30-30/moose hunting

[reloader28]

My uncle is expecting a cow moose tag this year and is going to use his 30-30 and some cast boolits.
I have the NOE 165gr (170gr) with the big meplat.
I'm going with a solid not HP, but was thinking of using air cooled 50/50/2% alloy. I think it would work great with some speed, but not positive.

After talking with my uncle, he thought maybe just plain WW would work. I think the penetration would be fine, but would like a little more expansion.

I am planing on doing some testing with air cooled 50/50/2%. I can also water drop of course.

What do you guys think? Would the softer alloy expand too much or be fine? Or would I be better off with a harder alloy that held its shape and not expanded at all?
It seems to me that it would have to expand one heck of a lot to not make an exit hole on a moose 150yds or less.

If it was a .44 or like it, I wouldnt even care if it expanded, but a 30cal?

[338RemUltraMag]

If set on using a 30-30 for moose I would suggest a 75-25, meaning 75% WW 25% Pure. And make sure he shoots till the magazine or tube is empty, them critters can soak up some bullets.

[Lead Fred]

I would have suggested something a tad bigger.
I use Lyman Number 2 out of a Ranch Dog mold, good and hard, never tried anything bigger than a deer
Or my 45/70 would never leave the safe.

[colt1960]

I beleave the noe 165gr is a copy of the ranch dog bullet with grease grooves. Ive got a 45-70 that I think would be a better choice of calibers but if a 30-30 is what your going to use I guess it will do the job if your uncle does his. good luck! Rick.

[Screwbolts]

I believe The Boolit you have chosen will work fine for your uncle. IMSWLTHO, (in my some what less than humble opinion) The Big meplat doesn't need much or any mushrooming to be very effective. I cast them of WWs and water drop them, the have traveled straight threw deer for me. I once shot a beef in the fore head with my 303 loaded with 17 gr, of IMR 4759 and a ACWW boolit from a Ideal 308284. Yes a heavier boolit, but the butcher found my boolit intact but bent laying up against the blade of the should plate. That was over 40" of penetration, Forehead, back of scull threw three verdabrai , then traveling length of neck shoulder meat coming to rest against the shoulder blade.

I think his 30-30 with chosen boolit will work fine, aim small hit small.

ken

[dg31872]

I would suggest a larger caliber. If he uses the 30-30, be in close to the animal and bullet placement would be important. I'm sure a number of moose have fallen to the 30-30, but it would not be my first choice.

[L Ross]

With all due respect to member ultramag. I went on a moose hunt with three other hunters all magnum armed. I used a 7x57 and was chastised for my "girlie" gun. My bull dropped literally in its foot prints with one quartering shot through the chest. The one other bull took 2 300 Win mags (with good shooting) and the cow took a combination of 8 total rounds from a 300 Win mag and a 338 Win mag.
Next on a buffalo hunt. A 75 year old woman from Northern MN who regularly kills her deer with her 30-30 shot her 1000 lb cow with one shot using the same 30-30. Emptying the magazine was done.....to extract the unfired rounds.
Reloader28, if your uncle has a good understanding of animal anatomy, can remain calm, and carefully place a killing shot with his 30-30 I'd say go for it. I'd probably use as heavy a flat nose bullet as my rifle would shoot into a 4" or smaller group at 100 yds. If he lacks that knowledge and skill no rifle caliber will make up for it.
Duke

[BruceB]

One of our long-time members, Shuz, wrote a few years ago about a cast-bullet moose hunt with a .30-06 (I think).

The moose died, but it took a considerable length of time and several bullets.

It's all well and good to shoot cast bullets, but in most regards they are honestly INFERIOR to good jacketed bullets for clean kills on game. Going to greater effort, such as making a soft-point cast bullet, can do a lot to close the efficiency gap, but unless this is done we are risking the needless wounding and/or suffering of a game animal.

Hunting big animals with a .30-caliber cast bullet, unless it is absolutely essential from a survival standpoint, is more of a stunt than I like to see. The .30-30 cleanly kills plenty of moose every year; I've seen it done...... with softpoint jacketed ammo. However, my PERSONAL choices for cast-bullet moose would start with a 250-grain .338 softpoint, and actually I would prefer something over .40 caliber and 400-plus grains. I have killed my share of moose and seen many others killed, and I'm not talking from "book knowledge".

The priority , as for all hunting, should be placed on a CLEAN KILL. Selecting ammunition that one KNOWS is inferior is at best poor judgement.

I'm not saying this to offend anyone, but I have some experience with moose and they deserve our best efforts, not marginal ammunition.

[pls1911]

AMEN to Duke's admonitions. I am a fan and a big believer in the 30-30 but would choose a 45-70 first.
Your bullet choice is among the best, though I'd prefer the RCBS 180 just because of the extra weight.... it will cast 185-195 with most alloys.
My alloy is about 50/50 ww/pure, heat treated at 450 for one hour and ice water quenched, gas checked and lubed.
This stretches my alloy a long ways, and provides a bullet with a BHN of 22-24. These shoot HARD like linotype but without the brittle frangibility. This alloy , so processed, will deform with bone hits, but holds together very well and penetrates into the next county....which is what you need on big critters, even with perfect shot placement. The same applies to plain WW, but the bullet is still harder, 24-28 BHN.

[Larry Gibson]

Reloader28

I concur with BruceB, a moose is a pretty large animal. However many have been and still are killed every year with the 30-30. Your select of bullet is appropriate but I suggest the alloy be changed slightly; add the 2% tin to the COWWs and then add 50% lead to that. That puts the tin in better proportion to the antimony for an over all better alloy. It's one I use quite often with my 311041 HP at 177 gr fully dressed. I use the HP on smaller game such as deer and pigs and it gives excellent expansion, weight retension and penetration to 200 yards when pushed out at 2000 - 2200 fps. For the moose I would go with that alloy sans the HP.

If you can find some LeveRevolution powder and you fully dressed bullet runs 170 gr then try 32 - 33 gr. Psi will be below most factory loads, accuracy should be very good and velocity should be 2100fps with a 20" barrel and more if the barrel is longer. I size mine at .311, firmly seat a Hornady GC and lube with Javelina (no longer available but a good NRA 50/50 lube or 2500+ does excellent also). I also clean the barrel every 7 -8 shots with that alloy and load to maintain excellent accuracy.

As mentioned be prepared for follow up shots but even with j bullets and bigger cartridges with a perfect heart/lung shot, a moose can be dead on it's feet and not know it for a while. Good luck hunting.

Larry Gibson

[Spokerider]

A 3030 will do everything a 3006 will, out to about 100m.
Shot placement will be everything......avoiding large bone and less than optimum shot angles and low percentage targets.
It comes down to knowing and respecting the limits of the cartridge and factoring in the parameters of ones own hunting aptitude.

[338RemUltraMag]

With all due respect to member ultramag. I went on a moose hunt with three other hunters all magnum armed. I used a 7x57 and was chastised for my "girlie" gun. My bull dropped literally in its foot prints with one quartering shot through the chest. The one other bull took 2 300 Win mags (with good shooting) and the cow took a combination of 8 total rounds from a 300 Win mag and a 338 Win mag.
Next on a buffalo hunt. A 75 year old woman from Northern MN who regularly kills her deer with her 30-30 shot her 1000 lb cow with one shot using the same 30-30. Emptying the magazine was done.....to extract the unfired rounds.
Reloader28, if your uncle has a good understanding of animal anatomy, can remain calm, and carefully place a killing shot with his 30-30 I'd say go for it. I'd probably use as heavy a flat nose bullet as my rifle would shoot into a 4" or smaller group at 100 yds. If he lacks that knowledge and skill no rifle caliber will make up for it.
Duke

No offense taken, but a lot of people shoot deer with the 223 and watch em drop just like your moose did, a fast bullet seems to kill faster than a slow one (whole new discussion) I think it will work, but it is a good possibility it may take more than 1 round. If I were hunting moose with a 30-30 I would fire until the animal fell over or was out of range or the gun was empty. Period.

They can take hella abuse and keep on truckin.

[reloader28]

Thanks for the opinions guys. My knowledge comes from 6 deer and one hog cast boolit kills. Well, alotta p-dogs and rabbits too.
I know a water dropped 50/50/2% boolit will go thru a deer like its butter. Worked great. One 357, one 45 colt, two 30-06. Two with 44mag air cooled 50/50/2. All the boolits were not even close to slowing down, even at 200+yds. One hog with straight air cooled WW and HP (when I first started). It worked and he's got the hog mounted, but I never saw the recovered boolit. He said it looked fine but the nose was gone of course.

Yes the NOE is the Ranch Dog clone and yes my uncle can shoot good.
I might use my 44mag rifle if it were me, but he asked me if 30-30 would work and said he needed some boolits so I said "I think it would work fine". I'm up for a challenge.

I am going to do some testing with these boolits shortly and I'll let you know what we did and how it worked, but I am just getting a feeler of what you guys think. IF he gets his tag. He dont exactly have it yet.
I do appreciate what everyone thinks and want all the opinions I can get, so keep em comin.

BruceB, do you know more specifics about that hunt. Alloy? Boolit? Load?
I know there can be failures in everything. Maybe he made a bad first shot? I'm just curious.

I think I disagree about cast being "inferior" to jacketed though. I've made boolits that expand at least as much as jacketed HP and keep better weight retention and made FN cast that penatrate farther than RN solid jacketed. Granted these were with MY test grounds. Wet phone books, wet sand, milk jugs.
I personally think the big advantage a jacketed bullet has is the longer range due to higher speeds.
I'm not trying to start an argument, thats just my opinion and I greatly appreciate yours.

338RemUltraMag, I hadnt thought of 75/25 alloy. Thats another possability.

It sounds like the concesess is to use a harder alloy than air cooled 50/50/2% and let the meplat do the work in case it hits a bone. I just thought with that caliber maybe it should mushroom some. Thats why I came here.
I have used water dropped 50/50/2 on a deer with 30-06 and though it worked fine, I thought a softer boolit would have been way better.

Thanks again guys. I am surprised at getting this many responses so fast and hope more are to come.


WOW, more posts in the time it took me to type that. I'm slow.

Larry, thats an interesting way to do it and I've read your posts stating that before. I'm going to give it a try. And it streches the tin which is expensive for me. I guess its basically 1% instead of 2% huh?

I've always did a pound of WW=2%. Throw in a pound of lead=2%. Am I wrong or does this make a 2% mix in the end?

[Pilgrim]

Shuz has killed at least 2 bulls with the Lyman boolit (280 gr IIRC) out of a .35 Whelen. I was with him when he got his 2nd bull. I haven't talked to Shuz for a year + so he may have collected more of 'em since then. Pilgrim

[seasidehunter]

I hope there will be photos !!!

of boolits and critters..

[Larry Gibson]

I've always did a pound of WW=2%. Throw in a pound of lead=2%. Am I wrong or does this make a 2% mix in the end?

You only need to add the 2% tin to the original COWWs. That most often makes an excellent alloy in and of itself. Then to soften just add 10 - 50 % lead to that alloy. Add the % you want for as soft as you want. The COWWs + 2% tin with 50% lead then added and WQ'd or HT'd makes a very hard yet malleable bullet.

Larry Gibson

[Hyphenated]

You guys have covered most of the bases, so no need to rehash caliber choices. If I was shooting something that big with a 30-30 I would go with the heaviest boolit my rifle shot well. That would mean 180-190gr plus. The 190gr was not an uncommon choice for the old-timers. Check out the older Lyman manuals for published data.

[TXGunNut]

It's all well and good to shoot cast bullets, but in most regards they are honestly INFERIOR to good jacketed bullets for clean kills on game. Going to greater effort, such as making a soft-point cast bullet, can do a lot to close the efficiency gap, but unless this is done we are risking the needless wounding and/or suffering of a game animal.-BruceB

I've killed lots of critters and tracked more wounded critters than I'd care to admit and I'm proud to say that my considerable tracking ability hasn't been utilized much since I started hunting with CB's. I've only killed a handful of critters, all much smaller than a moose, BTW, with a CB but I've been very impressed with the terminal performance.
I have immense respect for your thoughts on this subject, BruceB, just not sure I agree with you. I still keep a j-bullet or two on the shelf but if I didn't have a perfectly good 45-70 or 35 Rem (or 32WS) available I'd certainly consider taking a moose with a CB fired from a 30-30. Second choice would be a 170 gr Cor-Lokt but I'd be afraid it was designed for lighter game.
I'm not going after a moose anytime soon but this thread intrigues me, care to expand more on your experiences?

[reloader28]

Great thoughts guy's. Thanks for the comments.
Larry, thanks for the heads up. I've been adding tin to a pound of WW AND a pound of lead. I'm definately going to give that a try.

[nanuk]

I have a friend up north that has killed more moose than I have killed deer, and his elk count is up there too.

I'd say 75% or more of them were killed with a 30-30, and the rest with a shotgun shooting slugs, and one with an SKS, 7.62x39 125gr SP, complete pass through, broke ribs going in, took out the top of the heart, big damage to the lungs, and out through the brisket on the far side.

after talking with him for years about hunting moose, I'd have NO qualms using an alloy, like Larry Gibson's recommendation, in a 30-30 with a 165+ boolit! None. Load that round up to equal factory speeds and go hunting! Limiting my shots to inside 150yds.

the secret he tells me about moose hunting is this:

Moose are Big Babies.
Shoot one in the forward half, then go and have lunch.
Come back in 1.5-2 hours and you'll find him 50 yds from where you shot him.
if you shot twice, expect him to be 100 yds. Add 50 yds for each shot.
Whatever you do, do NOT chase him!

My buddy's favorite shooting platform was a grader on the highway..... Moose aren't afraid of a Grader. He'd shoot them then continue on his way. Come back a few hours and the moose would be laying either dead, or stiffened up and only needing a finishing shot.

if he was Calling Moose, he never needed to shoot beyond 50 yds, as he could always call them in close.

I've learned a lot about hunting from him.