cartridge 1918

1637 · Dec 14, 2014

found a cartridge marked western 1918,looks like a 30/30,i found the company is in alton il but not much more.
thanks brad

Rustynailsandscrews · Dec 14, 2014

I'm no expert on bullet cartridges. The 30/30 round has been around a long time. It was a carbine style rifle with a internal magazine which ejected and injected a fresh round with an underhand cocking motion. It saw action in the Old West as being a repeater and not having to manually chamber a round. Cowboys loved it and Indians to back in the day because it was considered rapid fire. It was very accurate for a 100 yards but accuracy quickly dropped off after that.
It was largely replaced by the 30/06 which held much more gunpowder in a larger casing resulting in a longer range and accuracy.
Many casings are stamped with a date and in your case, I'm guessing you have found a 30/30 casing from 1918. Theses guns were really popular back at this time.
I'm not a collector but I'm guessing it's not worth much other then being a piece of history which is still very cool. Was someone hunting game or fighting when that bullet was fired? We will never know I guess.

gunsil · Dec 15, 2014

Rustynailsandscrews said:
I'm no expert on bullet cartridges. The 30/30 round has been around a long time. It was a carbine style rifle with a internal magazine which ejected and injected a fresh round with an underhand cocking motion. It saw action in the Old West as being a repeater and not having to manually chamber a round. Cowboys loved it and Indians to back in the day because it was considered rapid fire. It was very accurate for a 100 yards but accuracy quickly dropped off after that.
It was largely replaced by the 30/06 which held much more gunpowder in a larger casing resulting in a longer range and accuracy.
Many casings are stamped with a date and in your case, I'm guessing you have found a 30/30 casing from 1918. Theses guns were really popular back at this time.
I'm not a collector but I'm guessing it's not worth much other then being a piece of history which is still very cool. Was someone hunting game or fighting when that bullet was fired? We will never know I guess.

The first Winchester to use the 30-30 was the model 94 and it was a full length rifle with carbine lengths also available. They did not really have an internal magazine, they have tubular magazines under the barrel. Savage model 99s have internal magazines. Since it came out in 1894 there were no cowboy-indian altercations used by it, the indian wars and uprisings were long over. Basically it was never used in fighting. You must have seen too many movies where they use 94s when the period rifles would have been 73s which used pistol rounds. 30-30 is still used by many as a deer cartridge in some areas. It was superceded first by the Krag 30-40, a military cartridge and then the 30-06, another military cartridge, but loved by many deer hunters for a hundred years and more.

pistol-pete · Dec 15, 2014

The only cases I know of with 1918 date were 30-06 made for the Government. There was Western, UMC, Winchester Etc.

Charlie P. (NY) · Dec 15, 2014

Apparently Western also made 8mm Lebel (rimmed French service round) in 1915, 1916 and 1918.

They also made rimmed 7.62 x 54R for Russia in 1917. Possibly 1918 was well.

If you could get an image of the case beside a ruler it would help. Also whether it is rimmed or rimless.