round ball 30-30 loads diameter?

[randyrat]

What size of buck shot will work for a round ball plinkin load in 30-30..I've seen everything from .300 to .330.....will a .311 work. Anybody ever size a round ball (at most 2-3 thousand) and make it oblong like a football,my guess it would shoot alright at short distances and you may have a little more PB engraving the rifling. Its snowing its snowing the old man is snoring and i've got cabin fever,i gotta get outside and shoot!

[Thumbcocker]

I have good luck with size 0 buck. Just deprime the case without sizing flare the mouth a little and seat the shot 1/2 way in. Use enough crimp to iron out the flair and your good to go. 10# of shot goes a long way. I roll it in liquid alox and store in a plastic container. These cycle through my marlin and are accurate with three grains of red dot. Make a bunch because they go quickly especially if you have kids or ladies along shooting.

[RU shooter]

Why not just use a regular boolit w/o GC and use 2-3 grs of Red dot,I was shooting my 03A3 yesterday in the back yard and its like sound of a cap gun none of neighbors seem to mind! and alot more accurate than a RB I was getting vg accuracy out to 50 yds

[randyrat]

Thats too easy, i have to have a reason to have a buckshot mold besides just for my scatter gun.

[RBak]

I have good luck with size 0 buck. Just deprime the case without sizing flare the mouth a little and seat the shot 1/2 way in. Use enough crimp to iron out the flair and your good to go. 10# of shot goes a long way. I roll it in liquid alox and store in a plastic container. These cycle through my marlin and are accurate with three grains of red dot. Make a bunch because they go quickly especially if you have kids or ladies along shooting.

How do you think this load might work on wabbits out to 50 / 60 yds in my wifes old 24V with a 30-30 over a 20ga.?
She has been having "one-heck-of-a-time" gettin cottontails with her 30-30. It seems I am loading a little to much horse power, unless she gets real lucky and hits one directly in the head. :roll:

What you're talking about sounds like the cats meow.....

[hiram]

I have a .323 rb mold for my 32 win spl. I took a few balls and ran them into the sizer I use for my 30 calo boolits. It flattened the sides and they shot--but I don't remember how well. At those pressures, there was no danger.

[35remington]

Russ, sixty yards with a roundball in a .30-30 is about twice as far as it's advisable to shoot IME. Roundball accuracy falls apart before sixty yards is reached. No longer minute of rabbit.

[RBak]

Russ, sixty yards with a roundball in a .30-30 is about twice as far as it's advisable to shoot IME. Roundball accuracy falls apart before sixty yards is reached. No longer minute of rabbit.

Now why did you go and say that!

I done went and told her I thought I had just the load for her gun.
Looks like I might have to re-think all this.

Now, thinking back, after the fact, 60 yds is probably to much...maybe 30 or even 40 yds, at the outside, would be a bit more realstic. I don't know if she can even see a rabbit at 60 yds.....Jeesh! What the heck was I thinking!...:(

Anyway, I suspect she is just going to have to get a little closer before yanking on that trigger, cause I sure as heck have my mind made up to try this...at least a time or two.

What kind of range is everybody else shootin these things, with minute of rabbit accuracy?

Russ..

[Thumbcocker]

I have good accuracy out to 30 yards with buckshot and 3grn of red dot. For 50-60 yards you can either use a heavy gas checked boolit without the gas check and red dot (311291 or 311041) and more red dot 7 grns works in .30-40 and .30-06 but I would start at 3 and work up to 5 or 6 in 30-30.

The other option is the Lee 120 grn rn with 6 grns of red dot. This shoots very well out of the Marlin with or wothout a gas check at 50 yards. I think that the soup can would probably do as well but I have not tried it.

There was an article in one of th cast bullet annuals called Specialty Loads in the .30-30 irrc that listed a lot of loads with 700x and other pistol powders.

Hope you git them wabbits.

[kycrawler]

323 buck run through a lee .309 sizer makes a neat little flat based acorn boolit , squirrel killer for sure , not enough rabbits around to hunt

[TCLouis]

you should have a soup-can or one of the recent 30-120RN molds.

I cast soup-cans back in the 80s from the original Lee DC mold and a friend said they gave him the best accuracy he had ever seen with his 30-30 (15.5 gr. 2400 IIRC). WAY too much for bunnies that close in though.

Don't know about 30-30, but in my Rolling Block .458" RBs form one hole at 25 yards with a touch of Red Dot. Two RBs in the same case are about 1" apart at 25 yds.

[Larry Gibson]

Russ is right, 50-60 yards is about twice the effective range of RBs. I have sized buck to get the football shape - didn't help accuracy at all. If you want a buckshot mould for .30s get the .311 mould. If you want a very effective bullet in lieu of buckshot get the Hornady .32 swaged lead bullets or the Lee 3TL314-90-SWC and cast your own. Over 2.7 gr Bullseye in the 20-30 they run a little over 800 fps, shoot exremely accurately to 100 + yards and do not lead the barrel. They also feed from the magazine of a repeater. The Hornady and Speer 90 gr swaged lead WCs are also very accurate over the 2.7 gr Bullseye load but are a single load proposition. Very deadly on breir rabbit.

Larry Gibson

[beagle]

I use a .319 RB and size to .311. I modified a center punch for the sizer die and use a RN TP #430 as I recall). Gives you a RN, flat based bullet but that's defeating the purpose of a RB.

Dipped in liquid alox, they shoot all right to about 30 yards./beagle