if you were going to build a bolt rifle

[greyling22]

if you were going to build a bolt rifle on a savage action, and you wanted
1) accurate
2) light recoiling
3) 30 caliber minimum so you could cast lead bullets using the many many molds you had
4) not-obsolete caliber. brass must be able to be had.

what would you go with? 308 and download? 7.62x39? 300aac? something a little further off the beaten path?

 

[adcoch1]

I have been thinking of doing this in 7.62x39 for a while now for a lot of reasons. Casting bullets and really cheap ammo being the main ones, but mostly to give me more shooting time with a bolt gun. I have taken deer with an sks and it works awesome for that at close ranges, so I can't help but think, in a bolt gun, a 303 173gr bullet would work even better for a do-all brush gun. 20-22 inch barrel and good iron sights would be a winner I think.

 

[The Big D]

I'd be hard pressed to pick anything other than .308 for that application. LOTS of cast bullet reduced power loads out there.

 

[OkieTrapper]

There's only one option IMHO 300 blackout

 

[Catpop]

30-06, H4895 60% load, 150 grain bullets------imho
Catpop

 

[theotherwaldo]

-Just picked up Bubba's old National Ordinance 1903a3 to build a mild-load/black powder plinker, much like that desired by the O.P.

 

[The Big D]

30-06, H4895 60% load, 150 grain bullets------imho
Catpop

Between the 4895 reduced loads, the Trail Boss reduced loads, and the Red Dot "the load" there are tons of options in either 308 or 30-06. There's no reason to go with a smaller case and several good reasons not to.

 

[jmorris]

308, I can load subsonic cast bullets in them that cycle as well as one in 300 blk would and I can load them up to normal levels and beat out your other two choices by a substantial margin.

Still would be a short action and with a barrel swap (can be done at home with the savage) could load up a round like the 458 socom with much better subsonic energy than any .30 cal, and use the same bolt.

 

[stoky]

If your building a Savage, maybe you should consider a 300 Savage.
off the beaten path

 

[barnbwt]

A 30carbine would make for a very light bolt gun, that would likely still be good for most <100yd stuff (or a bit further with the right sights). One that wouldn't beat you up, too.

A step down in power to pistol levels would be the venerable 7.62x25, a step up the 300AAC (I'm not sure how hugely different this is from Carbine besides BC in the end), another step up the 308/'06 rounds. For a deer-rifle level of power, my preference would be on 308 or 7.5x55 (simply because it does everything '06 does but better, and uses the exact same components apart from factory-available brass). I would think going much bigger than Blackout would tend to make for a heavier rifle, but it's also not like there are many modern bolt actions that aren't designed for those levels of power any more.

For a milsurp conversion, I think a Spanish Destroyer in Tokarev would be cool, as well as a small ring Mauser or little Carcano in Blackout.

TCB

 

[barnbwt]

"There's no reason to go with a smaller case and several good reasons not to."
Action length = weight, and weight was a design constraint for the OP. Cutting a nice chamber is also easier when you have to remove less metal.

TCB

 

[VoodooMountain]

308 hands down. Lc brass is plentiful, cheap, and increases pressure in reduced loads by a touch which often helps to improve accuracy. I've been down this road .myself and for low recoil the 308 wins hands down for an all around gun followed closely by the 25-06 loaded to 257 Roberts levels. Even less recoil and great for deer.

If 7mm-08 had the bounty of bullets that 308 had it would be just a smidge better yet, arguably.

308 offers many softer bullet choices such as the speer 2022, a 150gr btsp that is soft and when loaded to 300 savage velocity is an honest 300 yard deer round. There are also 30-30 bullets available for short range work, and of course ballistic tips. A 125 grain ballistic tip with a mv of 2700 is a great deer and coyote round. Sierra has a 110 gr varmint bullet as well. Sierra told me that if kept under 3000fps this bullet will work fine e on deer, even on shoulder shots but I haven't tried it on game myself.

Get one of those $7 Caliber specific loading books and afew Lyman books and have a look. With powders that are aa tick faster than usual you can get lower recoil and decent velocity. 4198 and h4895 come to mind off the top of my head.

Powder charge, bullet weight, velocity, and weight of gun are what create recoil. My loads are all 10ft/lbs and under in my guns which weigh 9-10lbs. This basically makes the recoil equivalent to a factory load of 243 in a 7.5lb gun if that helps for comparison.

 

[Gtscotty]

.308, for your purposes, the other two rounds don't really offer any compelling advantages, and come up way short in full power loadings. You'll be using the same action for all of them, so it's not like you'll have a lighter or handier rifle if you go with the lesser rounds. If you reload, you can load .308 to whatever power level you want, the only reason to go with one of the others two options is to have something different-y

 

[greyling22]

all right. 308 was what I was leaning towards, I just wanted to make sure there wasn't some sleeper cartridge I was overlooking.

 

[Sunray]

To do what with? It's intended purpose will do more to determine chambering than "so you could cast lead bullets" ever will.
ORDNANCE, not Ordinance.

 

[1948CJ2A]

300 Savage. It can be handloaded to 308-ish ballistics in modern bolt-actions, has light recoil, brass is available, and has plenty of power for hunting medium and most large game animals in North America within a few hundred yards. Plus, it's not something you come across everyday and would be a good camp fire conversation piece.

If hunting isn't your thing, it will punch holes in paper or aluminum just fine too.

 

[Reloadron]

if you were going to build a bolt rifle on a savage action, and you wanted
1) accurate
2) light recoiling
3) 30 caliber minimum so you could cast lead bullets using the many many molds you had
4) not-obsolete caliber. brass must be able to be had.

what would you go with? 308 and download? 7.62x39? 300aac? something a little further off the beaten path?

If I were to build another bolt gun I would likely choose the 308 Winchester cartridge. They don't come much more common with a wide range of bullet choices including those which can be home brew cast but even a wide range extending beyond home brew. The 308 Winchester is just a general suggestion and non specific to any application simply because you don't get application specific.
If I were to build a rifle on par with the 7.62 x 39 Russian I would likely just chamber the thing in 30-30 Winchester and be done with it but between the 308 and 30-30 the latter takes a performance hit, in my opinion anyway.

Just My Take....
Ron

 

[Jim Watson]

I once inquired about having a Ruger No 1 rebarrelled to .30-30 for cast bullets.
The shop recommended .30 BR instead, saying that it was their most popular and most accurate light load chambering. I gave up on the project, .30-06 was adequate for plinking.

 

[jerkface11]

.357 Herrett rimless. Just use .357 Herrett dies and form it from 6.8 spc instead of .30-30.

 

[CaliCoastie]

what is the intended purpuse behind the rifle? like previously stated that probably has a bigger effect then the rest of it.

 

[Arkansas Paul]

Nah, don't worry about sleeper cartridges.
Keep it simple. I'd go with .308 10 times out of 10 if I were looking for something along those lines.

 

[1948CJ2A]

Why would you build a 308 when you can buy one new from virtually every bolt-action rifle manufacturer in a plethora of configurations? When I build a custom rifle, I build something I cannot buy new off the shelf or without significant effort.

 

[ironworkerwill]

I like the idea of a .35 caliber. Not to say .308 or .30-06 won't do the job. A 35 Whelen IMHO is the better solution. 30-06 brass is easily resized to .35 Whelen.

 

[jerkface11]

He wants light recoil so .35 whelen is out.

 

[BCRider]

This part of the original question pretty well makes the decision for you.

3) 30 caliber minimum so you could cast lead bullets using the many many molds you had....

The speed limit for cast lead or even cast with gas checks means that for hunting at least that you will tend to want a good heavy bullet to obtain the power needed to pass through the game. Classically this has been where rounds like .38-55 and 45-70 shine because they use a big heavy bullet loafing along at between 1200 to 1600fps to allow us to pass through the animal.

But if you already have a bunch of bullet molds that drop .308 size bullets then clearly that is what you'll want to stick with. Then it's just a choice of which size of brass you put behind it.

I would not try to re-invent the wheel on what casing and chambering you use. To keep things simple you may as well stick to one of the mass market options like .30-06 or .308Win.

One area you could also play with is paper patching the cast bullets. Paper patching opens up the velocity limit normally imposed when pushing cast lead bullets down a rifle bore. With the right factors a paper patched cast bullet can come very close to or even match the muzzle velocity of a jacketed bullet with no downside in accuracy, bore cleanliness or bore life.