Plain old 30-06

[HEAD0001]

I would like to switch my 30-06 Encore deer rifle over to cast bullets only. I am interested in a deer hunting bullet only. And I want to practice a lot with this bullet. So more or less just a fun overall rifle. The barrel has a MB on it. And I just ordered a really nice walnut TH stock for the rifle. So basically I am simplifying things(getting older).

So here is what I would like to talk about.

I am interested in what bullet, and load, and alloy for hunting you guys would choose. Shots could be out to 200 yards. However as most of you guys already know-most shots are under 100 yards in these here WV woods:redneck:.

I do have about 15# of RL7 on the shelf is this powder would accomodate what I want to do. `But no problem if not. I use alot of it in my 45-70's.

Go with a GC mold?? I am not above going with a custom mold if they would give me a better bullet. I have plenty of WW, pure lead, linotype, and TN. So I can mix up any alloy you guys can conjur up. And I have a dedicated small Lyman pot just waiting to get started. Thanks in advance. I know this has been kicked around alot. But I would like to get it all in one post. :bigsmyl2: Tom.

[stephen perry]

You didn't mention a mold but I will. Most any 30 cal mold will do for hunting deer size animals. In Lyman I have 311 291, 311 466, and 311 467. These are the medium weight, 160-175 grn bullets, that most swear by for hunting. Others like RCBS , SAECO, LEE, and others copy Lymans true standards. I Cast lighter and heavier 30 cal bullets but these 3 are my tops for hunting bullets. A Custom bullet in 30 cal will give you nothing better than the Lyman molds I mentioned.

Stephen Perry
Angeles BR

[waksupi]

You will want a gas checked boolit. My preferences for a 30 bore, are weights of 180 gr. on up.

[1Shirt]

I would suggest either 311041 or the Ranch Dog 165 which from my mold drops 168, and both have good wide flat noses. In HP the 41 is also most excellent. Check out the threads on soft nose hard base blts for hunting. If you go with these and a good flat nose and load to about 2000-2100 you will have 200 yd. capacity with no problem.
Good luck!
1Shirt!:coffeecom

[Buckshot]

..............I'd use a 30 cal GC'd slug of at least 180grs with a FN. RCBS makes a fine one, but if you could find one going 200 grs all the better. I shot a deer with my 1903A1 (iron sights) using the Lyman 311284 over 24.0grs of H4198 + dacron. This was good for 1650 fps. It was cast of AC WW and I knew the RN design wasn't really optimal. I really did not want to have to track a deer too far in the country I was hunting in. I told myself I'd only take a broadside shot to the shoulders.

The first mistake was even to attempt to shoot an animal with a boolit I felt wasn't really up to snuff. The 2nd mistake was not shooting that load into a couple different expansion mediums to see what it would do. The 3rd mistake (especially with my assuming the boolit form wasn't ideal) was in not experimenting with a softer alloy. I DID know where it was shooting at 50 and 100 yards, and I was smart enough to know that 100 yards would be max for me, and I wasn't about to "lob'em in".

As it was, about 1100 one AM as I exited a stand of Sumac just below the top of a ridgeline, I scanned slowly from my left to my right and there stood a buck 90º directly to my right about 50-60 yards distant. Naturally being right handed the rifle's muzzle was to my left, basically at port arms. Remaining in one spot using small shifts of my feet and twisting my body while raising the rifle to my shoulder (all the while this idiot stood there with his eyes fixed on me) I managed to get the front blade on his chest area and fired. Shame on me, but he was so close.

He had disappeared and I feared I'd either missed or had made a poor shot. When I made it to where he'd stood, there he was. His legs had folded up under him and he was lying there DRT. I was very lucky. The slug had cut the throat and windpipe but what did him in right there was it had hit the spine and exited so my twisted up offhand shot was a bit high. It didn't appear as if the slug had done much expanding before hitting the spine. Where it'd hit the neckbones there were some lead shards. The exit hole was about 1" wide and maybe 2, 2-1/2" long.

So my suggestions are a FP, as fairly soft alloy 180grs or more, check expansion in a couple mediums, and load to have a terminal velocity above 1600 fps at your max range limit. Finally, practice and if your limit is the 200 yards you mentioned, do your practicing at 50 yard intervals and put the trajectory info on a lable stuck to the left side of the buttstock (if right handed).

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

[Bret4207]

Rcbs 30-180-fp.

[44 flattop]

Rcbs 30-180-fp.

+1. Cast of WW's and pure lead, this bullet will approach 190grs ready to load and is a great deer killer. I've used it from 1500fps to 2200fps with fantastic results on game.

44

[94Doug]

How about a HP? Just wondering how many have tried that option for deer.

Doug

[geargnasher]

IMO, a 30-caliber HP is tricky to get just right, and has no advantage over a properly alloyed flat point.

If I were to tackle that project, I would try the aforementioned RCBS 30-180-FP due to it's high weight and flat point, I would cast it from a blend of clip-on WW and pure or really soft lead, and water-drop them for a two-week bhn of somewhere around 15-16. The reason for that is to get a malleable alloy that will hold the rifling under high pressure, not deform too much while being fired, but deform plenty when it hits your future supper. I don't know what your barrel length or twist rate is, but short barrels can be a problem when trying to select a powder for a large case, heavy boolit, and long range. RX 15 may be about right to get the most out of your available barrel time.

Gear

[JIMinPHX]

Hollow points are good if you want to use a slightly harder alloy, but still want good mushrooming upon impact. I prefer to cast my boolits solid & then drill hollow points after. That way I can try a bunch of different hollow point sizes & styles to see what works best. Posts #26, 53, 68, & 88 of this thread show pictures of some boolits that had hollow points drilled with fixtures that I made. http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=71615&page=5

Reloader 7 is my favorite powder in the .30-30, but something a little slower might work better in the 06. I think that Geargnasher might be on to something with his recommendation of RX-15. 7 should work OK, in the 06. You just might get better results with a slightly slower powder in the bigger case, especially as you get into the heavier boolits.

[HEAD0001]

I think I am going to go with the RCBS 180 that some of you have recommended. I have had great luck with RCS molds.

What velocity would you guys push that bullet at?? Do you think I can push it at that velocity effectively with RL7?? Normally for jacketed bullets I use RL22 for a little extra velocity. But I do not think I need the extra velocity here. Just a good solid deer killing load.:D:D Thanks, Tom.

[JIMinPHX]

Page 192 of the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook (#3) lists a 187-grain gas checked boolit #311334 cast from #2 alloy in the 30-06 as using 24-39 grains of RX-7 with speeds of 1687fps-2329fps. Max pressure was shown to be 41,600CUP. Speer #13 lists max pressure for that cartridge at 50,000CUP, so you're not at the top end of the pressure curve with that data. I'd probably start somewhere in that neighborhood. Once you get much above 2300fps, it starts to get more & more difficult to get good accuracy from cast boolits.

[geargnasher]

I think I am going to go with the RCBS 180 that some of you have recommended. I have had great luck with RCS molds.

What velocity would you guys push that bullet at?? Do you think I can push it at that velocity effectively with RL7?? Normally for jacketed bullets I use RL22 for a little extra velocity. But I do not think I need the extra velocity here. Just a good solid deer killing load.:D:D Thanks, Tom.

Opinions will vary, but here's my two cents worth of comment.

The velocity desired will depend upon twist rate needed to stablize and maintain that stablization for the entire desired effective range, BC, trajectory, and about a million other things including how fast the given boolit can be pushed without encountering basic mechanical issues like wild inaccuracy, leading the bore, blowing off the gas check, etc.

As for the RX22, it won't work very well in a 30-bore with small case capacity and short barrel with likely a ten-twist. The absolute best powder I've ever used in .30-30 is Winchester 748 (or the Hodgdon equivalent). You can work up to, in many cases, 100% loading density and a 20", 12-twist carbine with 170-ish boolits gets an almost perfect pressure curve (near max peac average pressure but a minimum muzzle pressure upon boolit exit).

I had a friend some years back who, to prove a point, cleanly killed a whitetail deer at 60 yards with a 311407 unchecked and eight grains of Unique and a grain of Dacron, we never chrono'd it, but it was probably about 1250-1300 fps. That was our favorite plinking load and it made it through both shoulders and continued on into the hill behind the deer, never to be recovered. He knew, but I didn't, how little energy it takes to punch through Bambi with a well-placed shot. I'm not advocating going out intentionally with an underpowered weapon, but you don't have to be pushing .300 Winchester Magnum velocities, either. I would aim for about 2000 fps or so, more or less as the particular combination dictates.

Gear

[mpmarty]

+1 on not needing a howitzer to down a Bambi. The single most used cartridge to kill deer in this part of Oregon is the 22 long rifle rim-fire.

[Larry Gibson]

How about a HP? Just wondering how many have tried that option for deer.

Doug

I have used the 311041HP since '69 and have killed a lot of deer and other critters with it out of several different cartridges including the '06. Over the years I have shortend the depth of the HP to be 2/4s of the depth of the bullets nose. That and a softer alloy have given me excellent expansion charactoristics on gane out to 200 yards. I now use WW/lead at 50/50 and let the bullets air cool. I seat Hornady GCs pushing the bullets through a Lee .331 sizer and then lube with Javelina in a Lyman .311 H die. That way the soft bullets are not distorted during the sizing and seating of the GC. My 411041HPs cast as such weigh 177 gr fully dressed.

I then develop loads that push 2100 fps in most cartridges including the '06. Test loads are in 7 shot groups and I clean the barrel between groups. The reason is because the best accuracy will come with the first 5 - 7 shots. Accuracy after that becomes somewhat worse because of fouling. A change in lubes doesn't help as it is simply the soft alloy that causes it. During load development at 100 yards I track the first two shots to see if the are in the group. If not then I hunt with that rifle with a fouled barrel of 1 - 2 shots and am good for 5 shots accurate shots. If the first round from the cold clean barrel go into group (they do many times) then I am good for 7 accurate shots. I figure if I've not killed what I'm shooting at in 5 - 7 shots then I might as well go back home or to camp, clean the rifle and figure out what I'm doing wrong....like not shooting well;-)

I most often use 4895 or a slower powder for my hunting loads. In the '06 I prefer AA4350 or RL19 with a 1/2 gr dacron filler. With RL7 if you get a bullet in the 170 190 gr range then I'd suggest starting with 24 gr using a 3/4 gr dacron filler and work up in 1/2 gr increments. I also suggest, if you use that soft of alloy, 7 shot test groups and cleaning the barrel between test groups. If you've a chronograph then I also suggest using it. Some where between 1900 and 2100 fps accuracy will get beyond what I consider to be good hunting accuracy for a 200 yard load which is 2.5 moa. Most often with a scope sighted rifle that gives around moa accuracy with jacketed bullets my hunting loads put the 1st 5 shots into 2 moa or less. After that it increases to 4 - 5+ moa very rapidly due to fouling.

The 311041HP is a very good bullet but so are comparable 170 - 190 gr FP bullets made by other companies. The Forster tool with 1/8" drill is very good for HPing them. Just use a soft enough alloy to give good expansion without the petals shattering off and don't over do the depth of the HP.

Larry Gibson