Cast Bullets for 30WCF

[DMW1116]

Did someone say pistol powder in a 30-30? I’m in. I’ve had good success with the 135 grain Acme cast/coated bullets and a few grains of W231, approximating the 30-30 “Short Range” loading. I also have a potentially great load with H335 and the same Acme C&C bullets. I need to confirm it.

 

[Charlie98]

.310 is the minimum that you want in cast for .308. If they are not gas checked, you need to load them down to @1200 with a pistol powder. Any 170 grs cast bullet at 1200 fps and above will stabilize with the 1:12 twist rate. If the ones you are shooting are not gas checked, there’s your major problem - they are suffering from gas cutting. Slow them down and things should improve.

Before buying more cast bullets for the 30-30 (and your 94 is ideal for shooting cast btw), you may want to slug the bore. If this is an old rifle, there may be throat erosion, and it may run more .309+ than .308. Load to the throat, so it could be that .311 bullets are even better than .310. 1500 -1700 is the sweet spot for cast in 30-30 for me, but that’s mainly from a Marlin microgroove barrel, whereas with yours, properly fitted gas checked bullets should be fine up to 2000 fps.

Don’t let this experience put you off. The 30-30 is ideal for cast bullets.

+1

The only thing I would disagree with would be the requirement to load them down to 1200fps without a gas check... much of that depends on the alloy and, primarily, size of the bullet, and to a lesser extent, the shape of the bullet. I mentioned the 173grn (Lyman, I think) cast bullet that I get from LaserCast... it's a gas check design. I think under a big charge of powder it does suffer from gas cutting, but I don't have that problem so much with true plain square-base bullets. I shoot the same bullet, but from Montana Bullet... with gas checks... and they are as accurate as quality jacketed bullets.

A lot of people poo-poo MicroGroove rifling... I don't. Yes, it takes a few extra steps to produce good accuracy with cast in a MG barrel, but it is not impossible. I just shot this group last week, with a '70's era 336 in .30-30. Green circle is Nosler 170's, red circle is the MBW 173grn GC FP bullet... both over the same charge of IMR3031, and leaving the barrel at around 2000fps. Those were shot offhand, with a red dot that obscured the bull at that distance... I certainly could have tightened that up off a rest with a more appropriate sight.




My general rule of thumb is to keep non-gas check bullets below 1500fps, and to spend the money on GC'ed bullets over that velocity. All of my .348WCF bullets are GC, because I drive them to 2200fps, for example. At the end of the day, however, the Golden Rule of cast rifle bullets is: The bullet has to fit the bore.

 

[GooseGestapo]

I size my .30 bullets to .311”. They work very well in my Marlin w/micro groove.
With a gas check, 2,300fps is possible with excellent accuracy .
Without a GC, but tumble lubed, 1,300fps is tops.
In my experience, Moly coating is no better than Lee tumble lube…

As long as the loaded rounds easily chamber, bigger (sizing) is better!

 

[racepres]

Did someone say pistol powder in a 30-30? I’m in. I’ve had good success with the 135 grain Acme cast/coated bullets and a few grains of W231, approximating the 30-30 “Short Range” loading. I also have a potentially great load with H335 and the same Acme C&C bullets. I need to confirm it.

Red Dot here... I use it in Anything that will take a Cast Boolit.....Anything