20.5 grains of 2400 with 20.5 year old eyes

[Pb4me]

Today, my youngest son the new airplane mechanic, tried out the following load:
Rifle is a Ruger Hawkeye .30-06, almost new. Very few jacketed rounds fired from it.
Old Remington cases trimmed on Lee trimmer, primer pockets cleaned and flash hole uniformed with Lyman tool.
20.5 grains of 2400
Winchester standard primers
Boolit was Lee C309-200-R, cast from WW's and water dropped.
O.A.L. is 3.210"
Average velocity today was 1693 for one group and 1700 for another group. One group had a standard deviation of 6!!

Lube is straight beeswax. I got so sick of lube creeping out of our lube/sizer because it's been 100 to 105 degrees around here for days, I put straight beeswax in it. Had a little smoke and the bores out of two rifles looked like the hadn't been shot after several rounds of target shooting and shooting over the chrony.

Range is 103 yards (by the time the shooting cover was built it got a little long, slightly over 100 yards).
We didn't even measure the group. You can see it at the bottom of the diamond and about one inch to the right. This load happens to strike dead on at 50 yards after sighting in at a 100 yards with a standard jacketed load. It only drops slightly over 2 inches at 100 yards. You can just make out the three taped up holes shot with another brand of lead bullet cast the same way with the same load.

I know the straight beeswax sounds crazy but it works in this heat. I will not do that much longer as it is going to cool off and I will go back to something more standard or just cut the beeswax with something else. I've tried a lot of things for lube, including great recipes from this site. They work well and I've used them for years, they just get a little loose in this environment right now. Needless to say, we were a little happy. This load has shot well out of many .30 caliber rifles of various action types.

Incidentally, the man I buy the beeswax from is 95 and has been working bees for 80 years. He is finally quitting.

[s mac]

Very nice. Maybe you ought to buy a beehive from your friend.

[tdoyka]

i can't find 2400

nice group!!!

[NC_JEFF]

Very nice group, if I could find any 2400i think I would try this load in my model 70 get.

[Pb4me]

Thanks for the comments. I guess we're fortunate in a way here. There's a mom and pop outfit in the woods that always has powder. It may be very old and they just look up the current price and that's what you pay. Better than none I guess. It's always stored right and showed no weird results on the chronograph. I didn't mean 2400, it's new somehow. But I bought some very old "H" type powders there like 4198.

[35 shooter]

Very nice shooting indeed and very interesting about using the straight beeswax!
I've got a new .308 i'm trying to find some 2400 local for. I heard it's starting to hit the shelves around here. Also need some more unique.

[jaysouth]

Good shooting. Were the bullets gas checked?

[Pb4me]

Yes they were checked. We use several .30 caliber molds and they all wear checks except the paper patch type. I forgot to mention we use Hornady checks simply because of price and availability. And it's already getting just a few degrees cooler where the beeswax needs to be cut or just go back to some other lube.