WW Boolit in a 30-30

[utk]

Experts of the board:

I have the LEE C309-150-F mold and fairly soft Wheelweight + 2% tin alloy to fill it with (plus a gascheck).
Will this boolit work in a Winchester 94 (1:12 twist, I think)? The only available powders to me are Vihtavuori and Norma, but that is perhaps of less importance, what I would like to know is if the boolit will work without stripping/leading and what max velocities to expect. I have FWFL, Saeco Green, Javelina and it's clones for lubing.

If this works, I would also like to try LEE's C309-113-F and have the same question for this.

Anybody?

Urban

[Maineboy]

The Lee 150 FP works very well in my 1894 in 30 WCF and in my Marlin 336 30-30 (same cartridge of course!). I think it's a pretty good boolit. Mine runs about .311 and weighs 156 grains in straight wheel weight metal. I size it .311 and have only used it with Unique and SR 4759 in moderate amounts. It also works in my 30-40 Krag, my M70 Winchester and Springfields 03 and 03-A3 (30-06), Model 99F in 300 Savage....... you get the picture. The problem is that it's a a single cavity mould, therefore it takes some time to cast up a bunch. Maybe this one should be our next 6 cavity special order mould?
The Lee 113 grain "soup can" is also a very good boolit in the 30-30, and just about any other 30 caliber rifle. I shoot a lot of these, it's my standard plinking boolit. I've used this one in my 30-30s with the same 2 powders mentioned above and 2400 as well. All of them did well.

[KCSO]

In my 94 I was getting 2 1/2" at 100 yards with 12.0 grains of Red Dot. I am using 4.5 grains of red dot behind the Lee 113 grain bullet for a plinking and small game load and it is going right at an inch at 50 and killed a big ground hog at about 70 yards this spring.

[imashooter2]

I've run the C309-150F at a little over 1900 fps out of a Marlin microgroove barrel with no leading and it held the rifling just fine. My mold drops at .312 with WW+ 1% tin and I size to .311. Lube is either Lee Liquid Alox or Ballisticast hard lube. I have the C309-113F and even have a few cast and lubed, but I haven't gotten around to trying them yet.


BTW, If you drop those WW bullets from the mold into a bucket of cold water, they'll harden up quite a bit.

[Bass Ackward]

Experts of the board:

I have the LEE C309-150-F mold and fairly soft Wheelweight + 2% tin alloy to fill it with (plus a gascheck).
Will this boolit work in a Winchester 94 (1:12 twist, I think)? The only available powders to me are Vihtavuori and Norma, but that is perhaps of less importance, what I would like to know is if the boolit will work without stripping/leading and what max velocities to expect. I have FWFL, Saeco Green, Javelina and it's clones for lubing.

If this works, I would also like to try LEE's C309-113-F and have the same question for this.

Anybody?

Urban

Urban,

You can give ACWW too much pressure in a 30/30, but you can't over run velocity. I have had ACWW to over 3000 fps without leading. You just have a pressure limit of about 34,000. Less with bore ride designs. At high velocities, FWFL with a little more lanolin than normal will serve you best.

[Buckshot]

............Urban, in today's world with advanced lubes you can get some alloys up beyond what they would have been able to do with the more humble brews. One thing we need to understand is that the humble WW isn't what it used to be, alloy wise. It has been cheated in both tin and antimony content. From reading articles in 'Handloader' and 'Rifle' magazines, the humble WW did just about everything one could wish for in several calibers, the 30 WCF being one.

About the only way you can see what it is going to do is to begin loading it up in 10 round batches with incremental charge increases. I would use powders which the load manuals show as eventually ending up as being close to full case capacity. This is if I am assuming correctly that you're looking for close to full ballistics of the cartridge with a cast lead boolit?

I guess you have a chronograph? By shooting 10 round groups for both velocity and accuracy, then cleaning, you can see if the direction you're heading is going to go anywhere.

One thing to remember. If you intend to hunt with it, what your first shot does is most important. For hunting I would shoot 3 shot groups only. If for target work and-or plinking, you don't need all that speed anyway.

Re: The Lee C309113F. When I lived out in the country I used this boolit in my 1903A1 Springfield 30-06 with (as I recall) 7 or 8 grs of SR4756. A kinda fast pistol/shotgun powder. I used it for shooting ground squirrels around the place. I could stand the ladder up and set the elevator on 300 yards. If I put the front sight 'on' the critter at up to about 60 yards, it was going to vermin heaven :cool: Had a 22RF beat all to heck!

One of my shooting buddies has a Win94 30-30 and when doing load development he had a Leupold Vari-XII 3-9 on it. With 23.0grs of H4198 he had the "Soup Can" going 2100 fps and at 100 yards I saw some 5 shot 1" groups. Now THAT my friend, is all anyone could ask for out of a levergun regardless what you're were shooting!

...................Buckshot

[utk]

Thank you everybody for your inspiring replies!
I'm in a dilemma here, my boolits are only .308-.309 (!) They are my first try with this mold, there seems to be a fillout problem as the front band is rounded, maybe they will grow fatter when I get the hang of it. If this doesn't help there is always "Beagling" as a last resort.
I've read posts elsewhere about the microgroove Marlin, some do fine and some don't make it shoot, so that's why I'm contemplating a Winnie, but it seems difficult both to clean and to put a scope/reddot on and that makes me hesitant...
Maybe I'll sit back and wait until Marlin goes Ballard with the 336.
Or find a cheap used Winchester, if cast doesn't work there is always the J-word...
Once again, thank you gentlemen.

Urban

[felix]

Not exactly about the 30-30, but the 32-30 (32 WinSpec). Sundog and I tested some H335 equivalent powders for speed last weekend, and this weekend I decided to take the results for a river test drive. Made 30 grains of AA Data 73, or whatever the powder number is, the standard load. I assembled 10 rounds with it, using the 170 grainer RCBS as the standard boolit. Exchanged that powder in the measure with AA 2230-C (the C is important) and loaded 10. The weight came out to be just shy of 32 grains. Did the same with a WC844 variant, which weighed out to be close to 33 grains. All powders shot to almost the exact same point of aim at about 80 yards. Off hand wise, you couldn't see the difference in impact location. The recoil was from lighter to heavier, as expected with the decrease of powder speed. The sharpness of the noise was from sharper to duller as the powder speed decreased. It appears all powders performed as H335 "normal", and case expansion appeared the same on each case after all loads were shot, indicating the same average pressure. That would be expected as the impact location was the same across all loads. ... felix

[Griff]

I've got a '94 w/a Numrich Arms 24" full octagon bbl that I built to shoot Cowboy Silhoutte with. I use a RCBS .308 FPGC 150gr. (can't remember the RCBS #) but throws a 150gr boolit out of straight WWs. I can shoot this all day long over 4320 in loads that approximate factory performance. Very accurate: 6" @400yds over very uneven terrain. I've only seen light leading at the end of the day. This is my favorite gun and load to shoot. At best, ragged 1-hole groups, w/1" groups @ 100yds very common.
In fact with the tang peep and peep front sight, I've beaten our (well my old) departments' sniper @ 200 yards. (I cheated, told him it couldn't be done!) :grin:
Generally fillout problems are a function of lead or mold temp.

[Buckshot]

..............Urban, Micro-Gruv will shoot lead but it needs to be very hard and fat. Naturally there is an exception, as the author Paul Matthews has a M95 with M-G bbl in 45-70 and it shoots almost pure lead with very good accuracy at 1850 fps.

I too personally favor the Marlin over the Winchester as they're easier to clean from the breech, accept stuff bolted on top of the action and aren't so dang rattely!

..................Buckshot