314 RF by 45.2

[Newtire]

I know this has been visited before but today I got to shoot some of these things in my .30-30 Ackley Improved. I broke the sear on my other Winchester 94 and my Marlin has the mis-fire blues again so ended up shooting regular 30-30 cases loaded with 7.6 gr. of Unique (what a 1.0cc Lee dipper throws for me).

I only loaded 20 as I wasn't expecting much. I stopped shooting one target after putting 3 in a little cloverleaf and then proceded to do exactly the same thing with the target beside it. The rest, I shot into a group of about 1 1/4" for 10 shots and the remainder went into a log on the hillside.

I lost about 25-30% of the cases when they fireformed as the light load of Unique and the little boolit wasn't enough to blow them out or the cases were too brittle I guess.

I won't waste anymore gaschecks on the soupcan-not that it's not a helluva boolit in it's own right. I am just happy to have found a boolit that shoots so great even without a gascheck.

I have loaded the soupcan on top of the same powder charge and get real good accuracy but probably won't use that thing unless I want to really push it out there with that load of 4198 that Buckshot mentioned.

It was a great day when I walked into that gunstore I frequent and there was that 30-30 Ackley there complete with dies and some cases already formed. I put a Weaver 6X on it just to shoot targets with and it is amazingly accurate for a lever action saddle-gun.

[BustemAgain]

Are you talking about the Wilbird boolit? What are you sizing it at for your 30-30? I was thinking about making a plinker load with this bullet for my 94. Thanks for the info.

[Newtire]

Are you talking about the Wilbird boolit? What are you sizing it at for your 30-30? I was thinking about making a plinker load with this bullet for my 94. Thanks for the info.

Hey BustemAgain,

Sorry, didn't see your post as it didn't come up on my control panel or more likely I had a senior computer moment.

I sized it to .310" after sizing it first to .314. If you try & size it all at once, it gets a little smeared. You could always use a little LLA if you don't mind the mess. Some guys use case lube so as to not smear the lube grooves I believe but never tried it myself.

I was using 7.5 gr. of Unique and that was in a standard .30-30 case fired in a .30-30 Ackley so your results may vary. I tried to get that thing to feed into my Marlin but need to seat it deeper which means shortening up the cases. My Marlin is having the misfire syndrome anyway. My rifle is also a M-94 and I am seating them out to 2.465". They just seat to the end of the lube groove and I Lee Factory crimp them in place.

Tomorrow I am going out to try a load of 8.3 gr. (a Lee #065 dipper) and a load of 9.2 gr. (a cut down Lee 1.3cc dipper).

I have a couple of powder measures but Unique doesn't meter very well in one & didn't want to take the time to do it with the Belding & Mull-the Missus thinks there are other things in life as important or more so than shooting-even though she gives me "time off" most of the time.

So, I mean to also try out the Saeco #322 but maybe not until next weekend.

I am sure you will be happy with that load!

[Newtire]

As a follow up, I will report that the 8.3 gr. & the 9.2 gr Unique loads shot as good as the lighter load at 7.5 gr. Now I'll have to reload those Ackley cases & see how they do. Never could duplicate those 2 little 3 shot clusters even with the same load!!? Still, 1" for a plinker will do for me.