Peters .30-30 "Trapper" load by John Kort

An interesting .30-30 cartridge used back in the 1930’s-1940’s by Trappers in the north country



Legend has it that these special .30-30 cartridges were loaded by the PETERS Cartridge Company for the Hudson Bay Trading Co. located in the Yukon and possibly the T. Eaton Company in Alberta, Canada.

It was loaded with a full patch 85 gr. bullet that was used in the .30 Mauser pistol cartridge. One trapper, recounting his adventures of long ago, said that he had used the .30-30 cartridges with the little nickel jacketed bullet and found that they were great for dispatching Wolverines and Wolves in traps and for shooting wolves on the ice in the winter and beavers in the spring.

The question then was, what velocity did PETERS load this cartridge to? John had one example of this cartridge in his collection and donated the powder charge from it to me for testing purposes.

Several years ago Hornady made a run of 86 Gr. full patched .30 Mauser bullets for The Old Western Scrounger. I purchased a box to run some tests. I loaded one of these bullets over the powder charge that John had sent to me and it clocked just over 2,000 f.p.s.

I then loaded 10 rounds using the Hornady 86 gr. bullet with 27.0 grs. of 3031, which appeared to be the same type powder. (The powder sample could well have been DuPont 17 1/2 the predicessor to 3031.) When tested, they produced pretty much the same velocity.

Accuracy at 50 yards was very good with groups of around 3/4" if I did my part. Further testing indicated that 170 gr bullets loaded over 30/3031 impacted within 1 1/2" of the 86 gr. bullet.

Hunters/trappers could use both cartridges without having to change their sights. PETERS knew what they were doing when they offered a .30-30 catridge with a bullet that was ½ the weight of the standard 170 gr. and loaded it to the same velocity.....60+ years ago.

John Kort

addendum:
In developing this special cartridge, PETERS intent was to produce a .30-30 round which could be used for the purpose described above and that could be used interchangeably with the standard .30-30 170 gr. for big game when it was encountered. In addition, it would produce almost no recoil.

This historic, special, PETERS 85 gr. cartridge added a new dimension of usefulness to the .30-30, making it an even more versatile tool in the hands of the outdoorsman.