30-30 level cast load in a .308

[jaysouth]

My standard hunting load (woods) is a 165 cast bullet over 30 grs. H4895 at just over 1,900 fps.. The load will shoot through an whitetail deer end to end and exit. Even 200 pound feral pigs will not capture this cast bullet. Finally, I shot a critter with where the bullets did not completely penetrate both sides. Here is a picture of a pig that I shot Tues morning in E. Tenn. There were no dogs involved. The range was 40 to 50 yards.

My first shot would have killed the pig, had I been up in a blind, I would waited for the pig to die. However, I had only a couple of skinny trees to hide behind. I shot him three more times before he rolled down a hill and died. 506 lbs, I took home over 200 lbs of processed meat. The photo was staged to make the pig appear larger, but he was plenty big enough to stalk on the ground

 

[Jason_W]

That thing is monstrous regardless of perspective. Things like that just roam the woods in some places?

 

[Don McDowell]

Yessir that 30 wcf with it's 160 gr bullet at 1900 fps, sure set the stage for quite a few cartridges to become obsolete, in 1895.

 

[jmr40]

The 30-30 kills stuff and if someone wants to use one for nostalgic purposes then have at it. But the 30-30 was obsolete 3 years before it was introduced. The 7X57 predates it by 3 years and the original load shot 173 gr bullets from a rimless cartridge at about 2300 fps. It went on to be one of the most popular cartridges in the world, not just the USA, and has taken every game animal in Africa including thousands of elephant. The 30-30 was a step backwards in cartridge development.

Don't get me wrong, I like the 30-30 and own more rifles chambered for it than any other round. But while it is the iconic American hunting cartridge it never was all that great.

 

[Hanshi]

IMHO, I don't think a cartridge with more power makes anything less powerful obsolete. That statement could be construed to mean only one cartridge is not obsolete. Cartridges come about in order to fill certain niches; and for this reason the .458 mag hasn't replaced the .308 as a deer cartridge.

You and I, jmr40, both like the 30/30. I no longer hunt with cartridge firearms; for years, now, it's been flintlocks exclusively, for me. They still see some exercise at the range, however. Long ago I primarily used the .250 Sav. for deer hunting. It is my belief that the emergence of the 30/30 and handy lever rifles was one of the best moves in hunting rifle development.

 

[jaysouth]

That thing is monstrous regardless of perspective. Things like that just roam the woods in some places?

I was hoping this did not come up, but I got the little fellow on that hunt. Here is my buddy who got a pig about an hour before I did. Mine was 506 lbs, the one below was over 600. The scales broke when they kept trying to weigh it.

 

[midland man]

The 30-30 kills stuff and if someone wants to use one for nostalgic purposes then have at it. But the 30-30 was obsolete 3 years before it was introduced. The 7X57 predates it by 3 years and the original load shot 173 gr bullets from a rimless cartridge at about 2300 fps. It went on to be one of the most popular cartridges in the world, not just the USA, and has taken every game animal in Africa including thousands of elephant. The 30-30 was a step backwards in cartridge development.

Don't get me wrong, I like the 30-30 and own more rifles chambered for it than any other round. But while it is the iconic American hunting cartridge it never was all that great.

sorry I disagree I own and still use a Winchester 94 30-30 and it has served me for 26 years I load 170gr sierra bullets with Winchester 760 powder at around 1975fps works excellent and has done it out to 200 yards and is plenty for Oklahoma!!

 

[JohnhenrySTL]

That's a once in a lifetime kill for most of us. If it's a 20 or a 22, that's a nice hog. The op looks capable of using any cartridge he wanted. He chose the 30-30 and it worked.

 

[the Black Spot]

I can smell that thing through the picture!

Nice job!

 

[Slamfire]

My goodness, 500 and 600 pigs running around the back woods in Tennessee. When do they get big and bad enough to take on pick up trucks?

This will sound as a rant, but your experience pretty much shows that the old Gunwriter formulas for killing power are all bogus. Typically they use kinetic energy, as KE is mass time velocity squared, and it is a lot easier to bump velocity up, which increases the KE by the square. For decades gunwriters have been shilling for the latest and greatest. Articles in gun magazines are advertising, and when "killing power" can be inflated by the square, shilling becomes so much easier. Here, as this ad tells us, the Weatherby cartridge is so fast, so powerful, you don't have to do the basics of shot placement. A hit in the hoof is enough to fragment the animal!




I always thought momentum, which is mass times velocity, to be a better measure of killing power, given that momentum not kinetic energy is conserved in collisions. But even that simple number is bogus as a measure of killing power. As I have aged, I have gotten to believe the basic premise that Dr Martin Fackler espoused http://www.rkba.org/research/fackler/wrong.html which can be crudely stated as the biggest through hole that induces blood loss, is a better predictor of killing power. If it breathes and bleeds, if it can be made to bleed enough, it will die. Your 308 caliber 165 cast bullet has the penetration and probably slightly expands enough to make a bigger hole.

I have read the gun literature prior to WW2 and the 30-40 Krag was regarded as an excellent hunting round. It pushed a 220 grain bullet 2000 fps in a 30 inch barrel. Today that round would be considered low power, and yet, either with a soft point or a cast bullet, it was a reliable killer. The most probable reason was the bullet stayed intact, the bullets slightly mushroomed, and it made a big through hole from which lots of blood drained from the animal, internally and externally.

High velocity is desirable for flattening out the trajectory, but as your experience shows, if your bullet has enough momentum to plow through the animal, and the hole is big enough, the animal will die.

Big darn pig. If those things ever develop a bad temper, there are going to be a lot of missing hikers in the future.

 

[db_tanker]

one thing I'd love to try...a 200 gr cast gc'd in a 308 with a load of trailboss...should be okay since the rifle has a 1-10 twist and built on a long action so OAL isn't a big issue.

 

[Don McDowell]

If the trail boss load will give enough velocity to stabilize that bullet it should work fine.

 

[ThomasT]

That's a once in a lifetime kill for most of us. If it's a 20 or a 22, that's a nice hog. The op looks capable of using any cartridge he wanted. He chose the 30-30 and it worked.

The OP didn't use a 30-30. He used a 30-30 level load in a 308 rifle with a 165gr cast bullet.

Jaysouth you are doing close to what I have wanted to do for a while with your 308. I want to get a short 308 rifle and load it with bullets designed for the 30-30 and push them (170gr) to around 2400fps for a start velocity. I am surprised the lead bullet works in the 308 case with its short neck. I am guessing that the bullet protrudes into the powder space and that exposes the lead to the powder flame. That is supposed to be a big no-no but I see it works for you.

I have one 309 170gr lead bullet mold that I haven't used yet but when I do I will load some of these in my 30-06 and in the 30-30. I have 150gr 30-30 bullets loaded in 30-06 cases now and at 2400fps they are a pleasure to shoot. I haven't killed a hog yet but have been there when someone else killed a couple of small pigs. I have seen some pretty big pigs in the wild but didn't have permission to shoot them. But 500-600 pounds hogs are monsters. Ya did good.

I forgot to ask, what rifle are you using? It looks like a Remington pump from the little I can see of it.

 

[jaysouth]

It is a Remington 7600 P. Often called a police carbine, it has a 16.5" bbl. I have shot many many thousands of skeet and trap targets with various 870 shotguns, so operating the pump rifle just comes naturally.

I ran a throat reamer in the throat to move it forward a little bit so I could seat cast bullets with the gas check at the bottom of the neck. Your point is well taken.

The molds you mentioned work great in bolt action rifles, but unless you want to spend years tinkering with alloys and lubes, you won't get accuracy at 2,400 fps. My 165s are shooting less than 2,000 with good accuracy. This last hunt proves that you don't need velocity if you have a good meplat. Think of how many buffalo herds were wiped out with pure lead bullets out of a 45-70 going 1,300 fps.(all of them)

 

[ThomasT]

Sorry, I should have noted the 2400 fps loads are with Remington 150gr jacketed bullets. And the one 30 caliber bullet mold I have is a 170gr Lee flat point mold. I really need to cast a couple of hundred bullets from it. I have just been dragging my feet. That was a good idea about making the throat longer so you could seat the bullets out. I'm not sure I would have thought of that.

I had one of the Police Patrol carbines in 223 with a 16" barrel. Boy was I stupid for ever selling that gun. And being based on remingtons shotguns it pointed so well. Just raise it up and you were on target. The only down side to that gun and it was not the guns fault was that the bolt face was tight. Brass cases worked fine but steel cases would get stuck and took a good amount of prying to get lose after they were fired. Not a gun problem. An out of spec ammo problem coupled with a tight made gun.

One of my favorite gun writers, Finn Aagaard wrote about using 150-170gr 30-30 bullets (jacketed) for a milder load for his young son in a 30-06. I agree. They are nice to shoot and with the large soft point should be very effective on deer. Finn also wrote an article in American Rifleman about using lead bullets at 1900fps to kill deer. His point was that deer are not that hard to kill. But 1900fps is nothing more than a 30-30 duplication load. And the 30-30 has been a deer killer since it hit the ground. If you don't kill your deer with that round you didn't point it right.