30-30 H4895 xtreme 150gr FP copper plated

[win1894]

Need your advise. I have been trying to load 30-30 for my winchester 94 but not having success. i have a few key questions that I hope you can answer for me.
What I am using xtreme 150grain copper plated
H4895 powder (playing with 21grain)
Light crimp

-can I have a case shorter than recommended? ....such as around 2.013
-can i just seat the bullet more shallow to achiever standard OAL
-cleaning the neck of the brass or can i just use bullet lube
-do i need to anneal the brass neck every time
-suggestions are welcomed

thanks

[Larry Gibson]

Welcome to the forum win1894.

-can I have a case shorter than recommended? ....such as around 2.013

Yes you can but a longer case neck that fits the chamber neck is more advantages to accuracy with cast bullets.

-can i just seat the bullet more shallow to achiever standard OAL

The ""standard oal" is not necessary. Assuming a M94 the max oal is the length that will feed out of the tube mag onto the carrier and lift up w/o the bullet nose catching. If single feeding into the chamber adjust the oal so the front driving band/ojive just kisses the leade. If loading from the magazine seat to the crimp groove (and crimp) and ensure the OAL is not over max.

-cleaning the neck of the brass or can i just use bullet lube

Don't understand this question?

-do i need to anneal the brass neck every time

With cast bullet loads you should not need to anneal the case necks at all. While I do anneal other case necks when necessary I have been loading for the 30-30 since I was 15 (that was a long time ago) and have never had the need to anneal 30-30 cases.

I am not familiar with Extreme Copper Plated bullets but if they are like most other copper plated cast bullets w/o a GC then H4895 is probably not a suitable powder for them, especially a lighter one of 150 gr. Better would be Bullseye, Unique, or perhaps 2400 or 4759. However, if H4895 is all you have drop back to 15 gr and use a 1/2 gr Dacron filler. Work up to 20 gr. Accuracy will probably go south before you get to 20 gr so pick the best load under that.

Larry Gibson

[runfiverun]

Larry's advice on backing the load down is a good one.
I was running copper plated bullets in my 308 as beginner loads when I started little girl seriously on rifles at age 8.
the loads were in the 1800-1900 fps area, this kept the accuracy high and the recoil low as well as didn't harm the bullet.
with loads in this area you can neck size every other loading or sometimes even more and have a longer case life.
as far as annealing goes you'll have to work that out on your own but i'd guess about every 7th loading would work well in this case.

[jh45gun]

Guess it is me I do not see the advantage of a copper coated cast bullet. Part of the charm of shooting cast bullets is NOT having copper build up in the barrel.

[FergusonTO35]

I think the OP might actually be better served with a higher powder charge. 21 grains may not be enough to seal the bore with those surface hard plated slugs. Does the manufacturer have any load data? 28 grains shoots awesome in my Marlins with a gas checked 150 grain Lee boolit.