School me on spitzer 30-30 bullets

[bainter1212]

Hi folks,
My friend and I plan on doing some hog hunting later on in 2014. The rifle my friend will be using is a Springfield bolt action rifle in .30-.30, magazine fed. He inherited it from his grandfather.
I reload for several calibers (but not yet 30-30 ). I know the fact that the gun is not a tube mag opens us up to the wide world of available bullets.....

So where should I start looking in terms of bullets and powder? Any response is appreciated.

 

[Edarnold]

Before you do anything else, have your friend bring his rifle over so you can check it out. The US M1903 Springfield rifle was never made in .30-30 Winchester caliber, the standard was the 30-06 cartridge. I can't imagine anyone converting a Springfield rifle to .30-30, so it looks like either the identification of the rifle or the cartridge is incorrect. You need to straighten this out before proceeding.

 

[ColtPythonElite]

It sounds like your friend has a Springfield 840 bolt action .30-30.

 

[bainter1212]

Yup, it's an 840 all right. I haven't inspected it but it is definitely NOT a 1903. Sorry EdArnold but when I use the term "Springfield" I refer to the manufacturer only......too many people refer to the 1903 or a3/4 variants as a "Springfield" which leads to the confusion. Sorry if I was unclear.

 

[89blazin]

I'd stick with a standard 30-30 load using 170gr jacketed flat nose. That's a plenty to put a hog dead on it's ass.

 

[Icky The Great]

Sounds like a neat gun. If you look at the 30-30 as being a rimmed 308win it may help to give you a few ideas. Granted there are a few differences but you could load a nice nid grade velocity, 22-2300fps with pretty standard spire points. Recoil should be tolerable and do a decent job on hogs. If your going for longer shots, consider moving up to 168+grain bullets. They will be longer and buffet the wind better. If you do not expect to shoot more than 200 yards at most, go with a flat based soft point like Sierras Pro Hunter line or Speers Spire Points. Not that these are not fine bullets but the lack of rear ogive will give you a little more room for powder. If you load a 175gr Match bullet you may not have room enough for powder to get you over 2200fps. Then again, if your going short range under 100 yards you could load heavy cast bullets down to 1000fps. Its like hunting with a long pistol. Lyman 173gr #2alloy loaded with 8.0gr Trail Boss specs at about 1054fps per Lymans Cast Bullet Handbook 4th Edition

 

[R.W.Dale]

I've worked with ALL of the bolt action 30-30 rifle platforms. I can tell you right now that if your intent is to try to create some sort of super 30/30 with one you can get that idea out of your head for a number if reasons.

1- both the savage and rem788 have extremely limiting magazines in terms of COL. Nothing longer than a. 170g flat point will fit. Even 110 and 125g tipped bullets* are too long by a wide margin.

2- the cartridge in a 20 or 22" bbl is very velocity handicapped putting bullets designed to hold together @ 800 more fps from a 30/06 well below their expansion envelope at any range the exceptions being the lightweight tipped bullets that won't fit in the mag. For whatever reason both savages I had sported extremely "slow" barrels. Just under 2300 fps was the extreme upper limit with 150g bullets. Factory rem 170 g ammo didn't even break 1900fps!!

3-tying into #2 the savage pattern guns are very pressure intolerant. Any kind of load hotrodding. At pressures beyond factory 30-30 case life becomes brief and accuracy becomes erratic to say the least.

4- you don't gain anything with spitzers. On a 100 yd zero shooting 150 g hornady bullets at a 200yd target the rn bullet dropped a whopping 1.5" more. At 300 it's a little over 3" beyond that both are dropping like a rock

I've btdt. The best thing you can do for these guns is to work up an accurate load with a bullet intended for 30/30 and stock up on the components.

 

[kevinakaq]

What he ^ said. I have a Savage 340 in 30-30 and gave up pursuing the Spitzer game. It's a 30-30, and a fine catridge, and should be used as designed...my two cents but to each their own ofcourse.

 

[bainter1212]

Thanks for all the input guys. Looks like we will stick with the standard loads for the caliber. This is actually good.....we can try several different factory loads to get an idea what bullet weight this gun likes best.

Thanks again.

 

[FROGO207]

I think that the 170 grain FP will be your focus when it is all talked over. The 150's do not provide the knockdown the heavier weight ones do. You could try the flex tip bullets and it's companion Hodgdon propellant.

 

[witchhunter]

I think you will find, for hunting, the bullets designed for the 30/30 will give reliable expansion at the velocity achieved by a 30/30. Most spitzers will not, as they are designed for faster cartridges. I bet you will discover that spitzers do not have enough ballistic advantage for the velocity achieved with them at the ranges that 30/30's are efficient.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

I think you will find, for hunting, the bullets designed for the 30/30 will give reliable expansion at the velocity achieved by a 30/30. Most spitzers will not, as they are designed for faster cartridges. I bet you will discover that spitzers do not have enough ballistic advantage for the velocity achieved with them at the ranges that 30/30's are efficient.

Exactly... Most 30 Cal bullet are not designed to reliably expand at the lower velocities associated with the 30-30 so they are not good hunting bullets in the 30-30. For a flatter shooting 30-30 round give the Hornady Leverevolution ammo a try or load up some Hornady 160gr FTX bullets over Hodgdon LVR (Leverevolution) powder.

 

[ForneyRider]

FTX bullet is a good idea still. But the 30-30 FTX doesn't have as nice a BC as the 308 Marlin version. Not sure the Marlin version would work as far as the cannelure.

 

[Peter M. Eick]

Too bad. When I was reading the first post, I was thinking "I hope he has a springfield 30-03 in original form. That would be too cool to find a pre-30/06".

Sigh. Such was not to be.

 

[Arkansas Paul]

One bullet that is not factory available that most people seem to like is the Sierra Pro Hunter 125 grain hollow point flat nose. Everyone I've talked to that used them in .30-30 raves about them. They may expand a little too fast for use on tough skinned hogs though. I don't know.

 

[RealGun]

I recently got my supply of 30-30 bullets from Powder Valley. They had the Hornady 150gr InterLock RN. Check to see if they still have them. No one else had them that I could find. I put in a notify request at a number of sites, hoping to eventually get some Hornady 160 gr FTX (30-30). Midway is accepting backorders on them, so I started with 100.

 

[Saleen322]

I have both a 340 Savage and a 788 Remington. For years I shot 125 Sierra Spitzers in the 30-30s with no problems. I now use both guns exclusively with cast bullets and had no loaded rounds but here is a 125 with a case compared to my standard cast bullet load with the Savage magazine on the left and the Remington on the right. I can't believe my guns are that special. They do work in the 30-30s. The two pluses of the 125s are good accuracy and they work very well at 30-30 velocity.

 

[ForneyRider]

125 Sierra are great. I shot a box of those from 336 marlin.

 

[45lcshooter]

For bolt actions, my big game(including feral hog) loads are 170-180gr (what ever i have on hand). For varmint-deer I shoot 125-150gr Spitizer.

Since your shooting from a mag, your bullet configuration is almost endless, just need to keep it a .308 diameter.

And of course in my Win 94 everything is a FLAT NOSED BULLETS

 

[R.W.Dale]

Since your shooting from a mag, your bullet configuration is almost endless, just need to keep it a .308 diameter.

Bullet configuration is actually extremely limited.

125g ballistic tip in a 840 magazine. Notice how the bullet ogive is seated inside of the case and the cartridge still doesn't fit in the mag.

 

[heycods]

I just ran a batch of the 125 gr Sera HP 30 30s through my sons marlin 336t, Bad azz, somewhere in the 2400fps range and very accurate. point of impact change from regular 150grain factory was 1'low

 

[critter]

I have a TC Contender 30-30 (14" barrel). It loves Nosler BT's and they kill like Thor's hammer (on whiteteal). Might take a look at them.

 

[Swampman]

A few years back I loaded up some Sierra 135 grain Single Shot Pistol bullets for a friend's bolt action Savage 30-30. He's been hunting with those rounds for several years and says they kill deer better than any factory round he's ever used, but that they're not great on hogs and don't seem to have enough penetration for pigs over about 200 pounds.

If I were working up a 30-30 load specifically for hogs, I think I'd probably use a good 170 grain flat point or a cast 180. Penetration is your friend, particularly if you get a shot at a big boar or have a bad angle.

This is just my opinion, but if shots are likely at the ranges where a spitzer's higher BC would actually help, you should probably use a rifle more suited to those conditions.

As other posters have already pointed out, the heavier spitzers are unlikely to expand well at 30-30 velocities, especially at longer ranges where you'd actually gain anything from the higher BC