Best all around powder for 06 ?

[PDshooter]

I know this topic most likely been around afew times:oops:, but which powder would you use with cast bullets in a Springfield 06 ?..........Thanks

[Freightman]

What rifle? I used IMR 4895 in my M1 Garand up to 2300 FPS with no leading, SR4759 is very good in most cast loads, Unique is hard to beat as a plinker, If hunting I would do the 4895 if playing the SR4759 at around 1650 to 1750 fps.

[Char-Gar]

Your question can only be answered...it depends. It depends on what bullet weight you want to use. It depends also on the alloy and how fast you want it to fly. There really is no reliable answer to your question as asked.

What you asked is ...what kind of powder do you use in the 30-06 and it doesn't matter the bullet weight, alloy and velocity. If that is not your intended question than I don't feel the answers will be particularily helpful.

I am not trying to be a smart a%%, just trying to help the poster get and answer that will be useful to him.

[PDshooter]

I'm using W/W with just abit of tin added....
Mold...Lyman 31141GC they drop out about 180Gr. I do say I like the feel, of alittle bit of recoil:roll:

[atr]

for hunting loads,,,,4895 / 180 gr or 210 gr boolits
for plinking loads....Unique or 2400 with the same boolits

[two dogs]

if you cant get a 06 to shoot with 4895 it is junk.i have six ought sixes an they all love it.

[docone31]

Yeppir, 4064, 4895. Stellar powders.

[Kskybroom]

Cast or J Word 4895 Works for me. Still working on 4064 for auto.

[MtGun44]

For full power Jbullet loads, 4350 is most accurate at high velocities for me. The WW2
mil powder was IMR4895, so it is good, too. 4064 is an excellent accuracy powder in
.308 and .30-06, but won't get max velocity if that is what you want.

Bill

[jonk]

For some reason everyone remembers 4895 but no one remembers WC852, a slowish ball powder. yet COtW lists it as one of the original powders for the 30-06. This confuses me as it is slow for the M1 Garand but maybe it was a pre-M1 powder, for the original 06 load or sometime in between?

I mention it as the last batch of surplus I got was VERY slow burning. A case just about full got the bullet up to 2300 fps. And about 50 grains got me about 1900-2000 fps. That plus a little pufflon or PSB does great in my 1917 with a good hard alloy and a 180 gr cast bullet.

Not that I'd say that's best. If forced to choose one, I'd go with 4895 as well as it is fine for reduced loads with cast or full tilt for jacketed.

[Ricochet]

By specifications the WC852 gives identical velocity with identical charge weight to IMR 4895 in Cal. .30 M2 Ball. The confusion comes from surplus batches of WC852 being sold that didn't turn out to specifications. One batch that was widely sold was very slow burning and couldn't be loaded to meet ballistic specifications in M2 Ball ammo. Olin had a lot of trouble in the early days getting Ball powders to come out to planned specifications. When they got done with a batch, what they got was what they had. Blending fast and slow lots might get it closer, and the arsenals could adjust loads, but sometimes it was just too far off to salvage for the intended application. Then we got to buy it for a bargain. If you buy pulldown powder from demilled .30-06 ammo, you're getting stuff that was on spec when the ammo was loaded. H380 was originally surplus WC852 that Bruce Hodgdon bought by boxcar lots.

[Rocky Raab]

Bingo. Good summary, Ricochet.

Remember that the .-06 was a bolt-gun round for 40 years before the M-1 Garand came around. The original powders -fine for a bolt gun- proved to be damaging to the Garand's gas system. A slightly faster powder was needed so that the pressure curve was lower and more predictable when the bullet passed the gas port. Powders in the 4895/4064 bracket were the answer.

Those parameters are still valid today. We simply must load differently for a gas-auto versus a fixed-breech gun. In ANY chambering.

[1874Sharps]

Gentlemen,

May I ask your opinions about Wichester 760 ball powder in the M1 Garand? I loaded up some last week or so with paper patched 168 grain gas checked cast boolits and the accuracy was great with 54.0 grains of 760. Do you think this powder is too slow or that in the long term the op rod may be damaged?

[RU shooter]

All I do is shoot 200 yd.position shooting matches with my 06 and have found many powders to give acceptable (2 moa or better) accuracy .Everything from Red Dot on the fast side to pulled 54R powder(wannabe 4895) has worked well .My most used powder though is Unique with 150-185 gr boolits I only try for vel. in the 1600-1800 range though as that all I need for that distance.IMO the 06 is far from picky on powder choices.

[Three44s]

You gotta love a cartridge ('06) that's this versatile, this perennial ..........

........ and does so much good work with so many very available powders!

VIVA the .30-06!!!

Three 44s

[TAWILDCATT]

I have 760 and asked about it in garand was told it is to slow.ok.now I get 2520 and asked and told not to us it in garand,but I read its the go to powder for matches.and these are the powder company tecs.I told them I wanted to use it with lead 160 to 180 gr.they say dont use it in light loads.I made up some with 31 grs and they came out of guns fine.I have a garand in06.also a garand 18' in 308 both worked.I was told to use 5744.naturally I dont have it.:coffee:
any one load for garand to just operate it.

[mroliver77]

Wildcat,
I picked up a few 8#ers of 2520 for $50 per 8# a couple years back. I have been loading it in Garand and M1A with cast with it working just fine. I did have some kinda hang fires when working up loads. I snuck up to a load that functioned the action well and then looked for accuracy. I dont have notes here but was pushing the limit for cast boolits when I found the "right" charge. I ended up using heat treated WW boolit and a tuft of dacron to make 150 -170gr work. The 210gr worked better for me.311284
Jay

[PDshooter]

I picked up a few 8#ers of 2520 for $50 per 8# a couple years back.......:shock:


Where do you find deals like that!.......?

[Ricochet]

...pulled 54R powder(wannabe 4895)...
Might be real 4895. We sent shiploads of it to the Soviet Union during WWII, and probably sent a bunch of it to Yugoslavia when we sent them all sorts of other military supplies in the late '40s-early '50s.

[madsenshooter]

Gentlemen,

May I ask your opinions about Wichester 760 ball powder in the M1 Garand? I loaded up some last week or so with paper patched 168 grain gas checked cast boolits and the accuracy was great with 54.0 grains of 760. Do you think this powder is too slow or that in the long term the op rod may be damaged?

I shot quite a bit of 760 and its twin H414 in my Garand at about the same loading density with no apparent ill effects. I got a gas plug with changeable jets, but that wasn't until after I shot a couple thousand rounds with the 2 powders. Someone else above was asking about 2520, I see no problem at all with it, as its burn rate is between 4895 and 4064.

Here is a better explanation of gas port pressure vs burning rate than I could write, credit goes to a well known online guy that goes by the name of Parashooter:

One of the problems with the internet is that erroneous or incomplete information sometimes gets circulated and accepted to the point that it overwhelms the truth.

In the case of M1 rifle port pressure, the erroneous information is that port pressure is primarily related to powder burning rate and bullet weight. The truth is that these are merely secondary factors. M1 port pressure is most closely related to gas volume, which is directly related to powder charge weight. Burning rate and bullet weight of course have a direct influence on PEAK pressure, but this occurs long before the bullet gets to the gas port.

With light bullets, we normally use faster powders for best performance since the relative ease with which the bullet starts to move means we can use a fairly large charge of fast powder without excessive peak pressure. With heavy bullets that take longer to accelerate, charge tables tell us the slower powders will give the highest velocity with the lowest peak pressure.

The M1 rifle's gas system was designed for the port pressures generated by the volume of gas produced by a charge of about 44 to 50 grains of powder behind a 173-grain bullet at 2640 fps (M1 Ball). It also happened to work just fine with about the same charge using 150-grain bullets at about 2800 fps (M2 Ball). The burning rate that gives these velocities to these bullets is about that we find in IMR 4895 and 4064. If we use a slower powder, say 4350, we find the appropriate charge for these velocities is heavier - about 55 grains for the 173 and 58 for the 150. Such heavier charges naturally generate a larger volume of gas, but at a slower rate that keeps peak pressure in normal limits. Given that the volume of the cartridge case and bore (up to the gas port) is a fixed quantity, the larger volume of gas necessarily translates to higher pressure at the gas port.

Conversely, if we stick with 4895 but change to a 110-grain bullet, we can stuff in some 54 grains of powder at normal pressure, for a much higher velocity. Again, the heavier charge generates more volume of gas and gives high port pressure. With 200-grain bullets, on the other hand, we can get good performance with 45-50 grain charges of slightly slower powders like 4320 or 4350, giving the same gas volume and consequently appropriate port pressure.

A lot of people who haven't well understood the role of gas volume have focused on burning rate or bullet weight instead - and that's what gets them into logical difficulty. It's very true that an optimum load of the slow powders with 150-180 grain bullets will give excessive M1 port pressure, and also true that the usual best bolt-gun loads of the really slow numbers (like 4831) with 200+ grain bullets will also give excess port pressure. What's missing in the logic is that it's neither the powder burning rate nor the bullet weight that's the problem's root cause - but rather the charge weight (mass, to be more accurate) and consequent gas volume.

It's unfortunate this mistaken (or just incomplete) logic has been so widely publicized, since knowing the whole story really makes powder selection much easier. Regardless of bullet weight, powder charges below 50 grains will generally give appropriate M1 port pressure (or less). Between 50 and 52 grains is marginal. Over 52 grains risks damage to the operating rod. Of course powders must be chosen that will also yield acceptable peak pressure and velocity. (50 grains of 4227 will still make a mess - thanks to excessive peak pressure - but the port pressure would be near normal.)

There are certainly exceptions to this basic rule. Different powder compositions give off different volumes of gas for a given charge weight. But if we stick to the commonly-available rifle powders now on the market, there is surprisingly little variation in the mass/gas relationship and we're not likely to get in trouble with excess port pressure if we choose a published load using less than 50 grains of a powder that gives acceptable performance with our chosen bullet weight.

I urge anyone finding this concept difficult to stick to their existing guidelines. After all, there's little to be lost by limiting one's bullet and powder choices to the accepted standards - 150-180 grain bullets and powders close to 4895's burning rate.

[felix]

Now, this guy, Parashooter, is dear to my brain. He is a true analyst and has configured the concept correctly for everyday use. ... felix