Has anyone tried "light for caliber" 110-125 Grn bullets in a 30-06?

Hornady has a 100 Grn Short Jacket and several 110 Grns. Speer has some 110-130Grn Varmint bullets. Nosler has a 125Grn BT. Sierra has a 110 Grn Varminter, a 110Grn RN & FMJ and a 125Grn SPT Prohunters. I'm sure there are others.

I just ordered some factory seconds 125Grn Ballistic Tips I'm going to give a try. Want to use them for varmint hunting if I can work up a load that shoots tight enough. Think it would great to be able to "practice" (with your deer rifle) on varmints in the off season.

Just wondering if any of you guys have tried working up loads for any of these light bullets. If so, what kind of accuracy / velocity are you getting.

firstshot

Yes. The 110's (or lighter) can be launched very fast, but they have poor ballistic capabilities, and lose velocities like lightning! The 125's are the very lightest in .308" that arte much good. ALL regular .308" bullets under 150 grains are pretty much built to blow up on light resistance (varmints) and are thus unsuited to shooting anything bigger than a coyote or Central TX whitetail.

I have loaded 110g V-MAX with 51.9 G IMR 3031 in my 30-06 I get 1.5 inch groups @100 yds on a good day with no wind velosity is around 3200 fps in my 22 inch barrel.

Firstshot--years ago I tried 110's in my 30-06. For what purpose I don't have a clue now. I didn't find enough difference in recoil and blast to really matter. I read in one of Jack O'Connors books(possibly The Hunting Rifle)that he had seen a few 30-06's that seemed to print different bullet weights in same spot. I was surprised that I did not have to adjust my scope any between the 110's and the 150's I'd been shooting. A friend pointed out something to me that is somewhat similar to what you are asking. I THINK he used data from Winchester charts--not sure. Anyways the .270 with a 100 grain bullet(a poor weight for that cal)starts out faster at the muzzle than a 100 grainer(good weight for that cal)in the 6MM Rem,but the 6MM catches up in a couple hundred yards and the same comparison with a .243 Win it catches up at 300 or so yards. Heck if wanted to use my regular hunting rifle(30-06) for varmints too,I'd try cast bullets vs lightweight jacketed. Makes for some mighty tame shooting.

I kinda mixed the Remington light recoil round and Seafires Blue Dot loads to come up with some interesting low recoiling performers with light bullets. One of the most consistently accurate bullets was the Remington 125 grain PSP, followed by the Hornady 130 SSP and least but still accurate was the Nosler BT. At $9.91/100 from MidSouth Shooters Supply the Remingtons are economical also. Accuracy loads were 23-25 gr. Blue Dot FC brass (Winchester brass was NOWHERE as ACCURATE, did not try any Remington brass), WLR primer, 125 Remington PSP, 130 Hornady SSP, 125 Nosler BT. Velocity should be in the 2400-2600 fps range. Seafire and I shot these with 150 grain bullets and did not run into pressure issues so with a bullet that is 25 grains lighter you should not have trouble BUT WORK UP. All three bullets seemed to behave about the same in the expansion tests also. They shot well out of the two 06s I tried and will try in two more when I get them put back together.

55gr N140 with the 125gr NBT goes under moa in my ruger M77MKII

Although I can't recommend them for varmits I load the 110 fmj carbine bullets in 06 and .308 and get respectable repeatability on paper up to 100 yards. When pushing them with Blue Dot, 4759, 2400, 4227 you can accurately down load and unpunishingly shot all day long with a somewhat cool or just warm barrel.

Paper punching or jug shooting ain't all bad. You don't have to kill something with every shot to justify the joy you get from shoting. roger

Many years back, I tried some sabot bullets in my '06. these tiny things (as I recall, something like 55 gr.) came screeching out the muzzle in the very high 3s. A hit on a chuck resulted in a head, a tail, and a red mist! Only trouble; the chuck needed to be about the size of a whitetail to hit him. They were the most inaccurate things I ever shot with!

I have made up squirrel loads in my 30-06 using 110 gr Hornadays or Sierra HP and FN and 4227. Very accurate out to 100 yards and same poi as my deer loads. You may want to take care not to aim near the hams though. One inch holes are not uncommon. These are not hi velocity rounds, about 2500 if I remember correctly. I have not checked them out much past 100 yards. I got the idea from reading old Townsend Whelen writings. He always carried big game loads and what he called Down Loads for small game for camp meat. Very reasonable and practical thing to do. He spent a lot of time in wild country at the turn of the last century in Canada and South America. You might be hunting big game but need a rabbit or grouse for the pot as it was a ways to the nearest Piggly-Wiggly. At the time the 30-06 was really hot stuff. he used it for everything from the Grizz on down. Now we think of the '06 as a mild to medium round. Interesting how our opinions change over time. I suspect the grizz of a hundred years ago are not much tougher than they are today. I myself will use a 375 or 416 when/if I hunt grizz.

I have had decent success with 125 Gr Nos Bal Tips and 59.5 grains of W760 out of '06 22" REM 700. Better than MOA with 5 shot groups.

I got very good accuracy at 100 yards with the Sierra 110 gr Varminter Hollow Point and IMR-4064. I realize that particular bullet does not have a great ballistic coefficient, but for short range varminting, it is very accurate and explosive. The Nosler 125 gr Ballistic Tip should hold its' velocity better at long range and should also be very accurate with the right powder for your rifle.

For the 125 grain bullets, I tried Nosler's manual Number 4 and they suggested using RL 7 for their 125 grain Ballistic tip.
I tested each powder listed and their information was right on about RL 7 with that bullet.

It also did the same results with Sierra's 125 grain bullet.

Good luck with it
cheers and happy new year
seafire