Trouble Shooting First Cast Loads in 30-30

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A friend and I never could get good accuracy with cast bullets in his Marlin .44 Magnum, even up to .432".

My Remington 788 .30-30 has a tight chamber neck and will not accept the larger cast bullets that I would expect to be more accurate.

My .30-06s do fine with LIGHT loads and hand cast bullets.

I think we expect too much out of rifle bullets cast like bulk pistol bullets capable of "one ragged hole at 7 yards," and there is too much emphasis on high velocity.
 
I tend to agree about the emphasis on high velocities with cast projectiles, however my paperpatch bullets are routinely driven at 2250, and have been driven far faster, their's a trade off for sure and i don't think bulk bullets meet the criteria of increased velocity unless there specifically cast for paper patching and used as such.
Edited for additional info:
Find Lymans Cast Bullet manual # 1, interesting stuff and very uesfull, as is Mathews books
 
I know that it is possible to paper patch or just perfectly match alloy, lube, diameter, and powder to get the velocity up with cast bullets. Maybe even coating if the bullet is good enough.
But asking for "recipes" for 2000+ fps to start on is definitely jumping in at the deep end.
 
Jim Watson said:
A friend and I never could get good accuracy with cast bullets in his Marlin .44 Magnum, even up to .432".

My Remington 788 .30-30 has a tight chamber neck and will not accept the larger cast bullets that I would expect to be more accurate.

My .30-06s do fine with LIGHT loads and hand cast bullets.

I think we expect too much out of rifle bullets cast like bulk pistol bullets capable of "one ragged hole at 7 yards," and there is too much emphasis on high velocity.
Click to expand...



Any of those rifles, or others, shot at 7 yards, would be 1 ragged hole, or very close.
Shoot those 1 ragged hole pistols at 100 or 50 yards and see how they do.

Bench rest shooters spend $$$$$ on equipment and components. Are meticulous in their loading, in search for that 1 ragged hole.

4" at 100 yards is 1/2 minute of deer. How good does it need to be?

I bought some 95gr powder coated bullets. They were sized .356, intended for .380.
I loaded them extremely light, in .38 Sp brass, to shoot in Blackhawk .357 for Cowboy Action shooting. Searching for least recoil and fastest times.

They shot 5" groups at 10 yards from the bench. But, they recoil like .22LR.
Cowboy Action uses 10" steel at 7 or 10 yards.
GOOD ENOUGH!
And 6 year olds can shoot them.
 
[QUOTE="Jim Watson, post: 12048244, member:
But asking for "recipes" for 2000+ fps to start on is definitely jumping in at the deep end.[/QUOTE]
I haven't seen any one asking for recipes for 2000 fps cast loads, i have seen lots of information regarding cast bullets, reference material and anecdotal comments. I wouldn't recomend jumping in the deep end either, if as it appears your results were not suitable, it doesn't necessarily mean that others will have the same results.
OP: The cast bullet association has a great resource online that could also provide some information
 
I should have stated my goal from the beginning. I want to find a reasonably accurate load with reduced noise and recoil for target/range practice. There is no commercially available “blammo” load for 30-30 so I figured I’d make my own. Cast projectiles and reduced charges seemed the way to go so I got a Lyman Cast Bullet Manual for its reduced load info and enough reading to decide if I want to cast my own.

I’m aiming for a load less than 1600 fps that shoots between 2 and 3 MOA. I would like to cast my own bullets at some point but I figured I’d start with bullets made by someone that is actually good at it. If the reduced loads seem to work and I can find a place to do it I may start casting my own.
 
Plus one on the Cast Bullet Assn reference, as is Cast Boolits. Both have a wealth of information that'll save the OP hours if not weeks of frustration. My comments in post #12 are one way of attaining 1600 fps from a Micro-Groove bbl. It's easily attained and with accuracy in the 2-3 MOA area. The prerequisites for that level of performance are well established. Best regards, Rod
 
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Roverguy said:
The best place to start is here (“The Paper Jacket” by Paul Mathews):

https://ads.midwayusa.com/product/1014476852?pid=813840&utm_medium=shopping&utm_source=bing&utm_campaign=Books,+Videos+&+Software+-+Books&utm_content=813840&cm_mmc=pf_ci_bing-_-Books,+Videos+&+Software+-+Books-_-Wolfe+Publishing-_-813840&msclkid=4921779604e71d79fcd116a18505478b&utm_term=1101101057979

But again, commercially available .310 - .311” @170 grs bullets are going to shoot well in your rifle.
Click to expand...

No, the best place is "Marlin 30-30 For Sale" and all your cast challenges disappear.
 
It looks like I was pushing the bullets way to fast. I reduced the charge behind the 135 grain bullets to get them down below 1450 fps. At the reduced velocity, they group very close to the 150 grain Hornady round nose loaded to the book minimum charge of 14 grains of 2400.

As a sanity check, these groups are very close to groups shot from my Henry H001 at similar distances. With a scope at 25 yards the Henry is a single hole 22 rifle. I removed the scope and use both lever actions with iron sights. The 336 has Ranger Point traditional aperture sights. It appears the limit is me not the rifle as best I can tell with less than 10 shots down range. 7ECE0D1F-A387-442D-BDF7-6EE1837EF57E.jpeg
 
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Whoops. Picture added cause I’m a doofus. I also know it should say POA instead of POI. The first shot marked 12 Acme went way low. I had to make a couple adjustments. The targets were on the stand with one above the other. As it sits now the POI is about 6 to 7 inches below POA.
 
I’m not familiar with the Acme bullet.
Is it a Gas Checked design?

If not, therein is likely the problem.

The only Marlins I’ve had trouble getting cast bullet accuracy with are .44Mags.
Two, in fact. The twist rate is just too slow for anything but 200gr bullets, and my 200gr Lee RFN casts too [email protected]” Another story for another time...

My M336 in .30/30 shoots a .311” Gas Check bullet as accurate as jacketed. Alloy is nothing special. Lube is SPG and bullets are gas checked with Hornady crimp on checks.

A J-bullet starting load of most any appropriate.30/30 powder will give excellent accuracy.
Favorites of mine are #2400, 4198 (either), RL-7, IMR3031, H322, H4895, 748, BLC2, IMR4320, and RL15.

You need to try some other bullets.
 
GooseGestapo said:
I’m not familiar with the Acme bullet.
Is it a Gas Checked design?

If not, therein is likely the problem.

The only Marlins I’ve had trouble getting cast bullet accuracy with are .44Mags.
Two, in fact. The twist rate is just too slow for anything but 200gr bullets, and my 200gr Lee RFN casts too [email protected]” Another story for another time...

My M336 in .30/30 shoots a .311” Gas Check bullet as accurate as jacketed. Alloy is nothing special. Lube is SPG and bullets are gas checked with Hornady crimp on checks.

A J-bullet starting load of most any appropriate.30/30 powder will give excellent accuracy.
Favorites of mine are #2400, 4198 (either), RL-7, IMR3031, H322, H4895, 748, BLC2, IMR4320, and RL15.

You need to try some other bullets.
Click to expand...

GooseGestapo said:
You need to try some other bullets.
Click to expand...

yup
 
Engineer1911 said:
No, the best place is "Marlin 30-30 For Sale" and all your cast challenges disappear.
Click to expand...
Engineer1911 said:
A the proud FORMER owner of a Marlin 1894 44 mag lever gun, I offer this advice: Save hours of frustration and lead removal, sell the Marlin and buy a 30-30 lever gun with real rifling. Micro-grove rifling CANNOT group cast lead bullets. These guns do just fine with jacketed bullets.
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Just because YOU are not able to get a rifle to shoot cast well doesn’t mean it can not be done. It just means you can’t do it.

DMW1116, visit the cast boolit website (high school level stuff)or the Cast Bullet Association (graduate level) and learn how the big boys do it. One fellow has develop a series of bullet molds specifically for micro groove rifling.

Kevin
 
This is pretty much exactly what I was hoping to achieve. I wanted a cheap practice bullet at about a hot 357 magnum load. This is a 135 grain bullet running somewhere south of 1450 fps. My initial tests probably had it over 1600, maybe up around 1700. After cleaning the lead out I got some good advice to try reducing the charge so that’s what I did.

The low impact point is because I had to remove and repair the sights and gave them a mechanical zero, which is bottom them out plus 1/4 turn.

It isn’t a gas checked bullet design nor is it traditionally lubed. It’s Hi-tech coated. The bullet does have lube grooves and a crimp groove. Following some advice in this thread I reduced the crimp as low as could. I can barely see it.
 
I just tested a range of loads around the 12 grain mark and have a load to put into production. If my guesses are correct, it’s about 1000 fps slower than my 160 grain FTX loads. The difference in recoil is quite noticeable.

I have some work to do now to see if the sights will handle the elevation changes. I replaced the front sight with a Skinner front Patridge blade and it’s still higher than the factory sight by about 0.050”. It’s gonna take a couple sessions at the range with a file I’m afraid.
 
DMW1116 said:
This is pretty much exactly what I was hoping to achieve. I wanted a cheap practice bullet at about a hot 357 magnum load. This is a 135 grain bullet running somewhere south of 1450 fps. My initial tests probably had it over 1600, maybe up around 1700. After cleaning the lead out I got some good advice to try reducing the charge so that’s what I did.

The low impact point is because I had to remove and repair the sights and gave them a mechanical zero, which is bottom them out plus 1/4 turn.

It isn’t a gas checked bullet design nor is it traditionally lubed. It’s Hi-tech coated. The bullet does have lube grooves and a crimp groove. Following some advice in this thread I reduced the crimp as low as could. I can barely see it.
Click to expand...


There should be no leading, using a Hy-Tek bullet. I have driven them 2500 fps with no problems.

1700 with a soft lead bullet, can give you problems.
 
The patches came out both black and sparkly. I don’t know what else it might be other than leading. It took a while to get it clean too.
 
I guess? I don’t know. Now I’ll have to go look. They certainly didn’t seem mushy when I was loading them. I hand started a couple when seating to make sure my flare on the case was enough and nothing deformed or scraped off.
 
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