lee 309-180r for hunting?

[rp85]

hello;

discovered the lee 309-180r fired in my 30/06 is very accurate. load is 17.5 grains of 2400, sized to .310" & gas checked, speed is 1600fps(?), using ww as my bullet alloy.

has anyone used this bullet for hunting deer??? thanks for any input.

rp

[aspangler]

That may be a little slow for that alloy. Try bumping it up to about 1800 and up and see what it will do. Also you can miix 50/50 COWW / pure for a softer alloy. and keep your shots to 50 yards or less. JMHO

[runfiverun]

your fine.
shoot some ground hogs/rock chucks/squirrels/rocks/ trees/ newspaper,,whatever with it.
see how your alloy works for you.

[Smoke4320]

shot a 174 LB buck at 67 yds with Mil hec 312 159 98/2 alloy....1583 FPS clean pass thru
with 180 you will be fine as long as you are not looking for expansion .. if you do want expansion might want add some more pure lead ....try 60/40 Coww/ lead or 50/50

[crackerjack57]

That Is a great boolit for that gun. I use the same one in my 30-06 700 Bolt action Remington. I used 17 grains of 2400 and got 1580 fps and 998 ft/lb. when I went up to 20 gn of the 2400 i went up to 1700 fps and 1155 ft/lb my grouping was 3/4" at 100 yards. However I do agree with Smoke4320 that a little more pure lead would be desirable. I shot a nice buck this fall at about 125 yards using the same boolit configuration in my 7.62x39. the boolit weight is 185 grains due to it being a .313 od gas checked. the BNH is 13.5 as I add a little of pure lead to my mix. there was a pencil size hole go in and a quarter sized hole go out. that buck dropped as soon as I pulled the trigger. In my 7.62 it cronied at 1600 fps. so with a little softer alloy at the slower speeds, Expansion is favorable. I do take that same boolit cast as straight clip on wheel weights which work out to about 17-19 BNH and use Aluminum Gas check under 37 gn of 3031 for a great longer range load. the last time at the range it got me 2 1/4" group at 100y 2190 fps and 1917 ft/lb. If the wind would not of been gusting that day I think that I could of cut the group in half. 2 shots out of the 4 I did were touching. This is a quite solid load. when I load, all my boolits are Aluminum Gas Checked and I always use a small tuft of cotton sitting on top of my powder to keep it right next to the primer. I had a detonation once and never want that to happen again.

Just my two bits worth (.25) and being that I live in CANADA its worth about .22 1/2 cents right now!!