First time hunter...

[dk17hmr]

My little cousin, who is 13 this year called me today to tell me that she just passed here Hunters Saftey test with a score of 100%.

Last week I told her if she passed, she could come up to our house and I would take her out deer hunting on the weekend of the youth hunt here in Michigan.


I have the rifle and I have the mold but need some pointers. Rifle is going to be a 30-30 NEF with a youth stock on it, and a scope that I havent mounted yet, probably one of the spare 3-9's we have laying around here. The mold will be a Ranch Dog 165gr bullet, I havent tried to much for accuracy yet with it in the rifle but it shows promise with iron sights off hand at 50 yards for me.

I think if I am shooting it about a 1900fps we shouldnt have a problem with recoil or with killing power, the shot if we get one will be less then 50 yards.

Queston......Should I cast a few 5-10 out of pure lead and load them for hunting use only?

[DanWalker]

Why not cast them with hard shanks and a pure lead nose?
BruceB did a great writeup about his technique for doing this. I've tried it and it works great.

[357maximum]

Doug



first a .30 boolit @1900 fps of pure lead is waaaaaaaaaaaay not neccessary and may cause a a shallow "blow-up" if she is less than perfect on boolit placement.

This is what I would do for her.

Make your RD's out of WaterDropped 50/50 ww/pure and let them set somewhere warm for a week.... then start by stting it on top of 27 to 30 grains of win748 or 30ish grains of H4895 as both powders will lengthen the recoil curve for her, and both have proven accurate in the wifes (pre 73) H&R 158 small framed 30/30 with the lyman 311440.



The two part boolits in my opinion are a wasted pain in the fingers, and not neccessary at all, use the proper alloy to start with and forget it.


Do you have a chrony?

Michael

[dk17hmr]

Yes I have chrony. 1900 is the goal and I dont expect she cant handle that. I was thinkin I may put some Trailboss loads together for training purposes with the gun and then when season gets closer start with the heavier loads.

I tried the 2 alloy bullet before, only really need 5-10 for huntin, I will have to try some different alloys and maybe make some softnose bullets to try. Good suggestions guys I will mess with some day.

[missionary5155]

Good morning I will have to agree with 357 Max on this one.
At 1900 fps you are NOT going to have to mess with 2 alloy bullets. I have used them in 45-70, 43 Spanish, 41 magnum and once you cross 1500 fps there is no point to the extra work... 50/50 WW and Pure Lead will expand nicely at 1500 (actually at 1300) and at 1900 you are going to have a boolit trying to turn inside out. A broadside chest shot through the ribs is going to exit with a golfball size hole.
I LIKE the two mix bullets... I would recommend then under 1500 fps... but your intial velocity and under 50 yard range just does not need the extra work.
And PURE lead at that speed with a long narrow bullet is going to go "Liquid" on inpact and squirt all over the place. A pure lead round ball will turn itself inside out at that speed. I shot some PURE lead .375 out of my Dan Wesson 375 Super mag for fun and decided at near 1500 fps Pure lead boolits were beyond their structural usefullness. Penetration was stopping and fragmentation was going everywhere.

[Ranch Dog]

Be sure you get a good picture of this gal and her deer for the TLC311 Trophy Room. I will get it posted! The bullet as 357 Maximum has described is going to kill a deer dead.

[dk17hmr]

I started out with 24gr of IMR 4895 in Rem cases with Win Primers and bullet seated deep enough to stay off the rifling, doesnt eject if the bullet is engraved.

Anyways the accuracy was nice and recoil was mild so I upped the charge. To 24.6 everything else is the same. Accuracy was great roughly 1 3/4 at 50 yards for 10 shots with a 4x scope I mounted this morning. I shot 5 of those over the chorno with an average of 1640fps.

I went up until I hit 1850fps, about 26.5gr, recoil was probably a little much for her small frame, and accuracy never got any better then the 24.6gr load.

The boolits were water dropped WW with a far amount of tin in there. I tried something different with the lube, I lubed them with my RCBS lubeomatic and sized to .309 with a gator check installed. Then I tumble lubed them with one coat of LLA, think that is enough lube?

Anyways think with a softer alloy 50/50 lead/ww at roughly 1640fps will work for whitetails at 50 yards or less?

[Larry Gibson]

At 1640 fps it will work but not as well as 357maximum's suggested alloy at 1900 fps. I'd suggest casting some of them and then work the load up to 1900 fps. Clean the barrel after every 5 shots. If deer isn't dead in 5 shots it isn't going to be anyways and going back to the truck to clean the barrel or home gives one time for reflection on ones shooting ability when the ole buck fever sets in. Accuracy will usually hold for 5 shots with that soft alloy from a clean barrel. I push 311041 to 2050 fps with that same alloy out of my 24" 30-30. It holds (100 yards) 2-2.5" for the 1st 5 shots out of clean barrel but will open to 4-5" if more shots are fired without cleaning. Is ok for hunting but not for general shooting but then I only hunt with that load anyways. My daughter was shooting that load when she was 12 without problems as she didn't shoot to many shots at any one time.

Larry Gibson

[jhalcott]

Let her shot only a few of the heavy loads for practice at first. Let her shoot a LOT of .22 rim fire at a deer target. The kind the bow hunters use for practice. This builds confidence in HER ability to hit the deer. It also lessens the likely hood of her developing a flinch from recoil.

[DanWalker]

Doug,
Try this.
Go soak a couple of thinner(2" or less) phone books overnight in water. Sandwich a gallon jug of water between them, and fire your preferred boolit/load combo at them from your hunting distance. The resulting wound channels in the phone books will be very close to what you can expect from a broadside shot on a deer.
She really only needs to penetrate a couple inches of flesh and hide before she's damaging vitals. You don't need a boolit that'll bore lengthwise through a moose to do that. If she shoots a super hard slug through a deers ribs, yes it WILL DIE, but it'll be like shooting one with a field point from your bow.

[jjamna]

357 Maximum said it good.
I killed a deer last year with a 94 winchester 160 grain lee bullet cast with wheel weights and trail boss powder ( i can look up amount if you want) recoil with trail boss is low. Deer was about 75 yds shot in the heart lung area ran maybe 40 yds. Bullet went all the way thru so I did not get to look at it. If you load with trail boss make sure and sight in with it because in every gun I have shot it in it shoots at least a foot low at 100yds.
Be sure and post pics if she gets one.

[dk17hmr]

I was a little worried that if I didnt hit 1900fps, I wouldnt have enough to knock down a deer. 1900 was the goal, but recoil I felt was to much for my little cousins shoulder.

Today I loaded some RD bullets on top of 27gr of H335, havent shot them over the chrono but I would guess right around 1750-1800.

I shot one into 12" of wet phonebooks at range of 50 yards, not only did the bullet exit the material it left a gapping hole. At rougly 3" of penetration, the second book, the bullet had made a wound channel of about 3" across by the time the bullet exited the 12" of material the wound channel was close to 5".

This is with a bullet made of 50/50 pure/wheel weight. It is accurate enough that she wont have much trouble knockin a deer over out to 100 yards.

Now to work on some of the local farmers to let us hunt some of the fields on this special 2 day youth hunt. We have 40 acres here, but catching a deer on them is very hard do to the 90 acres of corn next to the house and the 180 acres of soybean across the road. They just pass through our property, until about the time the corn comes off and the rut hits, then they seem to hang out more.

[Gohon]

I'm sure you have already considered this but if you are feeling that the recoil is a little stiff at 1800-1900 fps then I'm sure she will feel it even more. Last thing one wants to do is turn a young future hunter off due to recoil. WalMart sells the Limbsaver Slip-on Recoil Pads that are very effective at reducing felt recoil and I would put one on the gun if it were me. Also I would recommend you do all the sighting in at the bench where recoil is usually stiff with anything being shot and let her do her practicing exactly as she will be doing in the field whether it be standing, sitting in a blind or leaned up against a tree. If you do have her doing any shooting at the bench, by all means use only reduced power loads. Just my 2 cents...........