Fun with cast rifle loads

[brewer12345]

I load 3 cast bullets for 3006, a 118 gallery and small game load, a 150 grain all purpose target and 100 yards deer load, and a 198 grain 150 yard mulie thumper. I have been planning to try the gallery load on rabbits and jacks at long distance, but other than noting it made tiny groups at 50 yards I had not thought a lot about it. I was shooting all three this morning and found that the thumper and the gallery load hit within an inch of each other at 100 yards. The 150 grain load hits 12 clicks on the scope high compared to the other two. This way I can leave the rifle sighted in for the mulie load and have the gallery load hit the same spot.

I am thinking I will be trying some bunnies at 100 yards this fall. They won't react or maybe even see me that far away and the bullet will arrive before the sound. Will be like a lightening strike.

 

[adcoch1]

Sounds like a lot of fun! What powder are you using for the gallery load, and are your casts pc'd, or checked and lubed?

 

[brewer12345]

Checked and lubed with Ben's liquid lube. All basically made of clip on wheel weights plus a few percent tin.

The gallery load is 12 grains of unique. The thumper is 4198, will have to look up the charge.

 

[SamT1]

I’d cull the mid range load! I’ve found the galley loads to be great fun and the heavy thumpers to be excellent game getters!

 

[JeffG]

I load cast for my 8mm Yugo Mauser, and .458 Mauser. Cast bullets are fun to shoot, and are easy on meat. I joke about being able to eat right up to the bullet hole, but it's pretty well true.

 

[brewer12345]

I’d cull the mid range load! I’ve found the galley loads to be great fun and the heavy thumpers to be excellent game getters!

Yeah, the medium load may go away. Otoh, it is basically a light 30 30 load and would be great for smaller and recoil sensitive shooters. 25 grains of 2400 is accurate and about 2000 fps.

 

[armoredman]

Have you tried powder coated? I switched to powder coating by cast rifle slugs in 8mm Mauser and 7.62x39mm and the leading went to zero - barrel seems cleaner than when I started.
Thanks for the info, sounds like you have some awesome keeper loads!

 

[brewer12345]

Powder coating will probably be something I try next year. However, I get zero leading with everything but a revolver with undersized throats. I will have the throats reamed and solve the problem.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

I was surprised how well Hi-Tek powder coating works. Missouri Bullets has coated 135gr and 165gr .309" bullets meant for the 30-30 that also works very we in the 30-06. I'm loadjng the 165gr bullet and using AA5744 and I'm happy with the results. I have yet to see any leading. Sorry, I have not sent any over the chrono yet. They also have a 115gr .309" bullet meant for the 30 Carbine that will probably be a good bunny getter.

I decided to try coated rifle bullets when I bought some 124gr 9mm bullets and pushed them to over 1200 fps without causing them to fail.

 

[brewer12345]

Mine are gas checked so I have no issues with pushing fast until the alloy turns out not to be up to the task. With hunting bullets, I don't want them so hard they will not expand so I use an alloy that is 2 to 3 percent each of antimony and tin. I suppose if I wanted to see how hard I could push the little 118 grain pills I could add a bunch of linotype and tin for something like Lyman #2 or something even harder. The load I have now is accurate and would probably flatted a coyote out to 75 to 100 yards, so I don't really have a reason to do so.

If you decide to play with the 115 grain plain base stuff, I would probably try Trail Boss or perhaps Red Dot.

 

[midland man]

anyone have any data for the 30-30 using 165gr cast coated bullets using trail boss they would share??

 

[GT1]

There is a page or two out there on light small game rounds for the 30-30 using pistol/shotgun(faster) powders, they will come up in a search I imagine. I have a some 100gr bullets I plan to test some day for fun in my 336.

 

[Charlie98]

I load cast for both my .30-30 and .308 (Savage 99) interchangeably, although the velocities are quite different; they both seem to like IMRs 4227 and 4198. My only .30-06 is a Garand... so no cast. I load Montana's very nice gas checked 173grn FN bullet.