30-30, Lee dipper, 100gr .311

[howl]

Howdy! Please point me in the right direction. I want BUY some 100gr .311 cast boolits and put a powder under them using a 1cc dipper. Where? Which?

Thanks! This is going to be my little fella's first reloading project. He wants his turn on the family 30-30 for deer. He's getting powder and boolits for his birthday. I want a very light load for practice. I figure the dipper will simplify the loading process and make supervision easier. I would ask the same about 130gr, but that's a projectile of a different persuasion.

[barrabruce]

http://https://leeprecision.com/cgi-...ct/Dippers.pdf
No idea but may help you.

[ABJ]

I use lee dippers alot. Mostly on flake powders like 700x, the dots-green,red and blue and unique. My system is pour the powder into a wide mouth plastic container and run the scoop through 4 times, then strike off level with the flat,middle section of my finger. The reason for running 4 times is it very lightly packs the powder and my scoops run plus or minus .1 grains. On fast pistol/shotgun powders I'm using the 1.0 cc scoop and the one under that.
Then I measure the weight on ten trys and use the average. Then I go to the load manuals and see where I'm at. The Lyman number 3 cast handbook has a lot recipes with those powders. I'm at work so I don't have my load note with me but one of my grandkid loads is a plain base or gas check 150 with 5.1 plus or minus of 700x in 30-30. It will hold 2.5 inches at 100 yds. Another good one is 7.0 grains of green dot, the manual list that one at 1200 fps. One caution is NO fillers with these powders.
I have had better luck with the 150/170 boolits than the lighter ones. Just follow standard reloading practices and have fun.
Tony

PS... I think that 700x load is around 1000 fps give or take.

[quilbilly]

I have really liked my 30/30 loaded with the plain base 130's from a Lyman mold and 2.0 cc's of Trail Boss. The MV is about 1300 and recoil is negligible. It has been accurate out to 125 yards easily and coyotes don't care for it at all. BTW - Welcome to our group.

[barrabruce]

https://leeprecision.com/cgi-data/instruct/Dippers.pdf
I never knew there was a 0.17cc dipper.
Ha live and learn.

[Mohawk Daddy]

Welcome to castboolits. I love Lee dippers and use them all the time, especially for applications like you have outlined as "practice" loads. The trouble with sticking to one dipper and one boolit weight with one powder is that you may have a tough time finding even one example that works well. I recommend buying the whole set of dippers for $10 or whatever they cost now and either Lee's cardboard sliderule for the dippers or better yet Lee's book Modern Reloading 2nd edition with all the charts and tables in the back.
One cc of fast pistol powder combined with a 100 grain projectile can result in fairly stiff loads for a 30-30 with unnecessarily high velocities for plinking. If you are absolutely stuck on the 1 cc dipper, one cc of Red Dot gives 7.1 grains which is a good load for 30-30 but with a 170 grain boolit, not 100. One cc of Unique is 9.2 grains and one cc of Herco is 8.9 grains; those are also safe loads but with the 170 grain bullets, not 100. It may be hard to find extensive data for 100 grains. Think about buying heavier boolits for your project and also the set of dippers. Lee's charts are a must.
You didn't tell us how old your "little guy" is either. Is he 12, 10, 8, 6? Kids this young have learned to load with adult supervision, but the problem with dippers is the possibility of the double charge. Charging brass one piece at a time and seating the bullet immediately is one way to maintain consistency.
Most of the light cast loads I use come from Lyman's Cast Bullet Handbook or an old Lyman Reloading Handbook. If you don't want to invest the $20 or so for one of those, Lyman offers what I would call a pamphlet titled Lyman Load Data. Get the one for 30 caliber; it includes 30-30 along with 308, 30-06, and a couple of others. I think they're about 5 bucks. The cast boolit 30-30 data in the pamphlet only covers 150, 170, and 173 grains. Good luck and be safe.

[popper]

More details needed but may I suggest a heavier boolit? Why? You have to seat the boolit way out and that is hard on 30/30 cases. Light load under a 170 is really light in recoil anyway and is effective at the end. Easier to find a 'dipper' load that works.

[quilbilly]

I also like the Lee dippers. There just aren't enough so I bought an inexpensive hand pipe cutter and started cutting down brass rifle cases when I couldn't find the right pistol case for intermediate load. I made handles from twisted .031 stainless wire. Most recently I have been using a 1.24 cc dipper cut from a 45/70 case to measure a Red Dot load for a 308 that launches a 200 gr boolit at 1220 fps from a 16" barrel Mossberg MVP. That load tames the muzzle blast and is an absolute hoot to shoot with an added plus of being accurate at 50 yards with the iron sights.

[barrabruce]

I use 1.5 gns of bulleye and a powder positioner for a 120 grn Pb load in my 30-30 single shot.
It is a sized down 310 heeled cadet bullet.

I’m not saying that a kid can’t do it and I never have troubles as I load by using a dipper full of powder.
I then pick up a primed empty case out of the pile and by placing the upturned empty case mouth over the dipper then up ending.
This ensures if there was powder in it then then it is now empty.
I then place my powder positioner (optional) on top.
Hand seat the bullet and place in box.
One case at a time.

If I stop for any reason I tip the case over then have a look to make sure it is empty and start again.
There are only the empty pile and the loaded rounds.

I have never had a double charge and can’t seeing one using this method.

Well 4 grns of bulleye won’t hurt nothing by that ain’t the point.

Cheers
I do not advocate using loading blocks and putting powder in all the cases as some do then seat bullets.

[dverna]

Do not understand why it needs to be a 1cc dipper.

Easy to make a dipper of any capacity you wish.

Agree with popper on getting a heavier bullet. It can be used for practice and hunting.

[Texas by God]

1.0 cc of Red Dot will propel that 100 gr just fine. It may have to be fired single shot- your gun will tell you.

[yeahbub]

All hail the "dots" for this application. Don't forget "yellow dot" which is 800X, a good slow one for the heavier persuasions. Universal is also in the zone. When I do a lap job on a .30-30, a spent .22RF mostly full of Universal always gets them out of the barrel but that might be a bit slow for your purposes.

Just a thought, and no doubt you've thought carefully about this already: This seems an excellent opportunity for the young Tyro to develop the safety habit of keeping it simple; charge one case - seat one boolit, to eliminate losing track of where one is in the process. With such a small charge, visually detecting a double charge is tough. I taught my nephew "when in doubt, dump it out." Unless I miss my guess, he'll rightly have a bucket full of questions and keeping the process simple will go a long way to keeping everyone and the .30-30 safe. May your efforts bear much good fruit.

[gsdelong]

Is that the dipper lee put in the 30/30 die set. If so the data with the set should have a load listed.

Just a thought.

[bedbugbilly]

According to the Lee chart, a 10 cc dipper will throw 7.1 gr. of Red Dot. Of course saying that it will throw 7.1 gr. and actually doing so are two different things. I have both the set of yellow and the older red sets and I check with scales. I only mention Red Dot because I use it a lot. I just sold my 30-30s but will be picking up another one. I had great success with a 115 grain lead flat nose and 7 grains of Red Dot out of the Winchester 94 Ranger and the old Marlin 336SC that I had. Nice mild shooting and at 50 yards (which I was limited to where I was shooting) it was a great combination. I had no issues with powder position.

That said - dipper use depends on being "consistent" - that's something you need to teach your son and show him why with a set of scales - start out teaching the safety aspect as well. I'm sure he will pick up on it in no time. While I use the Lee dippers once in a while, I much prefer to make my own out of spent casings - a stovepipe wire handle twisted around the base of the casing in the ejector groove. .32 auto,380, 9mm 45, etc.

I don't hunt anymore and am older and just wanted plinking rounds. The 115 grain worked great but I also used 150 gr bolts and they also worked great with very comfortable recoil.

I don't know why you are limiting yourself to a 1.0 cc dipper? Possibly because that is what you have laying around - but you could certainly go lighter weight in the charge of RD and be fine by using a smaller dipper. It doesn't take 7.1 for of RD to get the boo lit out of the barrel and downrange. I have used Bulls Eye, Unique and Green Dot as well in lighter appropriate loads. My boolits are cast out of range lead and tumble lubed in paste wax/alox and with lighter loads and a little time, you figure out where your POA should be for POI. Check a Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook for load data - see the velocity for the different boolit weights and work a light load up fro there - batch load you samples and once you figure out what powder charge is the best - make a dipper or alter your plastic dipper to fit that load.

[gsdelong]

I looked in the lee manual only one load for 1 c.c. dipper 4227, to answer my own question the 30/30 with the 2.2 Dipper which has over a dozen loads for 100gr. I sent an P.M. offering to send you one.

Greg