Information needed on this boolit

[martyd]

Hi,
A friend of mine picked up these boolits.

They weigh 170 gr.
The jacket measures .308"

Any idea what these are?

Thanks,
MartyD

[M-Tecs]

It looks like a 1/2 jacket for a much shorter bullet was used on a 30 cal. rifle swage. I believe they also made 3/4 jackets but in am not 100% on that. One of my dads friends swaged a bunch of 1/2 jackets bullets of the older Winchesters he collected. They have long since fallen out of favor but I believe they were big in the 50's and 60's.

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/928635807 Speer .30 Caliber Half-Jackets

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?387111-Speer-semi-jacketed


There is an old time issue with half jacket bullets that you need to be aware of. If you go too light, the jacket can stick in the barrel and the lead portion will still exit the barrel causing you to think the complete bullet cleared the barrel. With the jacket in the barrel, you would have an obstruction for the next round.
They used to put warning labels about this in the boxes of half jacket bullets, saying to use them for normal loads only.

[Winger Ed.]

It's a half jacket. It works like a large, economy size gas check.
Speer used to produce and sell some of them.

They'd probably really shine loaded up in .30-30 or .308. I'd load & shoot 'em.

[Forty Rod Ray]

I have an ancient CH swage.. one of my dies sets looks similar to illustration. For 30 cal rifle… have shot Savage 640 30 WCF, 06. Carbine etc great for loading thumpers…. Still shoot them….

[stubshaft]

Looks like a great bullet for 30/30, 30 Remington to hunt with.

[Land Owner]

Perhaps sacrifice one to the Pencil Test and get a reading on the BHN of the alloy used.

I think I'd go with the "slower" 30-30 and let those lead FN's do what they do best while hunting.

[martyd]

I thank everyone's response, they are all very helpful.

[gwpercle]

In the 1960's and 70's the swaged 1/2 and 3/4 jacketed pistol boolits were popular ...rifle boolit swaggers also used some of these short jackets on rifle boolits ... it gives the longer rifle boolit a 1/4 jacket at best by looking at your photo . This works just as well as a gas check on a cast boolit and saves money on full copper rifle jacket ... being not realy fish or fowl ... the practice has sort of fell by the wayside .
I tried loading a few ... but preferred conventional cast and GC with lubrication grooves filled with lube . The swaged 1/4 jackets had a lot of bare lead left exposed and a roll in alox was about all you could do for lube .
Gary