.30 caliber rimfire

B

Ben Towe

New member
This may not be the right place to post this, my apologies if it's not. I was sifting through some old ammo that Granny always said Pa brought back from WW2 and came across something interesting (actually a few somethings, but I digress); I found what appears to a copper cased .30 rimfire cartridge! The case is just a shade over 3/4 of an inch long. It has a round nose lead bullet. The only marking is a large U stamped in the center of the case head. It is a rimmed case. Anyone have any ideas? All I can find is that they've been out of production since 1917. Any help is appreciated.
 
Called .30 Short, it was introduced in the 1860s and has been obsolete since about 1920. Loaded with a 56 or 58 gr bullet over 5-6 gr of BP. The cartridge was chambered extensively in cheap pocket pistols, Sharp derringers, and Standard pistols, as well as Colt New Line handguns(according to Cartridges of the World). The U on the base identifies it as manufactured by Union Metallic Cartridge (a division of Remington).
 
Many inexpensive single shot rifles were also chambered in .30 Short.

There was also a slightly more powerful cartridge, the .30 Long, that came out some years after the .30 Short, and which went obsolete around the same time.

Neither was known for great accuracy.
 
Just FWIW, while UMC was effectively a part of Remington, it was actually UMC that bought Remington, not vice versa. In the same way, Western Cartridge Co. bought Winchester. Later, of course, DuPont owned Remington-UMC and Olin owned Winchester-Western.

Jim
 
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