30-30 = .308, .309 or .311?

My Speer Manual says .30-30 takes a .308 bullet.

Have you slugged your bore? If your bore diameter is .308 you should order the .309 bullet sizer. Usually best results come from bullets sized .001 over bore diameter.

I Have Shot Thousands Of Lead Bullets In My 30-30 Rifles And Carbines.

Almost all of them shot their best with .310", on the OD, bullets. The only one that didn't was a MARLIN 30-30ACKLEY-IMP. It liked .311"-.312" cast bullets the best.

Hmm, that's a problem then! You're going to throw off the whole order.

I was getting this and a few other things, so it would install the gas checks and lube and size the bullets on the anniversary press I already have.

http://www.leeprecision.com/cgi/catalog/browse.cgi?1121220403.4873=/html/catalog/lubesize.html



In this mould:
http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=574963

After using cast bullets in at least thirty US-made .30-caliber rifles, dating from 1896 to about last year, I can tell you this:

In the vast majority of my .30-caliber experiments, the best results were obtained (WITH CAST BULLETS, remember) when the bullets were sized at .311"....that is...three-one-one. The normal "rules" for jacketed bullets DO NOT APPLY to cast bullets. An occasional rifle might want another diameter, but .311 will work with about 98% of them. This is based on loading upwards of 5000 cast-bullet rifle rounds per year, and many of those are .30-caliber of one sort or another.

I've been playing the cast bullet game for almost forty years, and have learned a few things over that time. .311" is where you want to start!

For an in-depth education on bullet-casting, and loading the resulting bullets, go to:

www.castboolits.gunloads.com

and we'll be mighty glad to make you welcome. It's a fine bunch of folks, and very tolerant of newcomers, who are viewed as the future of our hobby. We also have a LOT of fun in the bargain. Maybe use the same "handle" so we know who you are? Ask exactly the same question there, and see what the laddies have to say.

The press you have will indeed work with the Lee .311 sizing die, no problem. It will seat the gaschecks, too. Later on, you may want to move to more-elaborate equipment, but for now you're doing fine. I'll be looking for you to appear over there, Lucky....

This forum is way cool.

I have been sizing my 30 calibers at .309 and my .303s at .311. I have both sizers. Now it appears that .311 may be the way to go with 30 caliber.

I just bought a 130 gr. .312 mould on ebay (I think it was for a 32-20) that I intended to play with in the 303. Maybe sized to .311 it will be a keeper in my 30-30.

Thanks

This forum is way cool.

c.c.w., pard;

.303 British rifles vary all over the map for bore dimensions. Right now I have a new-condition #4 made in 1955 which likes bullets as small as .312", but most of them really need .314" or even larger. Some of the gents on the Castboolits Board have had to go as large as .318" for some rifles! .315 is certainly not unusual.

30 30's like 309 or 310

we load a poopload of them and the difference is dependant on the gun

Bruce, do you have any experience with cast bullets and Marlin's Microgroove™ rifling?

Riley;

Sorry, I don't have personal experience with the Micro-groove barrels, but many of the folks at Castboolits have loaded for them.. As I recall from their discussions, the MG barrels need a HARD bullet, and one that's sized a bit larger than might be considered normal for the barrel diameter. Doing that, they have gotten some excellent results.

If you go to the website I noted above, do a search for "microgroove" (one word) and you'll get about 25 hits. Search on "micro groove" (two words) and there are a further ten hits. The word you search for is highlighted in red, so it's pretty easy to find the pertinent stuff.

I hope you can find some helpful information. That site is my "cyber home" and I find it's very comfy for an ol' bulletcaster.

The thing about Micro-Groove barrels is that they are more sensitive to the LUBE used on cast bullets thay they are to the alloy of the bullets.

It's not so much that MicroGroove barrels need really hard bullets it's just that they don't like the really soft ones.
But just about anything as hard as Lyman #2 alloy or harder should work fine.

I had a late 60s vintage Marlin 336T MicroGroove carbine that simply loved pure wheelweight alloy. It shot them as well as any jacketed bullet.

I have found over the past 30 years that a lot of the problems people have after shooting their own cast boolits have to do with the lube they use.
And MicroGroove barrels just do not tolerate crappy lube.

It amazes me that someone will buy a really nice gun. Spend a lot of their hard earned money for high quality moulds. They have a top line furnace. They have sizing dies in .001 increments from bore to .006 over so they can get the optimum diameter for their gun. They have every top punch known to mankind just in case they run across an out of production mould someday.
And then they turn around and buy the cheapest lard they can find. :banghead:

BluesBear makes an excellent point. The bulk of my cast-bullet loading over the last couple of decades has used the NRA-formula 50-50 alox-beeswax mix. It works very well for me. This stuff typically costs about $4.00 per stick from Midway, etc.

However, if you go to Ebay and search on "alox lube" you can find TEN sticks for $15 or twenty sticks for $25, on a "buy-it-now" basis...no bidding. There are at least a couple of suppliers on Ebay.

We can also make some very superior lubes ourselves, notably the Felix World Famous Lube, for which you can find a LOT of recipes and experiences on that Castboolit Board mentioned above. Making lube can require some serious effort, though, and is probably best reserved for the REAL nutcases in the sport (grin).

Thanks for the castboolits link, and the info about the Microgroove rifling.