All in tubular mag rifles, all factory loads. So is there a reason I should not use the center NEI bullet?
 

oscarflytyer

Well-Known Member
the only time I have been told any cast is not a good idea is in a Remington Model 14/141. Factory is highly recommended. But it is/was not about the RN, but the COAL. VERY picky action

The only other warning is not to use factory Remington 158 35 Remington loads in a tube. But THAT is because it is really a spitzer type bullet ( and looks a LOT like that left side 30-30!).

Last, as I use all Federal primers/supposed to be the softest primer out there - and works great - I would not use anything other than a RN or wide FP in my tubes.
 

Glaciers

Alaska Land of the Midnight Sun
Well Joshua I remember that article now. I look at all those Remington cartridges pictured and figured if there was a real danger Remington’s lawyers would have put a stop to it. So, my takeaway is that there safe. Just wanted to confirm my thoughts.
That round nose NEI 220 cycles fine in my 94’s, so I’m going to refresh my memory on what Frank Marshall was loading and reduce it some and give it a try
 

smokeywolf

Well-Known Member
Commercial made cartridges for 348 would be assumed to be going into a tubular magazine.

There have been a few RN 45 caliber cast bullets around for a long time that have been used in tubular mags.

Back when I used to shoot rather warm loads of 45-70 in a model '86 SRC that had a factory nickel steel barrel with full magazine, I would blunt the tips of RN cast bullets.

As far as the rest of it goes,,, risk vs reward, risk vs reward.
 
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Matt

Active Member
There is no reason not to use round nose bullets cast or otherwise in a tubular magazine…….nor any other shape in actual practice.
 

Ian

Notorious member
I actually put a stack of .30-30 cartridges in a polycarbonate tube about the size of a Marlin 336 magazine one time to prove this to a coworker. They DO NOT stack in a straight line under spring compression, in fact you can't force them stack that way. Invariably the bullet tips push off to the side of the case head above them as far as they will go, stopped by the shoulder against the magazine tube wall. I personally have loaded Sierra Matchkings for my .30-30s without any worry about chain detonation. Your mileage may vary.

That said, this may not be true of other cartridges such as .35 Remington or pistol caliber, and is definitely NOT true of the .45 ACP, which is one reason a levergun was never commercially chambered in .45 ACP although I know of at least one done by a gunsmith for a member of this board and I have performed a pump-action rifle conversion for myself.

There is, or was, a video on the utoob, possibly Taofledermaus or Mythbusters, who explored this topic and finally achieved chain detonation during an increasingly aggressive test using .223 cartridges which stacked exactly point-to-primer in a close-fitting tube. It took some effort to initiate the reaction (more than any slide-hammer effect from recoil), and was fairly dramatic in its results when it did go off, but generally that is out of the realm of the ordinary and certainly wasn't done with cast bullets. There may have actually been some instances of injuries due to chain reactions in a magazine tube, but I am not aware of the actual conditions that caused them or if in fact any have really occurred.
 
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L Ross

Well-Known Member
For a poop my pants moment involving a gun, few can match the excitement of that day my younger brother and I headed out on a deer hunt across the road from the old farm we lived on. My Dad had given my brother his brand new 870 20 gauge pump with a snazzy 20" slug barrel on it with sights! I think this was in 1970. I had an older 870 20 gauge with a plain full choke barrel. My brother had shoved one factory Federal 20 gauge slug into the tube and as he pushed the second one in the first one went off! He almost dropped the shotgun in the snowy field. The report was a muffled pop, the shell had split open, there was a lot of unburned powder, and smoke curling out of every orifice. Every orifice, the guns, mine and my brother's I think. Terrified we had some how damaged Dad's brandy new gun I took it apart and we cut a willow switch, wrapped apiece of red hanky on it and swabbed the magazine tube, pushing some unburned powder gunk out of the tubular magazine ahead of the follower with the flexible willow wand. I recall the brass and ribbed plastic hull was split, the wadding and slug were still in place. Gun was undamaged. We gingerly loaded back up.

Later that day we collaborated on a small fork buck and Mom and Dad were watching out the old dining room window as we proudly dragged the buck across the neighbor's field to our yard. Still have no idea as to how the roll crimp on the second shell could have caused the front shell to go off. Seems impossible, but it did.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
IMO this is one of those things that has just been in print for so long that people simply accept it as fact- just like the fact that cast will lead your barrel if you exceed 1000fps, that Glocks blow up if you use cast in them, that there are actually good career politicians or that an aftershave will make you irresistible to women. I suppose if you put a line of spire points end to end and had soft primers and a heck of a recoil impulse it could happen. But the truth is the whole thing likely started when someone stuck a bullet in a barrel 100 years ago and took another shot and the barrel let go downwards making it look like the mag tube blew...or something like that. There are a lot of pretty pointy RN jacketed loads intended for tubular mags out there and they don't seem to have an issue.

I dunno, but when it comes to cast for hunting, I WANT a FN to start with. Not because of primers, but because they work better than a RN to start with.
 

L Ross

Well-Known Member
As a kid I saw another interesting tubular magazine with damage. Dad and his "wealthy" chiropractor gun collector buddy went out to the Dakotas where my Dad had worked on his cousin's ranch in the very early 1950's. Dad had also hunted in the Black Hills and had met some interesting characters then.

"Doc" was a gun collector and had the financial means to buy stuff my Dad could only dream of, and you could buy an old 1873 in Wisconsin for 25 bucks at the time. Dad had told Doc of some old guns and ammo he ran across when he had been "Out West". Doc talked Dad into going on a road trip. To cut to the chase, they came home with some cool stuff. Dad could afford the ammo, cheaper in comparison to the Sharps buffalo gun and 1866 Winchester Doc brought back. Dad had scored a lot of ammo including two wooden egg crates of .44 Henry rim fires. I think he got the ammo and Doc got the 66 from the same old saloon owner out there.

The 66 looked a little odd as the forearm looked like it had been whittled out of a piece of fence post . It fit after a fashion but it was lighter in color and was soft wood. Doc and Dad took it apart carefully once they got home. Under the forearm they found the tubular magazine had been carefully hammered back round around some sort of mandrel and soldered. There was an obvious bullet impact on the left side of the tube about where the left thumb of a right handed shooter would be placed. The mystery of the softwood forearm was solved, but the story remained unknown.
 

CZ93X62

Official forum enigma
I take Ian's statement about how lined-up cartridges stack themselves under spring tension in a tubular magazine as the most likely condition that exists in a loaded tubular magazine. But I am a HUGE believer in Paine's Postulate, which is the natural result of Murphy's Law--that in cases involving tubular magazine impact discharges, Murphy can be naively optimistic from time to time. IF a magazine discharge was to occur, I don't think most calibers have sufficient recoil to enable the event sequence. My thoughts have been that occurrences take place when the cartridges are shunted down the magazine during cycling and get halted abruptly by the cartridge stop.

I take care to MAKE CERTAIN that no "proud primers" occur during the reloading process. I also use mostly flat-nose bullets in my tube-feeders, terminal ballistics criteria are the prime motives here but the potential for safer cycling remains in the back of my mind as well.
 

Ian

Notorious member
My unqualified opinion is the only real danger is if you drop the rifle on the butt, hard, and a bullet point happens to be resting in the direct center of the primer above so that it crushes the primer pellet against the point of the anvil.
 

CZ93X62

Official forum enigma
My unqualified opinion is the only real danger is if you drop the rifle on the butt, hard, and a bullet point happens to be resting in the direct center of the primer above so that it crushes the primer pellet against the point of the anvil.
Hence Paine's Postulate.
 

Glaciers

Alaska Land of the Midnight Sun
Well you guy’s are just confirming what I felt and actually new. But, with all the warnings about tubular magazines and anything but flat pointed bullets, well it becomes like a subliminal messaging. You just question your choice.
As you can see from the picture the round nose cast is blunter then some of the factory loads. Personally I have never seen or know anyone that has had a malfunction in the magazine.
 

Walks

Well-Known Member
Had a friend that had an absolute terror of RN bullets in a tubular magazine. In fact when He started Cowboy shooting with Me about 1990, He would stand well away from the loading table whenever I loaded My italian 1860 Henry. The chamber had been sleeved to .44Spl and I used the #429478 which was a very blunt Round Nose. Some times the old Lee #429-210-1R, never had a bobble. Used the a variety of RN & FN cast & jacketed in many tubular feed magazines. In fact I never remember hearing about such things until I was in My late 20's, and read about it in a gun mag. And I started shooting reloading when I was very small.
 

Edward R Southgate

Component Hoarder Extraordiniare
Remington said use only Round Nose bullets in the 14 - 141 pumps with the spiral tube magazines that a lot of folks claim are spiraled to allow the use of spire points . In those rifles lead shavings can cause feeding issues but I have never heard of any other issues related to RN or lead in tube magazines .