Success!

[kawasakifreak77]

I'd bought a bunch of off the shelf cast boolets, 165gr .309" made for the 30-30. Mostly to make a cheap plinking load for my Blackout while I not so patently waited on my can. I tinkered with about everything a guy can tinker with regarding the load & pretty much had slightly better than horrible results as you might imagine.

Now my can is in & it's a sealed unit so no lead goes through it anyhow. There's over 400 bullets sitting on the shelf I was about to melt down but I figured I'd try 'em in something else..

Looking around a bit I had a handful of 30-30 cases already primed up & this jug of red dot not doing anything. A quick internt search revealed about 8 grains would be a good starting point so away I went! I set OAL about 2.550" & that's about as long as they will feed through an old Winchester 94.

Now this wasn't no long range bench accuracy test by no means. I ripped a couple off at a couple maurading crab apples & inspected the barrel for sheets of lead I had gotten with my previous experiments. Couldn't see any lead!

We set some more crab apples out around 30 paces & aiming just a hair low was spliting them right in two with the full power sight setting!

Recoil was almost nil as could be imagined & I didn't hear a tell-tale crack so I think they're subsonic.

This might not be a big deal to you boolit experts out there but to me this was a huge step!

I'm gonna load me up some more at 9 or maybe 10 grains & sit down to see how they shoot paper.

[Nobade]

10 grains of Red Dot in a 30-30 is a very high pressure load on the order of 40K psi. Do you have any slower powder?

-Nobade

[Wayne Smith]

Yeah, get some 3031 and really enjoy yourself!

[Larry Gibson]

If those are PB'd commercial cast then I suggest 5.5 - 6.5 gr Bullseye in the 30-30 for an excellent plinking load. If the bullets have a hard wax lube the a light coat of LLA as per the Lee instructions will prevent leading just ahead of the throat.

Larry Gibson

[kawasakifreak77]

Whoa! Thanks for the warning about upping the charge. I'll be very careful, just wanted to get a little bit more oomph out of these. They are plainbase so I know I can't push them too fast.

I have slower powders but they are reserved for other calibers mostly or are unopened. This was a case of, 'what do I have laying around?'

[TXGunNut]

Got any 2400 "laying around"?

[kawasakifreak77]

Nope. Basically all the hercules powders aside from 2400.

My bullseye is reserved for 38 special & GI duplicate 45acp

Red dot is the use it to see what happens powder.

Got a can of green dot but it's still sealed.

Got a can of Herco, seems to be almost no data for this.

Unique is reserved for 300 blackout subs & midlevel 357 mag cast.

Blue dot not sure what to do with. Seems to be rather undocumented with cast rifle.

[Nobade]

Blue Dot works darn good in the 30-30 with cast - I use no more than 13 grains of it in my rifles with superb results.

Treat Herco like Unique, but it loads one grain or so heavier.

-Nobade