My cast 3030 deer load?

[Markbo]

Heh heh heh... that is great.

[tdoyka]

if you use a 398 super dooper magnumitis with a bullet that give 8765ft/lbs out the muzzle, and you gut shoot a deer, i hope your tracking skills are up to it.

it doesn't matter if you use a 30-30 or a 405 win, placement is king.

[Markbo]

I use to hunt a lot with a friend who was color blind. Couldnt see blood on the ground. That wasnt so bad. The bad thing was he wasnt a very good shot. Every time he shot I knew I had to go track his deer.

[Motor]

I'm not so sure that the 22Gr load of 4198 is all that light. I shoot 22Gr(looked it up toay) of RL7 and it pushes the RD or 311041 to 1750 out of my 22 inch barrel. That is if I trust my crony, at any rate it's close. RL7 and 4198 are very close in performance in several of my rifles. Besides the fine old 32-40 was right in that vicinity.
I read the other forum, OK advice, but if you so firmly believe the 1000FtLb stuff(I don't) then it would stand to reason they never tried it. Run the numbers on a 250gr at 1100 and see what you get, I don't care so don't wanna bother. Many deer are unable to do the math so they just fall over, none the wiser.
Everybody wants to reduce everything to some "number" , it's just not that simple. Velocity enough to fully penetrate is required, anything more flatens the trajectory. That simplifies the shot, and for many people who have trouble judging range, a good very thing. It also raises recoil and puts more demand on the bullet, that's the reason so many deer are lost to the cannons. Friend insists on using a 125J at full tilt from a 30-06, his son lost a monster buck due to hitting the ball in the shoulder. They found the deer 2 weeks later, bullet never got into the ribcage. Bad thing is he still uses the light bullet!

I've been reloading since 1985 and shooting reloaded ammo (my reloading mentor's) before that. A lot of this reloading has been for friends and family deer rifles. The part I made red in the last post is a perfect example of ignorance pertaining to bullet performance.

I have over the years loaded "youth loads" for more than a few young people.

The funny thing is about the 125j load mentioned above in red is that if you were to slow that bullet down to around 2600f/s (about what the youth load is in Hodgdon's data) it would work so much better. Even with a shoulder joint hit. But at full 30-06 Velocity or even .308 Win velocity you had better hit nothing on the way in but rib.

BTW: I agree with all who say the OP's load is more than enough. Heck, he's nearly at factory 170gr j-word velocity.

Motor

[kaptain kartridge]

Thanks for the load data, I just purchased a Sears model 101.53521 (savage 340 ) in .30-30 caliber. Had great hopes for testing it with pointed bullets, but they made the magazine to hold the blunt factory loads. So I will experiment with cast 173 gr Lee boolits. I will single load and try 168gr match this summer.

[Hamish]

Craig,

I was unaware of Onandaga's and the One Trick Pony's posts in your thread over there those two are the two on that forum I have on "Ignore".

Pay no mind,,,,,,,

[richhodg66]

Take a look yourself ronniedog..
They are cast bullet shooters also..

http://www.castbulletassoc.org/forum...58&forum_id=24

Maybe you can go over there and straighten them out..
It'll be funny..

Noticed Larry Gibson gave the same advice he gave me when I took up deer hunting with cast and I have heard him give it to others. The basics are;

.30 caliber or bigger (yours is)

Heavy for caliber bullet (I'd call a 170 grain bullet heavy for .30 caliber)

SOftish alloy (you use the same as he describes)

1800-2000 FPS (yours may be a bit slower but not so much that it would make a difference)

I've killed five deer with various cast loads since he gave me that advice, a .30-30, .308, .300 Savage, .358 Winchester and a .32 Winchester Special (I had killed a lot of them with my own cast in a muzzle loader, but that's no trick, really) and concluded that Larry knew what he was talking about.

I think your load is good. Go hunting now.

[rking22]

Motor, I completely concur, it's the "overspeed" that causes the issue. J bullets have a design velocity range within which the perform as designed. 10 years ago my son killed his first deer with a 125J out of my 308 Kimber, it was doing about 2250fps. Bullet worked like a champ, you CAN overdo the velocity!Would anyone think a 300gr 4570 bullet would NOT exit a chest shot deer? If you push the Rem HP 2200+ from a Ruger it won't! That deer ran 60 yards too, so much for "ENERGY"!!!! Now I reccomend the 170grFP 30cal cast, at 1800ish,,, strangely enough, right about where the OPs load runs. My load (170at1750) has accounted for 11 deer with as many shots, from various 30 caliber rifles. I am presently playing with bigger bores, but not due to any real "need", just exploring

Wow, just went and read the thread on the other forum again ,,, way to go 357Max !!!!!

Oh, Elbow, I never shot a bear, but have been told they are much harder to put down than a deer. With bear I would probably use more boolit dia, not necessarliy more energy. Trad bowhunter here too, you will do just fine with your load, especially with the archers mindset!

[kungfustyle]

everything looks good. I would like to see a follow up with a fresh harvest picture.

[Markbo]

I would lime to see what the experts a t the other site say when he posts a harvest pic there.

[Digital Dan]

Been watching this thread for a spell and found myself amazed by the ethical dogma on the other site. Sad commentary is the best I can come up with. Not a member over there, no plans of opening that door, but if anyone here is, well, post this over there and let 'em know I haven't been confused by emotion in quite a few years.



Yeah, that box says "CB". 1,000 pounds my achin' butt.

[43PU]

Well why it's not a 30-30, don't tell this deer I shot it with a load that registers 1700FPS out of my Garand. Ill tell you he didn't not once complain to me about it on the trip back home and we had a 30 min drive!!

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...nd-Kills-again

[Hamish]

I think we all agree that elbow's load is plenty to get the job done. Craig, what went on in your thread "over there" basically had nothing to do with you or your load and everything to do with an ongoing reaction to excessive obtuse behavior and continued pontification of highly suspect information. He was banned here for the same thing.

Looking forward to seeing you post kills this Fall!

[Wolfer]

Like many here I've shot a lot of deer with multiple calibers from 22 LR to 338 mag. 10 or maybe more have been taken with 30 cal 311041 anywhere from 1650 to 1800 fps. None of the cast deer needed a second shot.
Ive shot several with a 45 colt. 250ish boolits from 925 to 1050 fps. Most will go 30/50 yds with one making it 70 yds.

Ive found if you put a hole in both lungs it doesn't much matter what you put it there with.

[ancientriflesmith]

Okay, today I'll go from years of being a lurker to participant in this excellent forum. Sorta tickles me to see so many young shooters discussing cast bullets (yes I'm going to have to start using the word BOOLITS or you'll shame me to death). It hasn't been a whole long time since it was hard to meet someone else that shot "lead" boolits. My brother and I started our hunting and trapping days with nothing but cast. This was late 1940s and we lived miles from any town in the middle of the National Forest. The only store bought ammo we had was .22 cal. and most of it shorts. The old rifles we had belonged to Uncles or Cousins on loan to us. The rifles were 92 Winchesters in 25-20, 32-20 and a 1894 Saddle ring carbine in 30WCF My favorite gun was a 1899 Savage take-down in 25-35, which today is still in my gun safe and shot regularly. The men folk in our family all rolled their own ammo using the old "tong tool" loaders and cast bullets made from molds that mostly came with the old rifles made in the 1890-1920 era. The lead we made the boolits from was whatever could be scrounged up. Even had some lead and antimony/silver ore from the surrounding mines. Grandpa had a forge in his blacksmith shop and he refined our bullet metal. Of course we knew nothing of BHN, gas checks or what it took to make a good bullet. We were not into MOA shooting. All we did was to kill the game we needed to feed the family and a Bobcat or wolf caught in a trap. The game would have been squirrels, coons, possums and wild pigs. Rarely a deer was killed because the early pioneers had practically eradicated the whitetail population during the depression and before. Someone mentioned the old Army Krag earlier, well that and the 30-06s were rich people's guns. We saw one occasionally and sometimes a hunter in our party would own a Remington pump rifle. Most everyone hunted with Marlins and Winchester lever guns. Y'all got to remember that was before the .308, .243 and all the necked down and necked up 06 derivatives. But about cast boolits. My brother and I have always reloaded and for the most part shot cast. Today I shoot cast in about every gun I own. Even in the ARs. In fact ARs in 450 BM and 300BLK are among the most accurate cast shooters I own. I'm still hung up on the .35 Rem 336, a custom 358 on 600 Rem, 9x57 Mauser, 45-70s, etc, etc. Your forum is a great place for all cast boolit shooters. Wow! learned a lot here myself. That proves that even a 70 year old dog can learn new tricks. Thanks whippersnappers for all information and experiences posted here.
Retired Navy SCPO, NRA Life Member, 56 Years custom riflesmith, Author, Civil War/Old West Historian

[ancientriflesmith]

Sorry Y'all. In the post above It appears I am 70 years old, in fact I meant to say I've been shooting cast for 70 years, I a bit older than 70, but I still load and shoot almost everyday. Just finished mixing 250# of cast alloy. That should last about 5 years. ha.
Ancientriflesmith

[Geezer in NH]

Sorry Y'all. In the post above It appears I am 70 years old, in fact I meant to say I've been shooting cast for 70 years, I a bit older than 70, but I still load and shoot almost everyday. Just finished mixing 250# of cast alloy. That should last about 5 years. ha.
Ancientriflesmith

Welcome aboard!!!!!!!

[Geezer in NH]

Hey Elbow your load works fine.

I bet you have read Patrick F. McManus.

[Wolfer]

Sorry Y'all. In the post above It appears I am 70 years old, in fact I meant to say I've been shooting cast for 70 years, I a bit older than 70, but I still load and shoot almost everyday. Just finished mixing 250# of cast alloy. That should last about 5 years. ha.
Ancientriflesmith

welcome aboard indeed!

[blikseme300]

On every forum I am or have been there are/were posters who had nothing good to say about anything anybody but themselves did. This does not make it a good or bad forum but it does annoy. Fortunately there are tools on these sites that can help but I have learned over the years to just mentally ignore them and not get myself worked up. Mostly these same people are all talk but no hat. Pictures of targets, score charts from contests or game taken are typically absent and all there is is noise as far as I am concerned. Just ignore them and keep chewing down on the venison.