What sort of accuracy can I expect?

[cavalrymedic]

I am loading for a 336 CS from 1953 that has the old style rifling. I'm pushing Lee C309-150FN with 27.8 g of H4895. My issue is that yesterday I loaded up 40 rounds and went to zero this new round on the 336 with a new scope. It took me 20 rounds just to find the paper. I can deal with that, but shooting from 60 yards, prone, I had about a 3 inch spread on all of my groups. It can do better than that right? Am I using too much powder? Too little? Maybe it's just me. It's not trigger pull for sure. This 336 must have had some trigger work before I got it cause it takes maybe 1 pound to drop the hammer, almost like a set trigger. My shoulder was hurting pretty badly after the first 20 rounds so that may have contributed to it. Basically, I would just like to know what sort of accuracy would be acceptable for this load/rifle combo. Then I can figure out if it's me, the rifle, the load, or some of all.

Thanks:coffeecom

[Bret4207]

Accuracy is going to depend on you finding the proper fit for that boolit with that alloy and that powder. You should eventually be able to at least match factory jacketed accuracy.You're using a fairly warm load for a starter and you don't mention what size you are shooting, crimp, seating style/depth, etc. You have a lot of room to work with here. I would start with a boolit +.002 over groove, seat for light contact with the leade and a light crimp. I'd also check for boolit runout, seater "squish" (is the seater reducing the diameter of the boolit?), barrel condition.

Oh yeah, you ARE using GC, right?

[btroj]

Much of what level of accuracy you can expect comes from you. How well can you shoot from prone? The fact your shoulder was sore makes good shooting difficult as you begin thinking about something other than sits and trigger control.
I would try a different load. Something that doesn't leave you sore. Find something that shoots well in your rifle and shoot it lots. This will give you a level of confidence in your abilities with that rifle.
I would say that if you can get groups in the 1.5 to 2 inch range at 100 yards you are doing well. Whether or not that load is capable is up to the gun. You need to be flexible and try different loads, the gun will let you know what it does or doesn't like.
Like Bret said, how does the bullet fit the barrel? Have you slugged the barrel?
You have a good starting point but need to do some load development.

[northmn]

My Marlin likes Re7. As a rule the slower powders have not given me good results with cast. The Lee 150 grain bullet shoots very well with about 14.5 grains of 4759 out of my rifle also. It is not a real hot load but it shoots. Also alloy makes a difference. Were I just out for accuracy I would use water quenched WW.

DP

[W.R.Buchanan]

Is your bullet a Gas Check design?

I would expect 1-2" at 100yds from a GC design such as Lyman 311041. I have a 173 gr Lachmiller bullet that is nearly identical to that bullet and running it around 1700fps seems to work well. My gun is a 1958 model with MG rifling. Normally I wouldn't expect much from it, but if you don't push things too hard the MG rifling will grip the Boolits well enough.

IF your bullet is a non GC design I doubt you'll get any worthwhile accuracy above 1300 FPS. the bullet bases get distorted much too easily when pushed too hard leading to poor accuracy.

For plinking loads PB boolits are fine, because nobody expects MOA accuracy for shooting cans. But with Gas Check Boolits 1-2" is entirely posssible, at least for the first 3 shots from a cold barrel. After things heat up it will open things up no matter what.

Randy

[Larry Gibson]

Me thinks you are not getting consistent ignition with that 150 gr cast bullet over 4895. I never got much better the ES's of 95+ for 5 shots with a similar 150 gr cast bullet even with 28.5 gr 4895. Suggest you switch to a slightly faster powder such as 2400, 4227 or 4759. A dacron filler may even be in oder with that light of a bullet and those powders. I use 4759 with a dacron filler under my 150 gr RCBS 35-150-FN in my 30-30s.

Also as mentioned a proper alloy, a good lube, a GC and proper sizing (I use .310 with that RCBS bullet) are also necessary for for accuracy. If the rifle, the loads and you are capable consistent day in and day out accuracy of at least 3 moa at 100 yards if probably not 2 moa should be acheiveable.

Larry Gibson

[BABore]

Do not discount a weak hammer spring or the two pc firing pin contributing to inconsistent ignition. I have had both problems happen in Marlins. The hammer spring is easily replaced with a new one. The firing pin is a little more involved. The bolt must be stripped to deal with the firing pin assembly. The two peice design is a Marlin safety feature where the locking bolt must be fully engaged by completely closing the finger lever. This straightens out the rear half of the firing pin and allows it to drive straight against the front half when struck by the hammer. If the rear half is not completely straightened out, it can drag as it moves forward. The same thing happens if the firing pin tunnel is gunked up or has burrs in it. All result in a slight variance in primer strike.

[cavalrymedic]

Bret, I use a water quenched w/w alloy sized at .308. The seating doesn't seem to affect the diameter; however, maybe the Lee factory crimp does. I use the factory crimp because I found it necessary to counter the flare of the flaring die. The flaring die was neccesary to eliminate bullet shaving during seating. I have OAL at 2.448. Sadly, I have not slugged my barrel. I have read the advise on it and I need to. I have no way, yet, of checking bullet run out.

I have a warm load cause I am trying to work up a good hunting load. As for my sore shoulder, I am ordering a recoil pad from pachmayr to help out. I totally agree that my sore shoulder must have some negative impact on my shooting.

[cavalrymedic]

Gas checked, yes. sorry forgot that.

[cavalrymedic]

I was thinking about switching to IMR4227. None of the resources I have list a 4895 load for a 150 grain lead boolit. 170, sure, but 150, no dice. I am gathering that this may be because 4895 doesn't fill out the cartidge enough? I have no experience with Dacron filler and since I am still very much a noob in casting, I want to stick to simpler stuff for now. BTW, I only have 4895 and 4227. I was hoping to use the 4895 for the 30-30 and the 4227 for my M1 carbine. Since powder costs me $22 plus a pound in addition to a 1 hour car trip, I try to be judicious in my selection. I was thinking; however, of buying a pound of H335 on my next trip to the store.

What I am stressing over is that I may have to buy a larger mold, and another powder, and another sizing die. If, with what I am now using, I can get < 2 inch groups at 100 yards, then that will do for this hunting season, and maybe I can get all of that stuff for next year. Do-able?

[Larry Gibson]

Should be doable with the 4227, try 17 - 19 gr of 4227 under that bullet w/o the dacron filler. If you are using a Lee sizer they are easy to hone out. You should try .310/.311 if the bullet drops that big "as cast".

Larry Gibson

[cavalrymedic]

OK, newbie question. I think my lee 309-150 drops at .310. I'll have to make a few more to double check. If they do, should I leave them as is? If I do that, how do I get the gas checks on? If I have to make them larger, I have to swage them, right? Where do I find swaging (sp?) dies? Sorry for all of the questions.

I guess, I'll be switching to 4227 and saving the 4895 for when I break down and buy a 308 or 30-06.

[btroj]

I think the fatter bullet might help. Larry is on the right path here in my opinion.
I would give 2400 a try also. Start around 14 to 15 gr and work up to 16 to 17. Should be able to get 1700 fps with good accuracy.
30-30 is usually a pretty easy cartridge to get decent accuracy out of with cast.

[Bret4207]

.310 is good, .311 may be even better, depends on the gun and load. The faster the pressure curve the more chance the boolit will obturate which can be a good thing or a bad thing.

Why are you using quenched and why are you sizing at .308? I can almost guarantee you'll be much happier shooting a boolit sized a bit larger. I shoot a lot on my boolits unsized, that is I don;t reduce them at all, I either run them though and over sized die (.311 for a .310ish boolit) or I tumble lube and just seat the GC only. If you GC shank is too large for your GC's then try annealing them, just dump them in your melt (they'll float), let them turn black and scoop them out and air cool or quench, doesn't matter which. That'll soften them and they may fit better or you can bump the mouth of the GC with a rounded object like a ball bearing or the round end of a ball pein hammer to open it a little. Then you can seat it, you can also shave the GC shank edge with your thumbnail or a case mouth champherer to relieve the flashed edge. I seat 30 cal GGC on everything from .307-.312+ with no real issue.

On the quenching, try air cooling, really. For hunting with a 30-30 you want a little mushrooming if you can get it since you only have a 30 cal hole. If you push it fast enough you can get that with quenched, but with AC it's a bit easier. I shoot 30 cals up into the 2K range using AC almost straight WW alloy. Not all my 30's will handle it,. but enough do that it leads me to the general conclusion that it's doable in a lot of cast friendly rifles.

Consider 3031. Start around 25.0 gr and work up. 30-31 gr will match or exceed factory fps with cast.

[Wayne Smith]

Calvarymedic, you can shoot 50/50 pb/ww air cooled out of your 30-30 wearing a gc. Agreed, you probably need a fatter boolit, but kick that one hard enough cast out of 50/50 and it will fit!

You say older style of rifling, do you mean it is or isn't micro-grooved? If microgrooved you definitely need a fatter boolit. I would suggest you slug your barrel and beg or borrow someone who knows how to use a micrometer to measure it. You then have a much better idea of just what size boolit you need. Do a search here on slugging a barrel and you will have more information than you can read in a day!

Remember, in cast boolits, Fit is King. If it don't fit, it won't shoot accurately. It's often just that simple.

[Char-Gar]

I see nothing seriously wrong with the powder charge, although tweaking it a bit either way might help. I suspect the problem lies in the bullet fit or the shooter.

I would expect 1.5 to 2 MOA accuracy with the rifle. Perhaps less if you have a very good rifle. At sixty yards that would be about an inch or less groups. If you are getting 1.5 inch groups at that range you are moving the right way, but can still shrink them some.

[BABore]

A 1953 Marlin 30-30 should have original Ballard cut rifling. IIRC mine is the same year. I've not found it necessary to go bigger than 0.310 with mine.

[cavalrymedic]

Bret, I used water dropped for a number of not so good reasons. See, I got into this about a year ago. I bought all of my reloading and casting equipment in a fit of "I'm finally gonna do this" emotion. Wanting to reload again for the first time since I was a lad. I didn;t know that this site, or anything like it exisited, I bought my stuff on intuition and cost concerns. I started dropping the boolits into a bucket of water not because I knew that it made them harder, but because it cooled them off quicker, and I could get my hands on them and admire them that much sooner. I bought a sizing die for .308 cause I really didn't realize that 30 calibers would shoot anything other than .308. Seemed obvious to me. I never considered that anything larger would even be safe.

Now when I learned that water dropping caused the boolits to have a higher BHN, I thought, great!, 'cause I was now armed with the idea that if the cast was harder, then it could handle higher pressures and thus higher speeds.

OK, so my logic is overly simplistic, I get that now. But what I have now is about 500 C309-150F sized .308 and waterdropped. I think from your and others advice, I'll be just tumble lubing and putting the gas check on with a .311 die. I gather that that will work. Of course, I'm going to slug the barrel first, soon as I find some of those longer, more detailed threads about the subject.

In the mean time, I'm not letting those pretty boolits I worked so hard to do wrong go to waste. I wanted my FPS to be as fast as I can safely get just in case I get a good shot at a deer out to 150 or maybe 200 yards. That's extremely unlikely here in most areas of Florida, but there is this one enourmous 2 or 3 mile long clearing I hunt, that is always just lousy with deer just past the effective range of the rifle I used to hunt with. They will probably figure out my new strategy quicker than I can pull it off.

I'm not really familiar with 3031. Is that a Hodgdon powder? I don't recall seeing it at the gunstore I trek to. I'll look again.

A little off topic, but I don't remember my Dad ever using anything other than IMR4227. He reloaded 30-06, 30 Carbine, 38SPL, 357 Mag, and 45 ACP. That was the 70s and I guess he used what he could get. Came in a metal can back then.

[cavalrymedic]

My Marlin has what I gather is called Ballard rifling. I had to look that up on Wikipedia. I get the impressin that Ballard rifling is best for cast bullets.

When I peer down the barrel of my Glock 22, disassembled of course, I see that it hardly has any rifling at all. My Colt M4 has rifling that looks the most like my Marlin.

[Bret4207]

CM- I can understand not wanting to let your hard work got to waste, BUT- pushing an undersized, hard boolit fast is a near certain recipe for leading and growing inaccuracy. You might consider using these for practice with something like 8-9 gr Unique or 10ish gr Red Dot or 12ish of 2400. Less chance they'll lead things up that way.

Myself, I'd call it a learning experience and melt them.

[1Shirt]

Just to add to what the others have stated: I suggest you go with the fattest blt that you can get from your mold, in this case if it drops 310, check and size to 310.
I load my 30-30 loads .310-311. Practice loads suggested by Bret are excellent for practice, and cheaper to shoot. Also suggest for practice you might want to try Trail Boss. Good luck!
1Shirt!:coffee:

[cavalrymedic]

Thanks to all. You answered all of my questions AND made me change my mind about what I am going to do.

[cavalrymedic]

1shirt,

I found a can of trailboss. My first time with such a powder. Any suggestions so I can use up my undersized lead?

[rintinglen]

8.0 grains trail boss should make a nice 1200 fps load. Lyman lists 8.7 as their maximum and 8.0 as the start. For your uses, weapon familiarization and target practice, it ought to work just fine. And I dare say small game at 50 yards would fear you as well.

[cavalrymedic]

Update. I went to the range just a few minutes ago.....(my back yard) and using 8.5 grains of TrailBoss, I managed 2 inch groups at 75 yards. I am pretty pleased with that and I believe that I can improve that too as I get better at casting. I slugged my barrel this morning and if my results are to be believed, my bore is exactly .308. I don't know if I did it right, so I'm gonna practice one more time and double check my results. Shouldn't it slug out .309 or .310?

I'm really grateful to you guys for turning me on to TrailBoss. Less noise to scare my wife, better accuracy, the barrel doesn't get near as hot near as quickly, and it seems to fill out the cases pretty well.

[cavalrymedic]

Oh, why did I use 8.5 instead of the 8.0? Well, I just can't help myself. It's so difficult to go small on anything.