30 WCF

"Winchester began development of the .30-30 as early as 1891 in conjunction with Browning's initial designs for a rifle strong enough to take advantage of the new smokeless powders.

The first step in that process was the Model 1892, which led directly to the Model 1894."

You're reading too much in to these paragraphs.

I never claimed, or meant, and the two rifles were mechanically related. In fact, I have virtually no concept of how the 1892's action works, and not much more about the 1894's.

What my statements mean is that Winchester was embarking on a conscious decision to procure and manufacture new designs that were capable of fully harness the power of the new propellant.

NOT that the designs are a linear progression.
 
I have an 1892 and the little sucker is right complicated. I have looked at the 1894 and think it is worse.
Mr Browning was a great designer but I don't think he had any thought of the user being able to disassemble and reassemble his (commercial) guns. We frequently read about how hard it is to get a Pocket Hammerless back together. My neighbor the gunsmith got in more cigar box A5s than any other design.
 
Contrary to what COSteve posted, in the original post, Stressrelief, has an older Savage 99 marked, "30 WCF". Winchester also continued to mark their model 94 barrels, "30 W.C.F.", at least until WWII. I am looking at one right now, #129XXXX, one of the so-called, "war-time", cabines with exactly that marking.
I mentioned that the cartridge was revolutionary. Of course there were other developments that preceded it by several years, but most of that happened in the Old World. In our modern world of jet-propulsion and electronic information, it's easy to forget how great a gulf there was between Europe and the Americas back then. Back then, people only dreamed of flying, and the difference between different grades of gunpowder was measured by the number of f's that preceded the G. Smokeless powder was futuristic, science-fiction-becoming-reality. In that context, the advent of the 30 W.C.F. was truly revolutionary in America.
 
Hmmm, was it Marlin who didn't want to put .30 WCF on their rifles, or Remington who didn't want to put .30 WCF on their ammo? I can't remember. But anyway, it is the original name for what we now call .30-30.
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I believe it was UMC who first used the 30-30 moniker on their version of the 30 WCF.

I have an 1892 and the little sucker is right complicated. I have looked at the 1894 and think it is worse.
Mr Browning was a great designer but I don't think he had any thought of the user being able to disassemble and reassemble his (commercial) guns
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I never thought the 92, 94 or the Remington nylon 66 was hard to take apart or put back together. Even the first Ruger 22 standard model only took a few seconds of looking to figure out how to take apart. I admit putting it back together puzzled me until I understood how the plunger on the hammer was supposed to go in to the backstrap where the main spring is.

They are great youtube videos that show how to take these guns apart. My vote for the hardest was the model 94.
 
Jim Watson said:
I have never heard the .303 Savage mentioned as a black powder development. (I have seen claims that the .30-30 and even .30-40 started in black, but figure that is just a misunderstanding of the nomenclature carryover.) It came out the same year as the Winchester and was offered as a military rifle but the bolt action had that job sewed up by then.

Unlike the obvious 1886-1892 heritage, I still can't see any evolutionary linkage between an 1892 and an 1894. Is that kind of like the 93% DNA match, chimpanzee to human?
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This is what happens when you cut and paste.
I didn't mean for the 303 Savage reference to be included in the statement about the 30-30 being the first smokeless development as is obvious that the 303 Savage wasn't developed before the 30-30. (It was developed in 1894 but first used in the Savage 99.)

As to the '94 being a product of the '92's design, that's true. The design of the '92, a scaled down 1886, was taken as a starting point and stretched to allow for the cycling of the longer 30 WCF cartridge. One major change included the floor of the receiver in the '94 drops down with the lever; a change necessitated by the longer cartridge so the actions don't look exactly alike.

As to the 30 WCF marking on some Savage barrels. I found that Winchester offered to authorize other manufacturers the limited rights to chamber their rifles in 30 WCF after a royalty was paid, however, the manufacturers quickly moved to name a generic 30-30 cartridge so as to avoid those payments on both the rifles and the ammunition.
 
"Contrary to what COSteve posted, in the original post, Stressrelief, has an older Savage 99 marked, "30 WCF". Winchester also continued to mark their model 94 barrels, "30 W.C.F.", at least until WWII. I am looking at one right now, #129XXXX, one of the so-called, "war-time", cabines with exactly that marking."

Thank you, Pathfinder. I was pretty sure that that was the case, at least with early Savage rifles.

Unfortunately, Doug Murray's book, a wealth of information, is mute on how Savage stamped chambering markings on its rifles.

I have seen early Savage 1899s stamped both .30 WCF and .25 WCF (the .25-35), but again, I'm not sure when those markings might have been altered.

There's an interesting sidelight in all of this. UMC helped Savage develop is .303 and also sold Savage ammunition that the the company sold under its own name.

But, staring around 1900, a conglomerate called the Ammunition Manufacturer's Asscoation -- UMC, Winchester Arms, and the US Cartridge Company -- formed and refused to sell ammunition to Savage, forcing the company begin manufacturing its own ammunition.

By about 1905 the company had added .30-30, .25-35, .32-40, and .38-55 rounds to its ammo offerings. Interestingly enough, the 1905 catalog shows them all using that nomenclature, NOT WCF.

Regarding how other companies marked their guns chambered for Winchester cartridges...

I have a Colt Police Positive Special and an S&W M&P, both in .32-20.

The Smith is marked .32 WCF.

The Colt is the odd one...

It's marked .32-20 WCF. Odd amalgam of markings.
 
"Powders were improving fast."

Oh my God that is an understatement!

Early smokeless powder development in the United States was fraught with problems, as it was in Europe. The processes and chemistry were literally being developed with each successive batch of powder, and often the results were less than wonderful.

The problems in developing and manufacturing the early smokeless powders is one of the reasons why the .30-30 wasn't introduced commercially until 1895.

Often batches of powder would come out of the manufacturing process and begin to degrade almost immediately. There are reports of powders going into the steam dryers and coming out the other side burning.

The powders also tended to be unstable as hell.

When the US Navy finally gave up on the 6mm Lee Navy rifle, Francis Bannerman purchased them all surplus, along with something like 20 million rounds of ammunition.

The guns and ammo had been stored for some time. The guns were fine, but Bannerman's employees found that the ammunition was in various degrees of questionable to REALLY bad condition.

The situation was so bad that all of the 6mm Lee Navy ammunition that Bannerman's purchased was loaded onto a barge and dumped into the middle of the Hudson River.
 
All that which came first means nothing really in the big picture. The relevance of the 30-30 cartridge as the greatest or near greatest all time general purpose hunting round is proven and based on the certainty that it has taken more medium game (deer) than any other cartridge and the vast majority of them with a lever gun, the 336 Marlin. And more than a few elk, mule deer, hogs, moose and bear. 3C
 
(It was developed in 1894 but first used in the Savage 99.)
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The 303 Savage was the only chambering for the Savage 1895 rifle, which was submitted to the military trials in 1893 but came out commercially in 1895 (trivia- Savages early guns were made by Marlin). The Savage 1899 was an update to the 1895's design.
Winchester also continued to mark their model 94 barrels, "30 W.C.F.", at least until WWII
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Yes. The change in the 1920s that was mentioned was to drop the year designation (1894, 1892, 1886, 1903, 1912, etc) and to move to "model numbers" (21, 43, 51, 55, 70, 71, etc).
an older Savage 99 marked, "30 WCF"
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I have a 1899 manufactured in 1912 that is marked 30W. I have seen 99s marked 30 WCF and 30-30W.
As to the '94 being a product of the '92's design, that's true.
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In the book "John Moses Browning American Gun Maker", it relates the management at Winchester wanting John Browning to just scale up the 1892. Browning felt that the 1894 needed to be a totally different design (he felt that the 1886 was too big). Even a very superficial examination of a Model 1894 will show little similarity to the 1892 other than using the same stock. A large single locking lug instead of paired vertical locking lugs, a trigger safety, the bottom link system with the cartridge stop on its nose, the spring loaded over-centering carrier system.
 
All that which came first means nothing really in the big picture. The relevance of the 30-30 cartridge as the greatest or near greatest all time general purpose hunting round is proven and based on the certainty that it has taken more medium game (deer) than any other cartridge and the vast majority of them with a lever gun, the 336 Marlin. And more than a few elk, mule deer, hogs, moose and bear. 3C
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The 336 didn't come out until 1948. Before that the Marlin 30-30 was a model 36 with a square bolt similar to the bolts used on the 357 and 44 mag today. As much as I like my 336 Marlin the Winchester 1894 had a 50 year head start on the 336 and I bet you will find the score on deer, elk, moose and bear is higher on the Winchester than the Marlin made 30WCF rifles.

But now magnums rule and velocity is king and the good ol' steady, reliable 30-30 by what ever name you call it doesn't get the respect it deserves. But you can tell by my sig line I like the round and the rifles that shoot it.
 
ratshooter said:
The 336 didn't come out until 1948. Before that the Marlin 30-30 was a model 36 with a square bolt similar to the bolts used on the 357 and 44 mag today. As much as I like my 336 Marlin the Winchester 1894 had a 50 year head start on the 336 and I bet you will find the score on deer, elk, moose and bear is higher on the Winchester than the Marlin made 30WCF rifles.

But now magnums rule and velocity is king and the good ol' steady, reliable 30-30 by what ever name you call it doesn't get the respect it deserves. But you can tell by my sig line I like the round and the rifles that shoot it.
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I count the 36 as essentially the same rifle as the 336. In any case, I would not disagree that the Winchester has taken a huge share if not more than the 336 and it's earlier version the 36. Both were loading the 30-3/30WCF and that is my only point. It just works and it is an easy cartridge to load for, inexpensive to shoot and more than sufficient as has been proven time and again. 3C
 
based on the certainty that it has taken more medium game (deer) than any other cartridge and the vast majority of them with a lever gun, the 336 Marlin.
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I remember reading that claim in the 1970s, but time changes things. While I am sure that the 30-30 has killed a large share of deer and other game animals, the lever action rifles it is usually chambered in are no longer ubiquitous. I would probably question the statement in light of the fact that the BP cartridges that came before it nearly wiped out all deer in the US. Certainly the 44-40 killed many, many animals as well. And I'm sure the 30-30's kill rate has dropped over the past half century since it's no longer in the top sellers list anymore. And the 30-06 and 270 have certainly made dents in the population of critters over the past century. The 308 and 243 as well over the past 60 years. I still love my 30-30 1894s, but I may be in a shrinking crowd.

As far as the Marlin 336, it's a fine rifle. There have been about 4 million produced, while Winchester produced nearly 8 million 94s.
 
One point of order about the design of the 1886..

After introduction of the 1873, Winchester wanted to next bring out a rifle that would compete in power with the various Sharps and Remington, and other single shots firing large, long cartridges like the .45-70, .50-70 and .50-90.

Winchester's designers couldn't come up with a lever-action design that could handle cartridges of that length, so Winchester chambered the gun for a series of bottlenecked cartridges that were shorter, but as powerful, as their single shot rivals.

The 1886 was, in part, designed to allow for a lever gun that would chamber the .45-70 Government cartridge, which was at that time quite popular in the civilian area. Browning's design also allowed chambering even longer cases, like the .50-110 Winchester, which had a case length of 2.4 inches.
 
The 1876 Centennial Winchester cartridges were generally of the "express" type with relatively light bullets. The closest they could get to .45-70-405 Govt was the .45-75-350.
 
I do not think it is a cliché' that the lever guns and 30-30 have taken more deer than any other cartridge, at least in the 20th Century. I know that the 30-06, my favorite the .270 and the .308 have certainly done their share as well. Not sure how one would ever prove that. I was child in the 60s and a baby in the 50s but do recall the grown ups all toting Marlins and the odd Winchester in mostly 30-30 or Springfield O'6. And back when we could ride around with guns in our pickup truck rear window rack, if it was not a shotgun in there it was a Marlin I would see in those racks. But today and certainly over the last several decades, the 30-30 has faded in favor of other cartridges. 3C
 
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FWIW, the first Marlin levergun chambered in the 30WCF was the Model 1893, upgraded to the 36 and then then the current 336.
 
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