30-06 and 2400 powder

[fogg64]

I have some .301 boolits (165 grains) that I paper patch. I am think of using Hercules 2400 and the Ed Harris load of 16 grains. I use this load with a 170 grain gas checked boolit and I like it. Has anyone used a pp at this lower velocity?

[303Guy]

Yes I have. I used 4227 under a paper patched 208 gr boolit. I used a filler which raised the pressure. It was in a well worn bore and what I did was fire into my test tube to check for patch disintegration, increasing the load until full disintegration occurred. I then loaded up and went shooting. The results were very good indeed. The bore did polish up and I needed to increase the load to get the same disintegration.

If your rifle has sharp and crisp rifling then the patch will get cut in strips by the rifling so should be able to shoot much slower than I could.

In another rifle I loaded up some 146 gr patched boolits over a few grains of Clays and these shot very accurately, especially considering the rough bore. These were subsonic and the patch stayed on to the target. With a sharp and crisp bore, this won't be possible but it shouldn't matter. Complete stay on or disintegration should give the same results.

Load up a few and see what happens. Perhaps load a few batches with increasing loads for comparison, starting with Ed Harris's load.

[wmitty]

303Guy

So you are saying the patch either needs to disintegrate or remain complete and attached to bullet to retain accuracy of the load? I hadn't considered that a low velocity load might not cause the patch to disintegrate. I had cast some 7mm boolits of an allow too soft for full speed pp loads and was considering using them for a lower velocity loading in a 7 x 57. Guess I'd better rethink this.

[Old Coot]

Before you melt the bullets down and make a new alloy Mr. Wmitty try loading them and shooting them. They might work. Patch dissintigration is dependent more upon how large the bullet core (the lead part) is in relation to bore diameter and what kind of paper you have used than the velocity. What can it hurt? You already have the bullets cast patch five and load them with your light load and see what happens. Brodie

[303Guy]

Yes, do try them. A mint bore will likely cut the patch while a bore with well rounded rifling edges might not. Only range testing will tell how well they'll work.

I didn't range test my loads with only partial patch disintegration so I cannot say that they won't work, only that the full disintegration did work. I don't recall whether or not the accuracy dropped off as the bore polish up and the patched stopped fully disintegrating. I discovered it through test tube firings.

If someone had a 303 Martini Henry action to donate I could do the tests. It was an ill fitting Martini barrel on an MLE action that shot so good. I still have the barrel.