.30 cal wad cutters

[facetious]

Some time a go after reading a story on wad cutters in .32 s/w I saw on another forum some one looking for .30 cal wad cutters. My first thought was size down some .32 wad cutters in a push through die.

My next thought was what would thy do in my .308? I have shot wad cutters in .38's and in .357 with 2400. In a.38 thy do what you would expect but in a .357 seated out and loaded over a full load of 2400 thy will smack the snot out of a water bottle.

Now a SWC would feed better but I can't stop thinking that a .30 cal wad cutter would be a little thumper. Lyman has data for that weight from about 1200 fps and up. Now I have some thing else to watch for, some .32's to try sizing down to .310.

Have any of you ever tried doing this? I do not know what I would use them for if thy even worked. But may be good for pests out to 50 yd's. You my not want to eat them if thy react any thing like those water bottles.

[Forrest r]

Any 32cal wadcutter mold will work (.311). Ben, the maker of "Ben's Red" has a beautiful load for his contender, a 30-30 using a wc. Hopefully he will chime in, he extremely knowledgeable with 30cal's/cast boolits.

I don't use a push thru die to make 32cal (.312) hbwc's, made a simple swaging die to use in an arbor press. The original bullet is a lee 311-93-1r & I swage them into a bevel based hollow based wad cutter. The bevel base is stronger than a standard square shouldered hb.

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forrest r

[sthwestvictoria]

A good many people here use the Lee TL-314-90-SWC, designed for the 32 pistol in the .30 rifle calibres - .308, 30-30, 30-06. That is it in my avatar photograph in the 30-30 case. Sized .311 it feeds well in a marlin 336 or 1894 action.

[Larry Gibson]

I've shot lots of Hornady 90 gr and Speer 98 gr swaged .32 HBWC's in several .30/31 cals with excellent success. They come at .314 so I used a .311 Lee sizer for the .30s and shot as is in the.31s. I pushed them through base 1st to not damage the thin skirts of the HB. No relubing was necessary. It is necessary to keep the velocity/psi low to not blow the skirts on muzzle exit and destroy accuracy. I used 2.5 - 2.7 gr of Bullseye in case with capacity of the .30-30 up through the '06.

I shot lots for position practice out of my .308W and '06 match rifles on a 50' indoor range. I also used them for hunting and they are indeed great "thumpers". Noise level is very low and felt recoil is non-existent. As mentioned feeding was the problem. They will single feed well enough but from the magazine they were not reliable. Mausers and other CF actions would feed with one round in the mag on the right side. With one in the chamber also I at least has a "two" shooter. Push feeds were a problem feeding even one round from the magazine. That's why I went to the Hornady 90 gr SWC and then to the Lee TL314-90-SWC as rounds loaded with it will feed.

Photo shows 10 shots of the Speer 98 gr HB WC out of my Mini MK X 7.62x39 at 50 yards on a very calm day. That was an exceptional group BTW. Actual accuracy with that load/rifle runs right at 2" at 50 yards. Major problem of shooting at 50 yards or less range with many scopes, especially those of higher end magnifications, is parallax and focus.

Larry Gibson

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[zuke]

I've been playing with 32 HB WC out of my 308, 7.5Swiss and a couple 303's.
The 303 need the HB down to help catch the rifling the other's don't seem to mind if the HB is up or down.
I've been using 5gr of 700X out of them all.

[Ben]

Forrest r ,

Thanks for those kind words. This is the article that you are making reference to , I believe ?


http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?222485-A-very-versatile-pistol

There isn't a lot of difference ( although there is some ) in the internal case capacity of a 30/30 Win. vs. the 308 Win. My B'Eye load with the 84 gr. .310 dia. wadcutter would mostly likely be a good starting spot in the .308 Win. also. Might have to move up 1/2 gr. to get similar results that I experienced.


Good Shooting,
Ben

[jimwill48]

I use the HBWC from berrys and 3 gr Bullseye in 30/30 and 30/06..nice light load...