Right now it's adapt and overcome. But never had my Garand load with Hdy spire point 150,crimped ,over H4895 , not work just fine in a bolt gun
I wouldn’t say the budget is too tight. I just bought the Lee Hand Press, 4-die set for 38/357, Little Dandy powder measure, four rotors and an adjustable rotor, scale, calipers, 500 38sp brass casings, 800 LSWC bullets, 500 LHBWC, 1000 Federal Small Pistol Primers and a lb of Bullseye. To me, that’s jumping in with both feet. It’s about prioritizing. I want to shoot the 30-06, but realistically, I haven’t shot it a 1000 times in 55 years, so I don’t want to spend a ton of money reloading for it if I’m not going to enjoy shooting it that much. I won’t know until I try some reduced loads. Right now, our Cabela’s has no 30-06 ammo, let alone reduced loads. So hand loading is the only option. I’ve got 80 rounds of 180gr hunting loads that I know I wouldn’t want to go out and shoot for fun. But that’s just me. LOLSounds like you’re on a tight budget, or not ready to jump in totally.
That’s a great plan! And… what I’d like to do!!Fair enough.
A pound of H4895 will give you about 200 reduced loads, so maybe gauge it on that. 200 primers, 1# of powder, 250 bullets. Besides the dies, as was mentioned, you would need a trimmer and a set of calipers... and a standard O-frame press. Not a terribly huge investment... and, what do you know, you might actually really like shooting your rifle with lighter loads!
Interesting! Would you be willing provide a source for these recipes?Why not use shotgun powders for reduced loads? I load all my play rifle ammo with the dot powders. Sometimes with 2400 and unique too.
I learned to reload loading 30/06 and .45 acp with that Lee Handpress at the kitchen table. It did everything I needed it to do as far as sizing and seating. The Lee priming tool is great for priming and Lee also makes some affordable trimming options. 30/06 is nice because, as is often noted, it's quite versatile. You can load lightweight varminter style bullets that don't cause a lot of recoil discomfort or you can load 180+ grain high ballistic coefficient bullets that you will feel in your shoulder.Thanks! I am currently loading 38 special with a Lee hand press. Just don’t know what resizing 30-06 would be like with the hand press, if I don’t get dad’s stuff.
Well next week I'll be 72 and like you my days of humping mountains deer hunting are done. Anymore I am comfortable with a .308 Winchester or smaller cartridge too. The larger cartridges rifles just remain in the safe. Hope you get into and enjoy loading the 30-06 down.I’m 68 years old, had a small stroke a couple years ago, and I’m not pushing it by dragging a deer out of the woods
A lot of good readingLymans cast #3 and 4 are excellent. They have more loads than their manuals for both jacketed and cast.
I’ve got the 3rd Edition.A lot of good reading
The closer the better but, unless you have access to an exact bullet-case-primer-powder combination, you'll have to do at least some interpolating. Try to stay with the same weight, hardness and profile, at least. Remember that seating depth is the real measure and cartridge overall average length (tip-to-base) is just a convenient way of approximating seating depth. Also remember that the real point of measure is the ogive - the point on the bullet where the driving band ends and the slope of the profile begins - not the tip. Again, measuring from the tip of the bullet is very imprecise but it's also very convenient.But… how specific do I have to be?
Yes, yes, and yes. Maybe.Will just about any commercially available lead bullet do, that’s close? For example, in this case, 150 gr bullet? Do I have to worry about what alloy they are? Do I need gas checks?