311041 and Mihec 308 154 grain hunting round with Leverevolution in 30-30

[pps]

Worked up some loads and tested them into rubber mulch. I used Larry Gibson's work with Leverevolution powder in 30-30 as a starting point to work up loads. Everything was done in a 20" Marlin that I got pretty cheap by California standards.

For the 311041 boolit, My starting load was 32.5 grains of LVR powder for 2145 fps, 33.5 grains for approx 2200fps (just shy), and 34.5 grains for 2275fps this was a 102 degree day. I used 2400 for the 1700fps shot and unique for the 1300 ft/sec shot... which showed no expansion. This boolit drops at 184 grains sized lubed and checked.

On this boolit I cast with clip on ww and added enough tin for good fill out. I rigged up a wire mesh utensil holder to hold the sized/gas checked boolits upright and heat treated in convection oven for one hour at 450 degrees then water quenched only to the depth of the top driving band, but I let the tip air cool. At the fastest velocity the bullet acted like a partition with the mushrooming stopping at the shank. (far left on picture below) At 1700fps the next boolit) there is still expansion, though not as violent... the drop chart shows 1700fps to be at about 150 yards. At 1300fps, the boolit exhibits no expansion whatsoever...but that is corresponding to distances beyond 250 yards...on a gun where I won't shoot game beyond 150 yards.



Top view to give an idea of expansion



The Mihec 154 grainers were poured from the same alloy as the 311041 boolits. I just heat treated the whole boolit at 425 deg for an hour and water quenched the whole boolit. I LOVE the big wide meplat on this boolit and would love to see it offered deep enough to load like the 311041 boolit into the 30-30.... but I digress.

I started at 36 grains of lvr with the intention of working up to 40 grains as Larry Gibson did for the 150 grain power points mentioned in his article. I stopped at 39 grains and pulled the boolits from the cases with 40 grains.

At 36 grains I got 2375 ft/sec, 37 grains 2425 ft/sec, 38 grains got to 2475 ft/sec and 39 grains got things cooking at 2545 ft/sec with NO flattened primers. I decided to stop there, as these are values from a 20" barrel.

Here are the results at 2500 ft/sec impact velocity... sorry, I lost the boolit with 1800ft/sec impact but it's giving good expansion at about .4" No leadding. Everything sized to .310"


top view



I have a bunch of the hollow pointed Mihec boolits with 50% Pb added and just air cooled. They are also 154 graines sized/gas checked/lubed too. I'll post results once i load those up. Should be some good pink mist/coyote popping fun with those deep hollow points.

[Lonegun1894]

I'll be looking at this thread. I have both molds, but haven't cast with this Mihec mold yet, so need to fix that.

[OnHoPr]

Interesting, especially for the alloy and speeds along with the HTing. That is a good looking design of a boolit for the .30 cal. IIRC doesn't LG use a 50/50 alloy? Looking at the pics I noticed a couple of things to inquire about. In the first pic I noticed the rifling looks different on the 2nd boolit or is that how the whole shank portion of the boolit eckspanded at that speed compared to the other speeds. Also, in the 1st and last pics was that boolit sized and checked or just a quick ecksample for the original viewing, just looking at the check.

[pps]

Yes LG uses 50:50 ww:Pb. On the 311041 I just used ww but was trying out heat treating only the shank and letting the tip air cool. With respect to the check on the last set of pics...yes it was cockeyed and had to be reseated during lubrication, prior to being loaded.

Any differences in how the rifling engraved are secondary to expansion, as these were all fired from the same rifle. Also, my depth of field was very shallow on these pics as I was not using a tripod and could not get away with stopping down for a longer exposure needed to get better depth of focus. That might account for the middle boolit's engraving looking a bit soft.

[popper]

GCs come off? One on the left lost it's base, as expected, at the LG. I had trouble with the rifling 'petals' breaking off and hurting accuracy, adding a little Cu stopped that. I did recover the bent GC from a 2500 fps round, still had Pb in the check but no boolit. It cut 14 AWG steel wire in half on it's trip.

[pps]

It's funny. The one that lost it's base was the one launched at 2275 ft/sec. All the boolits lost their GC. None of the 2500 ft/sec boolits lost their bases, however.

[pps]

Ok, an update on these boolits. The 311041 at 2250 fps were grouping 3" at 100 yards. The MiHec "308 hunting round" at 2500 fps grouped 4 to 4 1/2" with both the hollow point and the solid. The hollow points were cast with 1:1 ww:Pb and were quite dynamic with the expansion, to say the least.... actually they blew apart in the first 12 inches of mulch and shed about 90% of their weight.

For deer, I think I'll stick with the solid boolits. The super soft hollow points I'll keep for coyotes and varmints. Should be explosive. Hogdon Leverevolution powder and 30-30 cast boolits seem to be a winning combination. No leading whatsoever. Boolit lube was beeswax with enough Vaseline to flow through the lube sizer, and a few tablespoons of Johnson's Paste Wax per pound of beeswax seems to leave the bore nice and shiny.

[OnHoPr]

I wonder if the alloy was 75/25 with about 4% Sn added if it would toughen the alloy to get better accuracy with a larger mushroom on the HP and still leaving weight on the shank?

[pps]

I wonder if the alloy was 75/25 with about 4% Sn added if it would toughen the alloy to get better accuracy with a larger mushroom on the HP and still leaving weight on the shank?

On the hollow points, for better accuracy I might just back down on velocity a couple hundred feet per second, as they are not having any problems opening up and fragmenting. I do want these for coyote and varmints; so I don't need them to hold together for the penetration I'd like on larger critters.