Ranch Dog .30-30 loading assistance

[Maximumbob54]

I’m looking for a Ranch Dog 101 bullet instruction. I got all ready to start pan lubing and figuring out cast bullets for my Marlin 336 and now I have turned myself upside down. I’m not too bad off since I wanted to try paper patching first. I thought maybe this would be easier. So I bought the 165 gr mold with the gas check option and I thought tumble lubing would be just that much easier. Now I’m confused. Everything I have read and followed to this point is about cutting alox with mineral spirits so it isn’t so goopy. Do I do the same thing with these or does a rifle need the goopy to lube at rifle velocity? I printed out the load sheet that is offered and I’m also curious what a recommended powder and primer choice would be. I’m also forgetting to ask about bullet hardness. Is there a recommended alloy or hardness I should try for? I bought the Lee .309 sizing die and the Lee dies that come with the FCD as recommended. I’m not trying to hot rod the .30-30, I would just like to shoot accurate and maybe make this my bullet I take my first deer with this season. My first deer on my own actually so I doubly don’t want to screw this up. I have several loading manuals that will keep me in line but since I figure none of this is new I’m sure there has to be some favored loadings that people would like to share.

[Gohon]

I've got several RD molds but not the 165 grain 30 caliber mold. I do have a Lee C309-170-F 30 mold that I do use. Cast from straight wheel weights with a little tin the BHN is 12-13 for hardness. Using LLA as a lube I run this ahead of 27 grains of H-335 for right at 2,000 fps. No leading and great accuracy. Could go a little faster but this serves my purpose.

As for LLA, I do not mix in mineral spirits. Just never made sense to me as the LLA is very cheap and why dilute something that works well. Kind of like mixing mineral spirits in your motor oil to make a quart stretch longer. Having said that, I do cut my LLA with Johnson Paste Wax at a 50/50 mix. The JPW in itself is a pretty good bullet lube and mixed with LLA it seems to work great and is a little less tacky than straight LLA. If the tackiness bothers you, just put you lubed and dried bullets in a butter bowl, throw in a teaspoon of corn starch and shake it around. The tackiness is gone and it hurts nothing. Looks like **** but shoots well and besides after loading, it is easy to take a rag with a little mineral spirits on it and clean the nose of the bullet if one wants it to look pretty.

Keep in mind if you use RD's load data, that he water drops all his casts so that he has a hardness of around 18-20 BHN. He does this so he can push them at top speed and pressure. Pretty sure his data is max so start 10% lower and work up.

[Maximumbob54]

http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/x333/Maximumbob54/2011-07-02_18-41-22_227.jpg
These are 165gr cast from the Ranch Dog mold. Alloy is a rough approximation of Lyman #2 with 30.5gr of H335. I used Ranch Dog's own loading data minus about ten percent. The bullets are tumble lubed in non-thinned LLA twice to make sure they are good and gummy. Two are sized .309 and two are .310 as from the mold. They will be used in a Marlin 336. It does have the micro groove barrel. If anyone else has done anything similar to this I would love to hear what your experiences have been.

[BCall]

Michael's tips are here - http://www.ranchdogoutdoors.com/Tips/Alox/

I pretty much follow them except for a few spots. #1, I lightly tumble lube them with a 45-45-10 alox mix. This dries harder on the nose, but still leaves some lube there. Then I add checks, size, then I dip lube them like Michael does (but using full strength alox, not thinned or mixed). He is using that new tool, but I still just run them through the sizer again after they are dry. I haven't had any issues with leading, even at near max velocities.

[Tom W.]

I see lube dents, but they will go away when you fire them. Keep the shoulders off of the lube pad..
I have the RD 165 gr mold, and usually size with the Lee .309 sizer. I've used the bullets in my .308, where I foolishly over powered them, and got patterns instead of groups. When I used a more moderate load, they grouped well. They shoot very well from my 30/06 a.i. where I mostly use them to fire form my brass, and in my 30/30 they also shoot great. I use IMR 3031 in both the 30/30 and 30/06.

If you'll read the instructions that come with the LLA you'll find that thinning it with mineral spirits is recommended. All that's needed is an extremely light coating, so it looks like a varnish. Lee recommends lubing, sizing and lubing again. I tried "dipping" the bullets as was shown on RD's website, but I wasn't pleased with the results. I'm sure that it was something I did wrong in the procedure, ( like just heating the LLA instead of thinning it ) so I'll have to try it again later. The last batch that I did I finger lubed with White label Lube's Carnauba Red, and then sized them in the Lee sizer. I don't have a .309 sizing die for my RCBS LAM II.

[geargnasher]

It's a .30-30 and a most excellent boolit design, you can do anything you want to with it, from mild to the very limits of the pressure spectrum, you'll have to decide what you want to do with it, and tell us, and we can give some much more detailed recommendations.

I'll give you some hints: If you use water-quenched 50/50 clip-on-wheel-weights/pure lead with about 1% total tin added to it, dip-lube per Mr. Reamy's directions, expand your case necks and bellmouth properly, size to fit your gun's dimensions, you can work up to a full charge of anything from IMR 4198 to W748 or even slower powder with accurate and devastating results on game. You can also cast them out of straight, air-cooled wheel weights and load them plain-based on top of 8-10 grains of Unique and have a ball with reactive targets or small game. It's up to you.

If I were going to paper patch, I'd use the Lyman 31141 or 311041 or the Lee 150 or 170-grain flat nose because the nose base is a tad smaller, not sure you'd be able to use the RD boolit because the patch thickness would likely force you to seat below the crimp groove. This boolit may not fit many other guns such as Savage and Winchester due to much shorter ball seats, but each gun is different. My 336 will take the RD boolit crimped in the second microband, but it's been shot a lot and firelapped.

Gear

[btroj]

It is an excellent bullet. It will shoot well with loads from mild to wild like Gear said.
I don't use LLA but have seen enough use it with good results to know it can do a very good job. Thin the LLA like is recommended. This is definitely not a "more is better" thing. Get too much on the bullet and it takes forever to dry, Hilda up in the seating die, and generally makes a wasteful mess. Like was said earlier, you want it to look like a light coat of varnish. Two light coats are much better than one heavy one.
In my opinion it looks like you have a pretty heavy crimp. Don't be afraid to try a light crimp and see which the rifle prefers. I also have a gut feeling you will find it prefers the 310 diameter bullets. I actually use mine at 311, the micrgroove barrels seem to prefer fat bullets.

You have one of the easier to get shooting rifle/ cartridge combos there. It can be a good hunting rifle and is awesome as a plinker. Easy to load, good selection of available moulds, lots of data, and just plain fun. The 30-30 is a dream gun to shoot cast in.

[Maximumbob54]

I was hoping to use them deer hunting and hog hunting this year. I was going to stick to under a hundred yards. I'm tumble lubing them but I will try dipping them in the warm lube next time. I'm not sure what velocity will function best accuracy vs. fps for hunting use.

[btroj]

For deer and hogs they should work very well. I knew a deer in northern MO that seemed to dislike becoming an aqauttance of thet bullet.

[geargnasher]

That boolit will go clear through a Whitetail like a hot knife through butter at 1500 fps. I'd worry about accuracy first, velocity second. Even at 1500 fps you only have about an 8" holdover at 100. Take it to 2000 fps at least if you can, but don't sacrifice accuracy for speed, an extra 100 fps isn't worth trading 1 moa of accuracy IMO, if it comes down to that.

Gear

[Maximumbob54]

I didn't know that 1500 fps woulds still be that devastating. Good to know. I guess my goal will be to push it as fast as it will go until the very second accuracy suffers. I may have to open up the mold cavities if I need to cast a .311 bullet. Or just start over with a different mold. Suddenly I'm having second thoughts on the whole Micro Groove concept.

[geargnasher]

There is nothing wrong with Micro-groove barrels at all, I don't care what you read in the Lyman books or elsewhere, they're flat wrong about needing to limit velocity. I shoot my 336 with the 12-groove version of MG rifling to 2100 fps and used to get 2moa with open sights at 100 when I could see, now I have a weaver 4x on it and need to try it again.

The way MG rifling is made is the issue, and it's a matter of misunderstanding about how to reload for it that gives it a bad rap. Instead of cutting it, a rifled slug is drawn throught the barrel, forging the grooves as it goes. The result is often that the grooves AND bore are bit larger than standard .30 caliber, being more like .309"/.302", which will make them lead if you use .309" boolits like you typically would in most .30 caliber guns. The grooves are supposed to be shallower than typical cut rifling, I can't tell that it's by much. Also, instead of having four surfaces to bear on the boolit, it has twelve (more or less depending on the vintage of the MG and the caliber), so has two to four times the amount of radial surface engagement of the boolit. The result is that you get practically zero skid into the rifling on a MG barrel, and that helps the boolit get a straight, accurate start in the bore.

Once you understand this and that .30 caliber MG Marlins like a fat boolit, at least .310 and often .311", the problems commonly associated with the design go away. I find the MG barrels to be more consistent as far as land width variations and depth of grooves than most cut-rifled production barrels. There are no tools to chatter or get out-of-sync when cutting the grooves.

As far as microgroove or tumble-lube-groove boolits go, they can have some disadvantages in that the bands are relatively weak, but refer to what I said above about Marlin MG barrels having more engagement surface area, and realize that Ranch Dog designs his boolits for Marlin guns almost exclusively, and you'll see why his boolits work at higher velocities in these guns.

What ever you do, realize that reloading and shooting cast boolits is a balancing and matching act, to a certain extent you have to match the alloy to the pressure and velocity you intend to create, use a powder of the appropriate burn rate (slowest powder that still gives consistent burn characteristics works best for me), and size to fit your gun. Lube is a player here, too, the higher the pressure the higher the viscocity needs to be, but with tumble lube you're stuck with what you have pretty much. Within the limits of the .30-30 cartridge, you should be fine using Ranch Dog's "dip method", but keep in mind that that method has very specific applications here, it may not be the best for your micro-groove 9mm boolits!

Gear

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

I am using the lee c309-170f my last load was 21 gr h4895 .310 as cast no check
book says 1500 fps , I have no trouble believing it would take a deer

this is in an 70's micro groove 336, i don't know what all the fuss about micro groove was , i think some "expert" gun writers had difficulty with change , the gun has always shot fine for me jackets and now cast.

i tumble with 2 coats of Lee Alox i didn't thin mine either just did 2 light coats i may be being extra cautions but i also used a finger application of 50/50 alox bees wax lee nra lube to fill the lube grooves

accuracy has been good i plan to keep working up till i get to 1800 or loose accuracy
i am kind of experimenting to see if i can get to 1800 without a gas check 1-2 gr at a time , i am using a filler to help protect the base but grits is cheap at my house

i have a 1986 set of lee 30-30 dies , no crimp die , it worked for the friend i bought them from for the last 20+ year i was no need to mess with a working formula it does a little crimp in the seating die just enough to take the flare off I tried pushing the boolit in to make sure the mag couldn't i started to deform the nose and i still hadn't budged it

[1Shirt]

My 444 and 44 micro Marlins are just plain dumb! They don't seem to understand the fact that they can't shoot cast fast and accurate. Keep trying to prove they arn't dumb, but they like the fat lady bullets to keep singing!
1Shirt!:coffeecom

[geargnasher]

I am using the lee c309-170f my last load was 21 gr h4895 .310 as cast no check
book says 1500 fps , I have no trouble believing it would take a deer

this is in an 70's micro groove 336, i don't know what all the fuss about micro groove was , i think some "expert" gun writers had difficulty with change , the gun has always shot fine for me jackets and now cast.

i tumble with 2 coats of Lee Alox i didn't thin mine either just did 2 light coats i may be being extra cautions but i also used a finger application of 50/50 alox bees wax lee nra lube to fill the lube grooves

accuracy has been good i plan to keep working up till i get to 1800 or loose accuracy
i am kind of experimenting to see if i can get to 1800 without a gas check 1-2 gr at a time , i am using a filler to help protect the base but grits is cheap at my house

i have a 1986 set of lee 30-30 dies , no crimp die , it worked for the friend i bought them from for the last 20+ year i was no need to mess with a working formula it does a little crimp in the seating die just enough to take the flare off I tried pushing the boolit in to make sure the mag couldn't i started to deform the nose and i still hadn't budged it

The results you're likely to get with the filler might pleasantly surprise you.

Gear

[UtopiaTexasG19]

If you will look back on the Ranch Dog site I believe He recommends the .310 bullet sizer for his mold in 30-30 Winchester. .309 might be a tad small for cast boolits.

[Maximumbob54]

I finally saw that and will be ordering it for the next batch. I still have yet to test these though. I might even order the .311 to try as well.

[1Shirt]

As an aside, have had good luck with the 165 RDGC at.309 in my K-31.
1Shirt!:coffeecom

[Maximumbob54]

I thought K-31's were 7.5mm? You are talking the Swiss rifle, right? The math on that should be .295 so I would have thought a .309 would be rrreeeaaallll fat... What am I missing? Or does it just work so you are sticking with it?

[1Shirt]

Check the specs on K-31's, think you will find that they mike out at .308 or very close to it. Anyhow, .309 sized RD's shoot in mine very well.
1Shirt!:coffeecom