Blame It on Lucile

Shooting the .28-30-120

- Terry Wieland

Mention the .28-30-120 to the average shooter today and you are likely to get, at best, a puzzled look. It’s an obscure cartridge, as to both rifles and ammunition, and brass, bullets and load data are all hard to come by.

It’s tempting to say that it’s a cartridge that deserved much better – a fine round that was not appreciated in its day and allowed to fall into obscurity through no fault of its own. Tempting, but hardly true. The only good reasons I can come up with for attempting to load the .28-30-120 are (a) you are a masochist, (b) you love a challenge, and the trickier the better, or (c) you have acquired a fine old .28-30 rifle that is too nice to alter, but you still want to shoot it.

In my particular case, there’s a bit of all three. Getting involved with the .28-30-120 was never on my list of ambitions, but I chanced upon a rifle named “Lucile,” succumbed to its charms, picked up a second rifle in the same chambering almost by accident, and here we are: Embroiled in the most complicated reloading project I can remember.

First, a little history. The .28-30-120 (usually abbreviated to .28-30) was introduced by the J. Stevens Arms & Tool Company in the fall of 1900, intended (and expected) to become the latest hotshot Schützen cartridge in a target-shooting game that was then at the height of its popularity. It was a straight-taper, rimmed case similar to the king of them all, the .32-40, scaled down to .284 and was America’s first commercial 7mm. Like the .32-40, it was intended for black powder, which then ruled the target ranges even though smokeless had been around for a decade and was making significant inroads at all levels of shooting.