Winchester 94AE in .307 Win

[DonMountain]

I've had a Winchester 94AE in .307 Winchester for about 20 years using J bullets for deer hunting. Never thought about using cast boolits in it like I do my old mil-surp rifles to keep from wearing out barrels. But now I am thinking of buying a mold for it to cast some boolits for both deer hunting and target shooting. Does anybody have some suggestions for a heavy, gas checked bullet that will fit the .307 rifle? The casings are rimmed, .308 size and I use .308 reloading dies and .30-30 case holder and have been shooting .308 flat nosed j-boolits in it.

[TXGunNut]

Any idea what the twist is?

[MT Gianni]

PM Onceabull. He has several of them.

[obssd1958]

PM Onceabull. He has several of them.

That he does...
........................That he does...


:drinks:

[runfiverun]

1-10.
the rcbs 150 or 180 fp g/c will work well.
17-18 grs of 2400 and a lr primer will work just fine..
or 24-25 grs of aa-2230.
or any cast load you want from a 308.

[DonMountain]

I have several RCBS molds I bought when I first started casting 20 years ago, and they have all produced good boolits. But the prices of new molds from RCBS has stopped me from adding any new molds to my collection. And the .30 caliber molds I have are too long of a nose to fit in the .307 lever action 94 Winchester. Do any of the cheap LEE molds work here for a .307?

[northmn]

I have shot a few deer using a Lee 312 185 grain bullet (made for the 303 Brit) sized to 310 out of my 30-30. It has been both very accurate and effective. When I size it I use the flat nose punch. About half lead half WW alloy at about 2000 fps. I heat treat and anneal the noses by putting the bases in a pan of water. Don't need that many hunting bullets and can sight in etc with unannealed bullets. Got once nice deer at 140 steps from my tree and it performed very well. They perform similar to the Nosler partition I think. Never found one in a deer to know.

DP

[244ack]

37 grs of varget with a 165 Ranch Dog bullet gives 2065 fps out of my 307.
30 grs varget 1630fps and 23gr IMR 4198 for 1650fps all bullets are sized .309"

[Larry Gibson]

Assuming a New Haven M94AE it has a 12" twist. I would suggest a Lyman 311041 which works well in many shorter .308W length necks. The .307W has the same length neck as the .308W (same dies can be used as mentioned) and many bullets such as the RCBS 30-180-FN have to be seated so the GC is well below the case neck. With harder alloys that can be ok but with softer ones for hunting it can cause accuracy problems. Thus many cast bullets that work very well for the 30-30 don't fit so well with the shorter neck of the .307W.

As mentioned though a good cast bullet would be the 160 gr RD which should fit the GC and lube grooves in the neck of the .307W while maintaining a correct oal for feeding from the magazine. With the 12" twist you should be able to get 2150 - 2200 fps with a good bullet cast of a softer malleable alloy that will expand and maintain excellent hunting accuracy.

Larry Gibson

[onceabull]

Lyman's 311440,or one of the copies,is my current fav.in the 307's..Bought bullets from Jon @Western Bullets ,out of Missoula to start, finally found some moulds for myself...At the ranges I am comfortable using a receiver sighted carbine,it's a real game stopper,Just as Paco K. told us..... Onceabull