Reduced loads and j's

[quickshot]

Hey all. Been gone a while and now I am back. I have been hard at work teaching a fellow co worker how to reload and gulp,, cast his own. I was showing him the lyman cast boolit hand book with all it's spiffy loads with blue dot etc.. and he asked a question that I don't have an answer for. Can those reduced loads with red/blue dot etc.. be used with j's safely or is it totaly a bad idea all together? Primary calibers of intrest are .223 and .308. Please educate me!!


Quickshot :castmine:

[felix]

The 308 is a 50 grain case and has far too much capacity for any beginner to use reduced loads using RD or BD with either boolits or bullets. ... felix

[Scrounger]

I can't give a blanket yes or no but I have used several loads made up of jacketed pistol bullets and pistol/shotgun type powders. One that was terrifically accurate for me in a .223 Contender Carbine was a 55 grain Hornady SX over 12 grains of IMR 4227. Substituting SR 4759 or AA 5744 worked as well. I have also used Blue Dot in that caliber. Don't remember the amounts but velocities were between 1800 and 3000 FPS. Pistol powders have a much sharper curve than rifle powders so approach maximum with caution. There were all kinds of loads like these on one of the varmint hunting websites. I copied this post from The High Road:

am using CCI400 small rifle primers.

I am not a proponent of hot loads for hunting with .223.
I just like to know where the limits are.

I am probably going to fire a thousand round of 15 gr Blue Dot 33 gr Vmax moly at ground squirrells within the next month. That is ~3,500 fps and ~35,000 psi.

A wimpy load, really.

Two years ago I did shot squirrells with 200 rounds of 60 gr soft point moly and 13 gr Blue Dot = 2,600 fps and 35,000 psi, and will blow a ground squirrell into two pieces.

This year I want to vaporize them.
High Road:

And lastly, one of the older Speer loading manuals always had a Small Game Load listed for each cartridge, a jacketed bullet at 1200 to 1500 fps.

[sundog]

+1 on reduced loads and jacketed bullets. No.

As an alternative, Hodgdon has some viable 'youth loads' with 4895, and maybe some other stuff, on their web site. Worth looking at. I understand that some of them are quite accurate. sundog

[bruce drake]

11-12 gr of Red Dot and a 150 gr FMJ works fine for 308. Recoil is like a 22 and it's considered a nice plinker. I prefer 12.0gr for my 308 and my rifle only. You can look up other loads like this by doing a google search under RED DOT and C.E. HARRIS.

Bruce

[Scrounger]

The 308 is a 50 grain case and has far too much capacity for any beginner to use reduced loads using RD or BD with either boolits or bullets. ... felix

Felix, I could be dead wrong (and it wouldn't be the first time) but I think, given that most cast bullet loads are in the 20,000 to 30,000 PSI chamber pressure level, would be perfectly safe to substitute jacketed bullets for the cast. Exception would be at the extreme lower pressure end where leaving a jacketed bullet stuck in the barrel would be more likely than a cast one. I have used Blue Dot in the .223 but I cannot remember using it in any other cartridge with a jacketed bullet but I would not be afraid to try it. Cautiously.

[felix]

It's the 50 grain capacity case, not the 30 as in the 223. I had only one condition where a SEE was repeated, as in 'STUPID, STUPID, STUPID", and I just don't want to chance for it to happen again. And, yes, is was in the 308 case, with 25 grains of early release H322. I doubt any beginner would recognize a SEE coming on. I would worry about funky charges too, primarily by large flake powder bridging in the powder measure. Factually, I am just a little worried to the extreme here, and I realize that. Really, it has nothing to do with cast versus jacketed. ... felix

[Ricochet]

Over on the Accurate Reloading board there's a lot of info on light loads with Blue Dot in .223 and .308, among others. Not really light, they're medium loads. Look in the "Favorite Loads" forum or search for "Blue Dot."

The U.S. government armories used to load a .30-06 "Guards Cartridge" for practice that had the standard 150 grain spitzer bullet and 9.1 grains of Bullseye for a muzzle velocity of 1200 FPS, according to Gen. Hatcher.

[Jeffreytooker]

<<<And lastly, one of the older Speer loading manuals always had a Small Game Load listed for each cartridge, a jacketed bullet at 1200 to 1500 fps.[/QUOTE]>>>

I was just loading out of that "Old Speer" manual the other night. For 223, 50 and 55 gr jword 10 gr SR 5749. That is the top end load IIRC the start was 8 gr. 10 gr runs 16 to 1800 depending on barrel length. I loaded both boolits and jword. These loads end up a bit hotter than 22WMR. With 5749 the case was filled about 2/3 way to the neck. My pardner said he needed a load about like 22WMR for pelt hunting, (Fox).

Jeffrey Tooker
Paynes Creek Ca.

[44man]

I feel like Felix! What is the need for such fast powders in such large cases? There are just too many more compatable powders out there.

[TCLouis]

He has some information for several calibers.

He also had a methodology for loading data "creation". I folowed his info and camoe up with a crackerjack J word load for 30-30 in 14" Contender.

He posted all of his loads and data on Accurate Reloading's web site.

[nelsonted1]

Try this article from Guns Magazine, Oct, 2000 by Holt Bodinson on red dot.


http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BQY/is_19_46/ai_65017381

[lurch]

For the .223, I have used 9.5gr of H110 with a CCI magnum primer and a 55gr military pull bullet. I was just after something to pink with but wound up very pleasantly surprised. Velocity from my custom Sako is right at 2000fps (exactly...) with a 7fps extreme spread for a 10 shot string. The lods shoot to a considerably lower point of impact compared to normal 223 J loads - well below where I would expect them to if gravity and velocity are all that is considered. Obviously something elses is going on and I strongly suspect barrel whip differences but can't prove it one way or another. As far a accuracy goes, 10 shots go into a ragged 3/8" hole at 50 yards if I use bullets that are reasoanbly uniform. By uniform I mean wieght within 0.2gr and the bases looking the same - no extra lead sticking out below the jacket primarily.

On a cautionary note, conventional wisdom has it that H110 does not like reduced charges and theoretically will give wide pressure variations in such circumstances in the magnum handgun cartridges. I have fired several hundred of these 223 with no ill effects to date, though I am constantly on the lookout for anything untoward... Primers show very little evidence of flattening indicating that pressures are indeed running low - all the more reason to be watchful. Of course it is possible to double charge this load so extra care is necessary there as well.

Are there better powders around for the task - probably to definitely. The only other reduced charge loads I have tried are with 4227 and S1250. The results were nowhere near as consistent so I abandoned those. The reason I used H110 was that was the only other suitable powder I had on hand at the time (been a few years ago). Makes a dandy squirrel load - just watch and make sure of your backstop before you decide to pull the trigger...

[AZ-Stew]

Back in the 90s I wrote an article for Handloader magazine (issue 157) that was dedicated to using light loads and jacketed bullets to create squirrel hunting rounds that were accurate and quiet to shoot. I don't have the data handy as I write this, but if you're interested, I'll dig out my copy of the issue and post what's in the table, under the disclaimer that I'm not responsible for how you use it. One point that was made clear in the article is that, while working up loads such as these, you use a bolt action rifle (they're too low pressure to cycle a semi-auto anyway) so you can remove the bolt after each shot to check for bullets that might stick in the bore. Also, please consider that these loads were worked up using conventional cup-'n'-core bullets, the lightest ones available for their caliber, with relatively thin jackets. I'd be very hesitant to try them with today's "wonder slugs", i.e., the bonded and all-copper bullets. Too much engraving force, due to thicker jackets. Once you've established a reliable load, you can shoot it with confidence. I'll also mention that during the development of all the loads for the article, I never once had a stuck bullet. Cartridges used were: .223, .22-250, 6mm Rem., .257 Roberts, .25-06 and 7-30 Waters (Contender). Powders included IMR 7625 (my favorite in .223) and 2400, but I think there were a couple of others. Velocities ran from 17-1800 to no more than 2200 fps. I haven't used the data for a number of years and haven't looked at the article for a while, so I don't remember exactly.

Point is, it can be done and you'll get excellent accuracy, but there is more good loading data and a longer track record of success and safety with cast, since there are so many people other than me practicing this method of handloading.

Regards,

Stew

[Urny]

I dug the article out and reread it. Nice article, Stew, with the comments on noise levels particularly interesting to me. One of the bus drivers for the mine uses a (legal here) supressor on Hornet or .223 rifles to handle the noise problem, but justifing $600 for the suppressor and a couple hundred more for the federal permissions is tough to justify. Maybe more useful with powder selection.

[MTWeatherman]

In regard to the .223, here's a link that will help answer that question..Gives you some idea on an upper limit with blue dot for j bullets at 50gr. and below.

http://www.reloadingroom.com/page33.html

[1Shirt]

Well, just to add my two cents. I load with both Red and Blue Dot, because I am cheap, and it is bulky, and I use less powder per load. With the cost of powder constantly going up it seems, that is no small thing to me. Also, that said, I only load one case at a time, weigh each powder charge, & check each case with a light, and use no fill for these powders. A double charge of either of these powders would be very easy to make a mistake with, and that would be a great way to ruin a rifle, and the shooters day.
1Shirt!:coffee:

[Treeman]

I respectfully disagree with Felix. Pistol powders, Jacketed bullets and reduced loads in the 30-06 is where I started reloading. I wanted small game and furbearer loads. I had tested data for 2400 and Unique and I loaded them one at a time with a Lee loader shining a light in every case before seating the bullet to make double sure I had only dumped one charge of powder. It was actually quite a while before I moved on to load full throttle big-game loads-In the beginning I just wanted a few dozen cartridges in loadings that I couldn't buy from a store.

[felix]

There will be no problems when the powder used ignites properly. Most of those loads shown are in small to medium sized cases, and the powder is more than likely either flat in the case or against the primer when ignited. It's when the powder in the medium to large sized cases is up against the bullet/boolit is where problems might occur. ... felix