I found about 25 110gr. and 100 100gr. Hornady's that I forgot I had. I'd like to use these to do some plinking. Does anyone have loads using these? I was thinking of using some sort of pistol or shotgun powder to keep the charge weight (and cost) down for these. Is that possible? THanks.

Alliant lists data for 2400 in .30-06, their data is on the web. I haven't found 2400 to be particularly accurate in my rifle. I prefer to use the starting loads for H4895 for that weight bullet.

Don't expect great accuracy with half jacket bullets.

You may also want to check you Lyman's data for cast lead bullets. I think you could find some safe load data for Unique with the 100g bullets. I shy away from it now just because of the consequences of an accidental double charge, but I used to shoot a lot of lead bullets with small charges of Unique.

1 Point - Load these things on up to the suggested load for such bullets. They aren't junk and shouldn't be treated like it. I've shot a zillion of them and they are a hoot. Fast as lightening and terrible on what they hit.

I suspect your accuracy will go to hell of you throttle back to some crazy charge of pistol powder. Not to mention the danger or double charging.

Load them up. You'll enjoy them. Just don't hunt anything but varmits with them as they are mighty explosive.

One of my friends has excellent results with 30-33 grains of H4227 or Vit. N110 behind a 110 grains Sierra HP. Recoil is like that of a .222 and his 30-06 Sako is capable of shooting 0.75 MOA (5 shot groups at 100m) any day.

Find this of interest as I loaded and shot quite a lot of 90gr Speer "Plinkers" some years ago in various 30-06's and was never able to do much with them. I had visions of squirrel hunting with the '06 but the accuracy, etc was terrible with any of the combos I tried. Also was never able to download the things to where I thought they were safe to shoot up in trees, etc. My lighter loads would still shoot through a treated piece of 4"X4" wood so it was more potent than a .22 rimfire - more zip than the 30 GI carbine round.
Please keep us posted on what you do and what you find out.
"Shoot straight, shoot safe and shoot a lot!"
Regards,

25 rounds will barely get a load developed, unless you get lucky with one of the first loads you try.
Unique, Red Dot or one of the others for cast loads should work.

Watch for a double load.

I can well attest to what 2X.X grains of a medium-fast pistol powder will do in a 44 Mag (twice the minimum recommended that is).
That gun would REALLY shoot too! Before my conversion to "paper weight/conversation piece" that is.

LouisB

I had a box of 100 grn plinkers recently, the best use I found for them was to load them up in my 300 sav @ about 2700 fs and shoot them across high winds @ roughly 300 yds at rocks. The amount of adjustment required was quite comical.

Speer #12 shows a reduced load of 16 to 20 grs of SR 4759 for 100 grn plinkers. (1550 to 1900 fs) Enjoy!

Try the Speer manual data with XMP-5744 -- it worked well when I played with some reduced 110-gr. loads in a .30-06 and beautifully also in both the .338 Win. Mag. and the .375 H&H.

John

I have a load that is great in my '06. In fact I have several. The best will work with the 110 gr rn or HP's. I will have to look up the exact mix as I can't remember the details off top of my head. I don't want to give it to you wrong. This load is great on squirrels. It puts them down in a hurry but doesn't explode them. It hits exactly as my deer loads out to about 125 yards, maybe further. That is as far as I have practiced with them. You will need a filler of some kind. I have used paper of various types, cream of wheat, and the synthetic stuff for shot gun reload buffer. All seem to work. I will try to remember to get the recipe for you. Good hunting. "D"

Speer Plinkers - I bet I've shot a couple thousand in my old 30/06 Eddystone. All loaded around 3,000 fps. Accuracy was 3"/100 yds. Shot a lot of varmits with them. Devastating. Probably everything we shot at was 300- and most 200-. They worked good for what they were made for.

Thanks for all the info. Would filler be needed if I used magnum (Fed 215M) primers?