What powder and charge would you recommend for this cartridge? I'm limited to 100 yds. at the range I belong to, so I'd like to go with a soft shooter that I can enjoy without tearing up my shoulder!
Sit back and enjoy the ride......
Bear in mind that most K-31's have VERY short throats which severely limits what cast bullets work best. The Lyman 311672, which is a silhouette bullet works well as does the RCBS 165-SIL. K-31's also typically have very tight bore diameters, in the .296"-.297" range as oppossed to a 308 or 30-06 which usually run .300". I've been shooting one of my K-31's in our local High Power matches (reduced course-100yds.)for two years now using strictly cast bullets.
You don't state whether your bullets will be gas checked or not. Being as you ordered them, I'm guessing not as most commercial cast bullets are plain base. As such you'll want to keep the velocities down. The load I used when I first started High Power was a 155 gr. flat point plain base bullet. Either 8.0 grs. of Red Dot or 6.7 grs. of Bullseye made for a magnificently accurate load. Either load should work great for your bullet. These first two targets were shot at a match during the Prone Rapid fire stage using the Bullseye load:
Here's the same load fired Prone Slow:
This load isn't much louder than a 22 LR and recoil is non-existant.
The load I'm using now is a 190 gr. cast bullet from a mould designed specifically for the K-31. With it I've fired mainly two loads: 13.0 grs. of Red Dot and 14.0 grs. of AA#7. I settled on the latter load for matches. Here's how it shoots. These targets were fired off the bench:
Another really good powder to have for reduced loads is AA5744. With 20.0 grs. of it, almost any bullet will shoot very well. Here's a target I shot with my cousins K-31 in which I loaded 20.0 grs. of AA5744 and a Hornady 150 gr. FMJBT:
If you have any Unique or AL2400 laying around they too are good powders.
Good luck and keep us posted!
35W
