Anybody out there who shoots or has any experience with the 30-30 Ackley Improved? I just had a Marlin 336 re-chambered because of a "bump" in the shoulder area of the original chamber. What fireforming loads do you use? Any tips on fireforming? Any help, suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

i have never fireformed brass, but a lot of people just shoot regular ammunition. my understanding is that shooting regular ammunition is completely safe and it fireforms at the same time.

I just have my kids shoot factory ammo to make brass. It headspaces on the rim so you won't (usually) have the trouble that some do forming rimless cases. Ackley intended his cases to be fireformed from the parent case as factory ammo in any event. There are some exceptions to that.

Any factory ammo works fine.
I tend to use new brass with handloads.
I suggest that you do not use old brass that has been fired several times in the standard .30-30 chambers. I have found that these do not last long with full power loads in the improved. They will break at the web just like a hornet. for me the broken case has allways pushed out easily with a stiff brush.
When you begin looking at loads for the 150 grain bullets Hodgdon 4895 or H335 is a very good place to start. For the 170 grain bullets Hodgdon Varget and Alliant Reloader 15 are top performers.

I'll second what Slim says. I own a few Ackley cartridged rifles (along with a bunch of other wildcats), and I find that used brass is usually too brittle for easy reforming. - Dan

Thinking about doing the same w/Marlin 336. Anyone willing to share loads including velocities?

Deke.

Deke,
while these loads -except the 170 grain Varget load - are not maximum they are high pressure. Our goal with the .30-30 Improved was 3,000 fps with 110 grain bullets, 2700 fps with 125/130 grain bullets, 2500 fps with 150 grain bullets and 2300 fps with 170 grain bullets - from a 20" barrel - in all weather conditions. We reached these goals easily.

In our Marlin 336 we have found Hodgdon 335 and Hodgdon 4895 to just about interchangeable grain for grain of powder charge with 150-grain bullets from various manufacturers.
Using the 150 grain bulk Remington JRN bullets these loads have proven to be accurate with reasonable pressure indications. New, fireformed Remington brass was used and Winchester large rifle primers. Cartridge OAL was 2.55" and we used a Lee factory crimp die.
39.0 gr. of Hodgdon 4895 2,520 fps with an E of 18 fps and a SD of 9 fps.
39.0 gr. of Hodgdon 335 2,536 fps with an E of 28 and a SD of 10 fps.
39.0 gr. Hodgdon Benchmark 2,586 fps with an E of 21 and a SD of 8 fps.
39.0 gr. Hodgdon Varget 2,443 fps, I dont have the E and SD in front of me for this one.

With 170 grain Sierra JFN bullets:
38.0 Winchester 748 2,296 fps with an E of 31 and SD of 13 fps.
38.0 BLc2 2,281 fps with an E of 97 and a SD of 49 fps.
38.0 gr. Hodgdon Varget 2,402 fps with an e of 22 and a SD of 15 fps. This load is a maximum load and has not been extensively tested in hot weather.

I look forward to hearing of your results.

Slim,

Thanks much for the data. It looks like the ballistics will pretty much duplicate if not exceed the 300Sav (considering you used a 20" barrel and the Savage is typically a 24" barrel, it is all the more impressive). Would like to see what you found with 110 and 125/130 bullets as well if you have it.

Deke.

Deke,
The 110-grain .30 Carbine bullets shoot very well in our .30-30 Improveds.
In the .20" Marlin with R-P brass and WLR primers. The 100-grain bullets were seated to 2.52" The 125 and 130 grain bullets were seated to the middle of the cannalure.

110 grain JRN bulk .30 Carbine bullets:
38.0 gr. of Hodgdon 4198 gives 3,081 fps with an E of 61 and a SD of 23 fps. This is a better load than the extreme spread would have you think.

Alliant Reloader 7 - 36.0 gr. 2,736 fps.
37.0 gr. 2,900 fps.
38.0 gr. 2,911 fps.

As you can see the best stop point is 37.0 grains of Reloader 7. Both Reloader 7 and 4198 produce about equal accuracy and velocity with the light bullets.

The best load that I have found for the 125 grain Sierra is 35.0 grains of Alliant Reloader 7 for 2,634 fps with an E of 9 and a SD of 7 fps.

For the 130 grain Speer I like:
40.0 grains of Hodgdon 335 for 2,690 fps with an E of 80 and a SD of 28 fps. This is a good load in my rifle.
35.0 grains of Alliant Reloader 7 gives 2,669 fps with an E of 34 and a SD of 24 fps.
41.0 grains of Hodgdon BLc2 gives 2,501 fps with an E of 23 and a SD of 12 fps. This is an accurate load with an interesting muzzle flash on gloomy days. The only advantage I see with BLc2 is it's easy metering qualities.

I would like to see some data from anyone with a 16" .30-30 Improved.

check out this 30-30AI article by larry sand. the loads listed are from several 14"-15" barrels.
http://www.handgunhunt.com/tech/index.html

i have a 14" 30-30AI contender handgun. it's a super handgun round. i took 2 does this past fall(as mentioned in the article)with a 130gr hornady ssp at 2588fps muzzle velocity from the 14" barrel with imr4198 powder. imr4198 does great with 125-130gr bullets.
i have reports of w748, and imr3031 working well with 150gr bullets, but have yet to try them myself.

i've shot a lot of imr4350/125gr sierra sp's as forming loads. right at 37.5gr gives only 1800-1900fps out of the 14" barrel, but it is really accurate. i have shot sub 1" 5 shot groups at 100 with the 14" barreled contender. the load seems inefficient, as there are some unburnt kernels of powder after firing. magnum primers help a little but with accuracy like they get, i can live with some inefficiency.

of course, in the single shot guns, we can load the spitzer type bullets with no problems.

Kyode,

Interesting article. Unfortunately we have few direct comparisons to yours with bullets and powder. We used Alliant Reloader 15 with the 150 grain Remington JRN bullets in the 20" Winchester M-94. 37.0 gr. gave us 2,424 fps with an E of 14 and a SD of 10 fps. While low velocity this is a very good load.
38.0 gr. of RL 15 gave us 2,471 fps with an E of 33 and a SD of 18 fps.
38.5 gr. gave us 2,522 fps with an E of 58 and a Sd of 27 fps. This one is another very good load in the Winchester.
Reloader 15 did so well for you in the 14" barrel I think that Hodgdon 4895 would be a good choice.
We have shot quite a few Hornady 165-grain A-Max bullets single shot in the M-94AE. The boat tail reduces friction enough that we can easily achieve significantly higher velocity with the same pressure indications as flat base bullets at lower velocity.

Use caution with the data from P. O. Ackley's Handbook For Shooters and Reloaders as it is not relevant to most of today's applications. This data was developed by Robert Hutton and was published in the May 1961 issue of Guns and Ammo magazine. The article is entitled: "A New Look At The .30-30". Robert Hutton was in the middle of an ongoing search for a new 1000-yard cartridge. Hutton's goal in these tests was 3,000 fps with a 180-grain bullet. He used two rifles chambered for the .30-30 Improved. One was a FN Mauser with a 32" heavy barrel. The other was a 20" Winchester Model 94. Hutton says: "but we had Ackley rebore a fine Mauser bench rest rifle to take the .30-30 Improved cartridge, believed to be the first of its kind." Hutton seems to be saying this is the first .30-30 Improved rifle. I have searched and found no earlier written reference to the .30-30 Improved cartridge. I have Ackley's first Handbook (spiral bound soft cover). This book lists chamber and case dimensions for many of his wildcats. The 6mm .30-30 Improved is listed, the .30-30 Improved is not. Hutton's article does not indicate that he did any extensive testing with the M-94. Hutton indicates that he received a 100-fps velocity increase with poor accuracy. Hutton felt that the advantage of the .30-30 Improved in the lever action rifle was increased case life.
I think the .30-30 Improved is an efficient and interesting cartridge. Using Greg Mushials data it has also proven to be a good cast bullet cartridge

Just picked up my Marlin Mod30 30-30. It has the 1/2 tubular magazine and a 24" barrel w/a real pretty bore (made in 1948, but in real good shape). I will have it rechambered to AckImp. Do any of you have an idea as to the velocity that the extra 4" of barrel might add or on which powders might work better out of the longer barrel (I will be loading 100gr varmint bullets, the Speer 130gr HotCor, and the Barnes 150XFN)?

Deke

Deke,
I think you will gain about 25 fps per inch.
Alliant Reloader 15 and Hodgdon Varget are where you should start. you will be suprised at the velocities you will get with the standard .30-30 and these two powders. With the 24" barrel you may not want to Improve it!
You should work with this rifle some before you have it reamed. That way you will have a good baseline from which to judge your improvement. We shot each of our rifles quite a bit before improving them.
Do not overlook the 170 grain bullets in your tests. From the 20" improved the 170 grain hornady, Sierra and Speer bullets are good killers at 2300 fps+ muzzle velocity.
The PMC Starfires that we shot from the standard .30-30's are real killers too. But I dont think they are necassary for our little West Texas deer.

Hey a question, does your leveractions feed the improved case good?

We have reamed four rifles to Improved. One Marlin 336, one Winchester M-94AE, two top eject mid '70's Winchesr M-94's. none has trouble feeding. I have only communicated with one person who has had any feeding problems. His rifle was a Marlin 336, I believe he said that some light polishing on the lifter cured it.