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Anyone else own one of these? Any thoughts on getting a group order and begging/asking Hornady to make a production run of leverevolution 30-30's in 30 Rem brass?

Don

I have a couple of Rem M-8s and 81s in this caliber as well as a Standard Arms pump, a Rem M-30, and an old lever gun, I think it is a Mossberg. I have plenty of brass for this gun and lucked into a 40 boxes of late production factory loads at an auction that I picked up for a song. I have enough to get me by for a while so I am not too interested in getting Hornady to produce any of these. Except for the M-30, I don't think there would be any advantage to the Flex Tip as the rifles are not accurate enough. Now, if they would pump out some 25 and 32 Rem with the correct headstamps I might be interested though the LR bullet is not a necessity. Same would go for the 22 Savage Hi-Power as the choices are expensive Norma or inexpensive but not overly accurate Sellier & Bellot. I would also appreciate having the 22 Savage designation on the headstamp rather than the European one.

Lucky you. I've got about 2.5 boxes of factory rounds. I thought that Hornady might be interested in doing the 30 Rem since the brass is nearly the same as the 30-30 (except for the lack of rim) and same loadings could be used. I'd hazard a guess they could do a small run on the same machine as the 30-30's. The LR bullet is of interest to me since it adds a bit to the range etc. Even less likely that they'd bring back the 25 or 32 Rem's, but one could hope.

What I have discovered with the other LR amunition is that one can get the same "improvement" using pointed or spitzer bullets rather than round nose. The 14/141 offset the bullet in the magazine so that the point of the bullet is not resting on the primer of the round ahead of it. I don't have one of these guns but I have shot them on numerous occasions. Maybe when I finish off my collection of M-8 and 81 rifles I'll look into their sister model.
I believe it is a bit more work than you mention to make 30 Rem brass from 30/30 brass. I don't have my cartridge conversion manual handy at the moment but I'm pretty sure it is not quite that easy. As Remington does put out the brass on occasion, it would be pretty easy to load up at those times. Last I checked, John at Gun Stop Reloading Supplies www.gunstop.com had 30 Rem brass on hand. As I seemed to be the only one interested in this cartridge, I'd wager they still have a bit left. If not, I'd guess, but don't know, that using 6.8 Rem SPU brass would be an easier proposition as I believe it is based off the 30 Rem case. If you don't reload yet, Hornady seems to have the best price on dies and, when coupled with their incentive of free bullets, its the best deal around by far. I just ordered a set of 25 Rem dies to replace the old set I have and it wasn't too bad at $65 bucks. A Redding forming die was only $20, both from MidwayUSA. I had decent success by just running the 30 Rem cases through the 25 Rem sizing die but I did bungle one every now and then.
That lever gun I mentioned above isn't a Mossberg, its a Stevens. Why I keep thinking its a Mossberg I'll never know. I like these older, obsolete guns as they often tend to go for quite reasonable at auctions. The lack of ammo availability and little dealer/collector presence allows the "normal" guy to get a shot at these guns.

The 30 Rem is NEARLY the same as a rimless 30-30. You can use the 30-30 dies, but the shoulder on the 30 Rem is slightly different if you want to be 100% correct. The reason that I was asking for factory loads isn't because of the brass. I can get the brass and dies. The bullet and powder in the LR loads are not on the market for reloaders. Yes, the Mod. 14 has the spiral mag, and is not prone to firing all of it's mag off if the rounds aren't blunt like in a lever gun. However, I'd like the plastic tip to be there to be safe. Plus I'm not into reloading at the moment since my reloader is in a box under a layer of dust and being able to buy off the shelf ammo appeals to me.

With the pumps you can use the 30/30 dies as Remington cut the chambers for them oversized for some reason. The autos and to a lesser extent the lever are not so fortunate and one must use the correct dies for proper chambering. With the bolt action, one can get enough camming action to force the bolt closed with the 30/30 dies though it really is not all that excessive.
I am not all that enamoured with the LR ammunition, it does not show much improvement over the standard ammo from Remington and Federal in my two Marlin 30/30s with 20" barrel nor in a Savage 1899 with 24" barrel. I can match LR ballistics in these guns with several loads out of my manuals. If one reloads, the Flex-Tip is said to be available and I have seen them in a couple of stores though only in the .458". Cost for them was as much as Ballistic Tip bullets which would make me bypass them for the most part. I have no qualms running spitzers through the M-14/141, I've run 100 gr spitzers through a Rem 14 in 25 Rem for many years. I am not a great fan of the pump but they are definitely an interesting part of Remington's history and are rapidly becoming of collector interest.