Deke,

I have been having a little problem with a broken collarbone so not looking in here as often as I probably should.

In a recent post you mentioned not having sticky extraction. You should not experience sticky extraction with any reasonable .30-30AI load in your lever action rifle. If you do experience sticky extraction you are way beyond where you should be. In our load tests we exceed our personal stop points intentionally to see if there was an apparent margin of safety. With some powders, notably Hodgdon BLc2 and Winchester 748, pressure indications appear to rise quickly when we exceeded our stop points while velocity increases dropped significantly for each powder charge increase. We did not experience sticky extraction with 150-grain bullets even when we were obviously well beyond a maximum safe load in our rifles.
With any of these straight wall cases such as the .375 Winchester or .444 Marlin you will sometimes experience a slight "stick" just as you work the lever. The case is gripping the chamber walls and it "snaps" free as the lever begins to move. I have experienced this with published loads from several sources. I do not consider this to be sticky extraction. I consider sticky extraction to be when the lever is difficult to move. Those on this board who have reloaded for older Savage Model 99's may be able to describe this effect in a clearer manner.

We have not found Hodgdon Varget or Alliant Reloader 15 to reach our top velocity goals with 20" barrels and 150-grain bullets. Both come up just a few fps short of our velocity goals. Not enough short to be concerned about, we are talking about approximately 25 fps or so.
With 170-grain bullets there is no doubt about the superiority of Hodgdon's Varget and Alliant's Reloader 15. These two powders are clearly the top velocity producers with 170-grain bullets in the 20" barrel and within our personal stop points.

I may have said this before but our velocity goals with the 20" barrels were 3,000 fps with 110-grain bullets, 2,700 fps with 125/130-grain bullets, 2500 fps with 150-grain bullets and 2300 fps with the 170-grain bullets. Our goal was to have ammunition that was interchangeable between our rifles and that gave us the appearance of reasonable pressure indications on our 90+ degree West Texas days. We believe we have achieved our goals.
Along the way we did come to the conclusion that the Modern Winchester M-94AE appears to handle just a bit more pressure than the Modern Marlin 336, using our admittedly archaic means of judging relative pressure. This conclusion is from ABOVE our personal stop points so it has no real relevance in the discussion.
We have also discovered that Hodgdon Varget and Alliant Reloader 15 APPEAR to give the capability of safely producing 2,400 fps with the 170-grain bullets from our 20" barrels. I am not recommending this because we have not studied it enough yet. I will say that we are very happy with 2,300 fps with the 170-grain bullet in our 20" rifles, as this is a Significant Improvement over our chronograph results from the same rifles prior to conversion to the Ackley Improved chamber.

AC has given you some good data for Hodgdon 4895 that compares to what we have seen. AC predicts 39.8 grains of Hodgdon 4895 giving a muzzle velocity of 2,503 fps at 67,000 PSI with a PRE of .0020".

A similar test in our 20" rifles using 39.0 grains of Hodgdon 4895 with a Speer flat base spitzer gave us 2,483 fps with an E of 46 and a Sd of 27 fps in the Winchester M-94AE.

In the Marlin 336 39.0 grains of Hodgdon 4895 pushed a Remington bulk 150-grain JRN bullets 2,520 fps with an E of 18 and a SD of 9 fps.

Both of these loads gave a PRE of less than .0020" - but just under it. The cases used for the measurements were R-P and had been fire formed once with a full power load and then full length resized prior to firing the 39.0-grain loads.
So, we can assume that our personal stop points are generating a pressure above 65,000PSI. It would seem a reasonable assumption. There are others who are loading the .30-30 Improved a little hotter than we are. We have attempted to duplicate some loading data we have seen on other discussion boards and we ended up pulling a few bullets. We each must establish our own personal stops points. This is certainly an interesting and lively discussion.

Clark,

Thanks for the clarification.

Slim,

Sorry to hear about the cbone. Hope you heal and hair over soon. Was thinking that the RL15 and Varget might work better in my longer barrel (24") vs your 20" and that the XFN bullet will jump start the slower powders a little sooner since they don't compress like a jacketted bullet. What do you think? Regardless, I will undoubtedly try H4895 as well.

Deke.

Deke, you may well be on the right track.
I have been shooting the 150 grain Branes X mostly in the .307. It shoots very well in the Winchester rifle. The Nosler Partition is not quite as accurate in my rifle but shoots as well as most other 170-grain bullets.
You and John Anderson are the only two people I have heard from that have 24" barreled .30-30AI's so it will be fun to compare direct data. When I work up the courage to "Improve" my 16" Trapper then between us we will have a good store of data.

http://www.handgunhunt.com/article_index.html

check out article #46 on the 30-30AI in the 14" contender. i'd like to know your thoughts on the data etc. there.(lot's of other good handgun articles too, by the way).

i shoot a 14" 30-30AI contender and love it. i've followed this thread some, although some of it is over my head, considering my experience in taking case measurements etc.

Kyode
That is a very interesting article. The loads look reasonable to me. The idea of a 14" twist is intriguing, as it would reduce pressure. Combined with the boat tail bullets there may be a real advantage.
His fireform loads were great. 2,450fps from a 14" barrel with 1" or better accuracy is good stuff.
I agree with him that IMR or Hodgdon 4198 is about ideal for the 125/130-grain bullets. I wish I could shoot 3/4" groups with a handgun! They say all it takes is practice!
His load of the 125 grain Nosler BT with 34.0 grains of 4198 equals our practical maximum.
In our Winchester M-94AE 34.0 grains of IMR 4198 pushed the Speer JFN bullet 2,711 fps with an E of 25 and a SD of 10fps.
35.0 grains of IMR 4198 is absolute maximum in our Winchester M-94AE and gave 2,785 fps with an E of 36 and a Sd of 17fps.
We went a little higher looking at the brass but little was gained. Extraction was not a problem at 36.0 grains and 2,833 fps. This was well over prudent maximum.
His use of the Nosler Ballistic Tip and its boat tail helped to reduce pressure indications.

I said before that I do not care for IMR 3031 in the .30-30AI but we have shot quite a bit of it with various bullet weights. He used 36.0 grains in his Contender with the 150 grain Nosler BT for 2,437fps.
In the Winchester M-94AE the bulk Remington JRN bullet ahead of 36.0 grains of IMR 3031 gave us 2,366 fps with an E of 40 and a Sd of 15fps. The same load in the Marlin 336 gave us 2,364 fps with an E of 55 and a SD of 24fps. This was a practical maximum in both rifles for a flat base bullet. Remember that one of our goals was interchangeable ammunition.
We have shot several boxes of the Hornady 155-grain A-Max bullets. These are accurate and the boat tail design of course gives lower pressure indications than the same load with flat base bullets.

I have not compared all of our data to look for additional direct comparisons but overall this looks like a well researched article with what appears to be some reasonable, well tried load data. You can bet that some of it is exceeding 65,000psi.

thanks slim.....interesting stuff indeed.
actually all that data is compiled from at least 4 or more different 14-15" barrels.
my barrel is actually a factory TC 14" contender barrel, which comes with 1 in 10" twist. my current deer hunting load is 33.0gr of imr4198 with a 130gr hornady ssp(single shot pistol bullet), and averaged 2588fps. i took 2 does last season with that load and both were one shot kills at 50, and 75 yards. accuracy is just great!
i have shot a bunch of imr4350, at 37.5gr, with sierra 125gr sp as a FORMING load. without looking it up, velocity was in the 1800-1900fps range. this is a inefficient load in the short handgun barrel, but i had a lot of imr4350 on hand, and after seeing it's super accuracy, i just couldn't quit!
midway usa has these 14" contender barrels now for $199(last i looked). i love mine! i think it'll see considerable woods time this season also.
in the single shot break open action, it's great to be able to load the spitzer/boattail bullets.
at the present time i have several rounds of FORM loads to shoot with blue dot powder. 125, 150, and 165gr. i'm anxious to see how they do. these would likely not see any hunting use, but may make great "handgun practice" and add more formed cases to the pile. seafire(here in these forums) really has given blue dot a good workout in several calibers. i love shootin blue dot in my 14" .223
slim.....i'd say you'd amaze yourself in how good YOU could shoot one of these handguns with a bit of practice. i'm a complete handgun maniac, and own several contender/encore 14 and 15" barrel pistols. i'm continualy amazed at equaling or bettering any group i ever shot with a rifle.
thanks again!

Kyode
The fact that the data was compiled from several different guns makes it more useful as I see it. It's one thing to work up a maximum load for an individual gun and an entirely different thing to develop interchangeable ammunition.
We had the same experience with IMR 4350 in the .356 Winchester. A case full is very inefficient but very accurate. Some of the most accurate .356 loads we have shot were with the 200-grain RCBS GC bullet and a case full of IMR 4350.
I think I remember seeing the barrels on the midway sight. I guess I could have David Whiter add his non-removable muzzle break so I could use it legally as a carbine. The ability to shoot spitzer boat tail bullets changes the .30-30AI into a completely different cartridge from the one I am using in the lever actions.
Have you looked at any of Greg Mushials low velocity load data? I have duplicated quite a bit of his .30-30AI data in our rifles and have had surprisingly close results to his.
We have two Contenders that we shoot mostly as carbines. I do have several pistol barrels. I have a 6X scope on a 10" Hornet barrel that I have used to around the house some from a bench. I would not call myself accomplished with it though!


http://www.gmdr.com/

I thought I posted this once but it didnt take...

Kyode
The fact that the data was compiled from several different guns makes it more useful as I see it. It's one thing to work up a maximum load for an individual gun and an entirely different thing to develop interchangeable ammunition.
We had the same experience with IMR 4350 in the .356 Winchester. A case full is very inefficient but very accurate. Some of the most accurate .356 loads we have shot were with the 200-grain RCBS GC bullet and a case full of IMR 4350.
I think I remember seeing the barrels on the midway sight. I guess I could have David Whiter add his non-removable muzzle break so I could use it legally as a carbine. The ability to shoot spitzer boat tail bullets changes the .30-30AI into a completely different cartridge from the one I am using in the lever actions.
Have you looked at any of Greg Mushials low velocity load data? I have duplicated quite a bit of his .30-30AI data in our rifles and have had surprisingly close results to his.
We have two Contenders that we shoot mostly as carbines. I do have several pistol barrels. I have a 6X scope on a 10" Hornet barrel that I have used to around the house some from a bench. I would not call myself accomplished with it though!

ASSCLOWN,

Good info.

BTW, I worked up loads with the Horn100SJ/R-P brass and got 2801fps w/39gr IMR3031 and 2872fps w/42gr H4895. Nothing like the 2966fps you got w/30.5 gr of IMR4227. I have never tried IMR4227. Can you explain why you got such better velocities using IMR4227 out of a M1894 Winchester 30-30 (not an Ackely improved) w/20" barrel (what kind of brass, etc.)? I may have to go out and get some IMR4227......

No big hurry, but if you get a chance to run the numbers on the IMR3031 and H4895 loads, I would be very appreciative. Hunting first though.... How did you do, anything killed with your 3030?

Deke.

ASSCLOWN,

Big game season is winding down for me so I am getting back on the 3030AI load development.

I am developing a varmint/plinking load using the Hornady100SJ. I figure the varmint/plinking is 1st priority at this point and it will only arm me with more info that might be useful before developing the bigger stuff. The available powders I have that I think might work well with the Horn100SJ's are IMR3031 and H4895. As in the past, the cases are R-P.

I would be most appreciative if you could run the #'s on that fancy computer software and let me know how much of each would get me in the neighborhood of PRE=.0010-.0015" and what velocity that might generate. FYI, 150gr CoreLokt factory ammo produced PR measurements averaging .4186" in 24" barreled 336 before reaming (Labounty said PR portion of chamber was not reamed when converted to 3030AI). Any other required data should be in the thread, but if it is more convenient or the info is not available, let me know what other info you need and I will provide it.

Deke.