4831 in the Remington 788 30/30

[Scharfschuetze]

I bought a Remington 788 in 30/30 last month. You may recall the post. I've been shooting my normal 30/30 cast loads through it with pretty good results, averaging 2 MOA at ranges out to 200 yards.

After reading here that many members are using very slow powders in their cast boolit rifles, I thought that I'd give it a try. Several years ago, a friend who had a commercial loading business gave me about 10 pounds of 4831 powder. I don't shoot magnum rifles so I've been looking for something to use it in so I thought... Why not?

I loaded the usual Lyman 311041 boolit sized to .311" with ALOX lube and a gas check over 32, 33, and 34 grains of the 4831 and set it all of with Remington 9 1/2 LR primers.

Results on the low end were a little disappointing but at 34 grains it all came together with 10 shot groups at 100 yards measuring between 2 inches and 2 1/2 inches. At 200 yards, I only had 5 rounds left, but they went into 3 1/4 inches, so I was pretty happy with that.

Due to urban sprawl behind the impact area, my club installed cement overhead bullet screens to keep all rounds going into the impact area. Unfortunately they also block out the sun, so no chronograph data today. Given the ballistic coefficient of the 311041 and that it dropped 15" (7 1/2 MOA) getting to 200 yards from the 100 yard zero, indicates that the muzzle velocity of the 34 grain load is right at 1,750 fps.

Even at 34 grains, there were some residual burnt husks of powder kernels in the bore. That often is an indicator of powder not burning at its desired pressure. So the next step is to try 34.5 and 35 grains of the powder, although both of those will be compressed loads.

After that, I'll try heavier boolits such as the bore riding Lyman 311299 weighing in at 208 grains all lubed up. Sadly, the magazine is only long enough to feed factory length 30/30 rounds: about 2.520." Given that, they will have to be single fed.

[35 shooter]

Some would consider imr4350 a slow powder for the 35 whelen, but the closer i got to case fill, the cleaner it burned. Also the heavier boolits seemed to burn it even cleaner.
Looking down the bore after firing 300 gr. boolits, you could hardly tell it had been fired.

I also tried the 4831 with about the same results. The more the case was filled, the better it burned, and accuracy kept getting better.

One thing that surprised me with the whelen and imr4350 was the fact that a 200 gr. boolit and a 300 gr. were only seperated by 12 fps. and the load was 1/2 gr. less with the 300 gr.
Seemed to say the heavier boolit was burning the powder more efficiently.

I'm running imr4350 in the 308 win. too with an xcb boolit with the powder fill just below the case neck and getting 2,447 fps. chronoed and groups under 1" @ 105 yds. with weighed boolits and 1 to 1.5" unweighed.
This is kinda, sorta, like what your doing with your 30/30....short case, slow powder.

4831 has worked well in both rifles, but the imr4350 keeps coming out on top accuracy wise for me....don't know how it would work for the 30/30.

Your 788 looks brand new in the pic., very nice looking rifle.
I'm betting it will continue to respond well to the slower burning powders.
You sure have a nice platform with which to experiment.

So far i've found the slower burning powders coupled with heavy for caliber boolits seem to do very well together. It also can deliver with the lighter boolits too though.

Good luck with your slow powder 30/30 loads.

[LuckyLes]

It may be worth trying magnum primers to get a better burn with the slow powder.
LuckyLes

[tward]

Love those 788's, had one in 222, ugly as a fence post but one hole at 100yds with 19.3 gr 4198 and hornady 55gr SX. Put a Timinay trigger on mine a glass bedded. Tim

[Texas by God]

An early walnut stock 788 30-30 was/ is near the top of my want list. Enjoy yours(cool old Weaver,too)! Best, Thomas.

[Scharfschuetze]

It may be worth trying magnum primers to get a better burn with the slow powder.

A good suggestion. It's on the list of loads to work up after I max out the load at what should be 35 grains. My initial thinking was that the small volume of the 30/30 wouldn't require a magnum primer; but I'll cover all the bases in getting to the final load. I just prepped 150 Federal 30/30 cases so I should have lots of brass to play with.

4831 has worked well in both rifles, but the imr4350 keeps coming out on top accuracy wise for me....don't know how it would work for the 30/30.

I had thought about using my IMR 4350 for the project initially, but I have so much 4831 that I thought that I probably should get busy and burn it up.

An early walnut stock 788 30-30 was/ is near the top of my want list. Enjoy yours(cool old Weaver,too)!

You've got sharp eyes down there in Texas!

[8mm]

I bought my 30-30 788's back when nobody was interested in them. A good decision prompted by want rather than need (I am a pushover for a pleasing piece of walnut and that is why I have 2 of them). Shooting cast bullet loads made it all come together later. My groups generally run about 2"@100yds. I am sure I can get better with more experimentation. I am currently using H335 and AA2230c powder with a 311041 bullet. I do have a good quantity of AA4350 and will have to give it a try. The beauty of the 30-30 and cast bullets is that load development is affordable.

The only downside of my Rem. 788's in 30-30 and a 44 Mag is a rather fragile extractor. I am not sure that replacement parts are even available today. I once had a second 788 in 44 Mag and the extractor broke. The LGS where I bought it had a great gunsmith on staff who had a small stash of those extractors and made the repair with the caveat that the part was in the unobtanium category and I might not be so lucky again. Foolishly I later traded that rifle when overcome with an attack of want vs. need.

[swheeler]

An older IMR Handloaders guide shows IMR 4831 at 36.5 grs compressed and 25.1k cup with 170 Rem CL doing 1795 fps from 20 inch barrel, you got 22 inches.

[leadhead]

I remember buying a brand new 788 in 22-250 probably back in the mid 70's for
$85.00. Those were the days. Best shooting rifle I ever owned. Killed ground hogs
at 450-500 yards when there was no wind. Always wanted one in 30/30.
Denny

[FredBuddy]

I bought a replacement extractor years ago from an outfit in Seattle, I think, that was listed on the Remington website as a provider for out of production guns.

BTW, under the heavily scratched and dinged finish of my 788 30/30 when I bought it, was a very, very nice walnut stock that is now oil finished.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to post pictures here for sometime.

[Kosh75287]

Are you using any crimp on those rounds? Since your rifle has a box magazine and not a tubular one, there's not much reason to. Using a slight roll crimp might give you more complete burning in your 34.0/4831/~170 load & do away with the unburned husks you found. Unfortunately, roll-crimping may either improve accuracy or wreck it. If you are already crimping, perhaps a little more will improve the burn. If accuracy goes south, I wouldn't bother with it.

[Texas by God]

An older IMR Handloaders guide shows IMR 4831 at 36.5 grs compressed and 25.1k cup with 170 Rem CL doing 1795 fps from 20 inch barrel, you got 22 inches.

I have & love that guide. Want to use IMR 4320 in .44 mag? It's in there! Best, Thomas.

[Don Fischer]

In the past I've had a 222 Rem, 223 Rem and now a 308 Win. I took that factory paint off all of them and didn't have any with walnut! Some kind of a light color hardwood but don't know what it is. My 222 and 223 were very early 788's.

[Jack Stanley]

You may be able to help the burn by using a little harder alloy or going to a larger sizing die for the bullet . My 788 won't take bullets bigger than about .3094" or so , this would be dependent on your rifle and brass combination though .

Years ago I got an extractor from Jack First .

Jack

[Scharfschuetze]

Are you using any crimp on those rounds?

Not at this point. I'm hoping to get a round that both functions and shoots well in both this 788 and Savage H Model 99 in 30/30. I shall try the crimp at some point though as I also have a Pre-64 Model 94 that's a good shooter and it would be nice to have one standard load for all three. I just prepped 150 30/30 cases and part of that was trimming them all to minimum 30/30 length (2.03") in order to have a uniform crimp when I test any crimped loads.

You may be able to help the burn by using a little harder alloy or going to a larger sizing die for the bullet

I'm already using Linotype (or close to it) for an alloy. I'm using Winchester cases at this point and the neck thickness of the brass is letting me size to .311" for the 311041 boolits. I'm probably maxed out in this regard.

If the weather permits, I'll try the 35 and 36 4831 loads tomorrow. Once I max out or can't stuff any more 4831 into the case, I'll work up the loads with either the magnum primer or the crimp and see where that goes.

[runfiverun]

keep going towards 36.

[Hick]

Scharfschuetze--This is a great post-- by coincidence I just started trying the same thing for my 30/30. I started out with too light a bullet (150 grains) and had more unburned powder than I wanted. I decided I needed a heavier bullet. Last weekend I worked up to 33 grains with a Lee 309-170 GC (which is actually closer to 0.311) and with a magnum primer and the amount of unburned powder went way down and accuracy seemed to be improving but still not good enough. I've only tried it at 100 yards. I was beginning to wonder if it was a lost cause. Now that I've read your post and the suggestions I think I'll keep pursuing this one.

Thanks!!

[waco]

Mine is in .308
It was very plain looking as well so I went ahead and stained it green.
It is definitely a shooter though.

[gnoahhh]

Brings to mind Frank Marshall's articles re: 4831/Lyman 311284 in the CBA newsletter a generation ago. He was cramming a caseful of the stuff under that 210 grain bullet and swore by it for his Blue Ridge bear/deer rifle- a Savage 340 in .30-30.

I too have been messing with H-4831 in my .30-30's - a Winchester M54 and a couple Savage 1899's. I haven't tried it much with a bullet as heavy as the 311284 though, just a few times at relatively low charges like the OP did, with similar results. Mostly I shoot a 190 grain FN from an old Saeco custom mold, with 3031. Results with 3031 have been so pleasing that I haven't had the impetus to work with 4831 much. (Sub-MOA 5-shot and MOA 10-shot groups at 100&200 yards, but admittedly with a 14x Unertl on the M54.)

[Scharfschuetze]

I made it to the range again today with a new set of test loads. It was cold for the Northwest and was about 30 degrees.

No changes to the load in the original post other than upping the charge to 35 grains of 4831 and one load with the 35 grain charge and a Federal 215 magnum primer in lieu of the Remington 9 1/2.

Load one: 35 grains of 4831 with no other changes. This proved to be a pretty good load, but still has a few husks of burnt kernels in the bore after firing.

Accuracy for load one was:

100 yards: Once again, I proved to myself to fire a few fouling shots from a clean bore before getting serious about shooting a group. At any rate, my first two rounds from a clean bore were at 2 and 12 O'clock. Once the barrel fouled, the last eight shots were into 3/4" center to center. See Photo one below.

200 yards: This proved yet again not to judge a rifle on a three shot group. My first three shots at 200 yards went into 1 1/4" center to center. See photo two below. I couldn't bring myself to shoot another one at that nice little triangle, so I shot my remaining seven shots at the top of the target frame rather thand the bullseye so that the boolits impacted into the bullseye rather than the bottom of the target. The seven shots went into a well rounded group of 4 1/2" or 2 1/4 MOA.

Boolit drop from 100 to 200 yards was about 13" so with the BC (.220) of the 311041 the velocity was just over 1,800 fps. Zero difference from the 34 grain load was +1 MOA and 1/2 MOA right. That was easily adjusted for with the good Weaver K6 scope.

Load two: 35 grains of 4831 with the Federal 215 magnum primer. Other than that, no changes from the loads in post one or load one in today's shooting.

This provided the biggest surprise today. I expected this load to really be "the load" for the 788, but results were very dissapointing. 10 shots at 100 yards barely made it into 4 1/2" center to center (see last photo below or the bottom-right). Report and recoil were noticeably greater than the loads with the 9 1/2 primer, yet there was still debris left in the bore. Go figure. Given its lackluster performance, I did not bother to shoot this load at paper at 200, but shot the remaining loads at a metal gong at 200 yards instead.

It's interesting to note that load two groups at 100 yards like group one does at 200 yards or twice as large a cone of fire for load two.

My next test will just be a continuation of load one, but with 36 grains of 4831. I'm going to have to devise a drop tube though because at 35 grains the powder is already half way up the neck before seating the boolit.

I will also try a series with the boolits crimped in for my tube fed Winchester 94 and for in the field.

Top left: Load one at 100 yards with 10 shots
Top right: Load one at 200 yards (cheating with 3 shots)
Bottom Left: Load one at 200 yards with last 7 shots
Bottom Right: Load two at 100 yards with 10 shots