Gents,

Over in the MarlinTalk, the gospel seems to be that 170's are as heavy as one can go, after that stability becomes a problem (this was used as an argument for 300 savage vs 3030). We ended up shooting some hardcast 201gr .310"'s (for the internal ballistics data) assuming they'd shoot like pigs, only much to our surprise, to find they grouped reasonably well (vvn320, 6,7,8,9,10gr's, 2.560", 50 yrds, 10 shots, respectively, 1.47", 1.77", 1.51", 1.82" and 2.0"). Given the LB knowledge here, is the > 170gr not working a misleading UL? For plinking we still find 311041's our choice, but the 299's didn't do that badly. Your wisdom please.
do shoot straight,
greg

Greg one of the olden days cast bullet shooters wrote about using a near 200 gr cast otta his 30/30 bolt gun which I think [?] was a 12 twist.



FWIW-- the 189 gr prototype of the HBC 30 cal bullet is 1.18" long and shot MOA groups at 100 otta a 12 twist H&R Topper. Loading was 4227, bullet were hard and aged ww alloy sized to 309+ in a bore that measures 3065.



The Wingryo program sez a 1.2" cast with a .24 meplat and a .4 nose length at 200 grs should just make a 12 twist barrel above the speed of sound.



Someone must have shot 311284 in a 12 twist 30/30?? Did it stabilize?

In a 1-14 T/C 30-30 with a 14" barrel. No problems. Mark

aladin,
It's going about 1200 or so FPS. Didn't have any tumble or enter the target funny. Shot low about 12" at 100 yds from my standard loads. They are in the 1900-2000 fps range.

aladin,
I run into stuff that isn't supposed to work according to greenhill and stuff that should but doesn't. I use greenhill as a guide but as my coworkers know my favorite sayings are "why won't that work" and "If it aint broke I can't fix it and if it is broke I'm not going to hurt it by fixing it". So I just have to try things because. Mark

gmushial,
What's the length of that bullet? BCB

I use the 30-200 Saeco in 30-30. Won't chamber in the Win 94, but it does well in the old Stevens bolt action - nose engraves nicely for most of the length of the nose.

Greg,

I have shot the '299 bullet (1.20" long / 208 grs. in wheelweights) and others weighing up to 220 grs. (311284 in wheelweights - 1.24" long) in my .30-30's for the past 20 years or so and I have found they do work very well. For best accuracy I seated the bullets so the gas check was inside the case neck.

On the low end of the velocity scale, about 8 years ago, I experimented with sub sonic loads in the .30-30 giving velocities in the 1080 -1100 f.p.s. range. Surprisingly, even at that low velocity (I used W231 powder.) accuracy was exceptionally very good with 200 yard groups running in the 3" range from 10" twist barrels. Bullet holes were ever so slightly elongated at that distance indicating a slight bit of yaw.

I then tried these sub sonic loads on the 500 meter steel ram .... had to use plenty of elevation .... and they were still accurate enough at that distance to hit the 13" high tall target most of the time if I did my part.

I would bet that if you seated that bullet so that the start of the front driving band was even with the case mouth, putting the gas check inside the case neck instead of below it, accuracy would definitely improve. Obviously they won't feed through the magazine, but if you are looking for the best accuracy, the gas check needs to be inside the case neck.

These days, most of my 200-220 gr. cast bullet shooting is done with capacity or almost capacity loads of slow burning powders giving 2,000 f.p.s. in my 336A or 2,200 f.p.s. in my 788's loaded at higher pressure.

They work very well on "Homer", the 1000 yard steel buffalo!

A .30-30 @ 1,000 yards ...... you bet!!!

w30wcf