After some years of messing about with other single shots it is kind of a relief to be able to quickly, and reasonably, swap over wood for a different look, add a scope without sending out to D/T, etc.
The others have also become sooo expensive that a lot of regular folks just cant afford to break into the game. I sure do like the looks and handling of the longer barrels with any of the stocks, though I have heard all the stories about the short, stiffer barrels being better.
Regarding bullets, so far I have some 245gr. Alpha FN in a Lyman #2 equiv. alloy at .379 and some as cast Lee 255gr. WWt pan lubed that go about .381. The .379s load up into my fireformed 30-30 brass fine and I seat out to the rifling (ie, longer than 'book'). These eject without trouble. Not so with the Lee bullet. It can be hard to chamber and sticky to eject. I think these case necks could take a .380 sized bullet and work OK, but I have none that size to try yet. My normal methodology is to use as large a dia. bullet as comfortably fits a fully fire-formed case neck. On a previous H&R I used the WW 38-55 brass but had to neck turn all to work in the too small chamber neck. This time I decided to use the shorter 30-30 cases which do not intrude as far up the chamber taper, thus avoid some of the resulting constriction. This is looking promising but, lacking good weather for decent target trials here in WI, I have yet to prove it. At my 9" gong at 50yd, though, I have a nice 1 1/2", 4shot casual group from a cold deck rail rest.
