30-30 hand load help

[NigelM]

Tinkering with getting a 30-30 lever action as a tracking rifle but struggling with the 1700ftlb minimum.

Looking at GRT the PMax for the cartridge is 46,412psi. I can get to 1700 ftlb and 2350 fps and stay within pressure. Yet Hornady LeverEvolution ammunition manages 1950 ftlbs and 2500 fps with 140gr bullets. Everything I play with says they are at about 55 kpsi which is way over SAAMI.

What am I missing??? Help.

 

[Border]

@Smellydog

 

[Bowland blades]

interesting , keep thinking of 30-30 for woodland and the smaller species of deer off hand shooting with no sticks
I suspect its the different rules in the USA than here , of course the actual action in question

 

[Smellydog]

Leverevolution ammunition I think uses a special powder developed for Hornady but I don't know all the details.
Foot pounds, what a pain in the ass our laws are!
Most reloading data nowadays is anemic.
I recently got some vit n135 and using their listed max but it was 4" lower than Remington factory!
I've now got it nearly the same zero but three grains over book.
My advice is to delete the app, produce one finger to the data and work up until the dam thing feels like it'll kill a deer.

 

[Smellydog]

Years ago I had a little Winchester 94 trapper in 30-30.
I wanted to go after red deer with it and my friends said it won't get it done and probably isn't legal blah blah.
So I wound it up as much as I dared with h322.
I kept creeping up. It was when well over listed max a case came out cracked all over with a crazy paving pattern I thought oopsie, better stop this. It was a pointless exercise. So I returned to what it liked and just carried on.
I ended up taking a 243 on the red hinds. Glad I did ion the hill above loch Dochart but in the forrest above Crianlarick that little carbine would have flourished.

Eventually I got a marlin 336 and using the same standard load got two red stags. Despite what I was told it took them perfectly and no one jumped out the bushes demanding to test my ammo.

 

[redcoat]

The 30-30 loading using 170 grn flat nose at 2200fps is a tried and tested woodland gun.
I have used that loading for many years and it just works! It might not be sexy or fast, I can only group an inch at 100 yards ( in my Baikal .308 single shot) or 1-2 inches in my 12g/.308 combination but in the real world of tracking and despatching wounded deer, I can promise you that it does the job.
Home cast lead 170grn projectiles which are only making (at best, downhill with a following wind) 1900fps are absolutely brilliant, using traditional American loading recipes.
Using the above Lead and jacketed Hornady 170grn projectiles, over the last 20 years, I have despatched many RTA Fallow, Muntjac and Roe as well as big pigs and two cattle with broken legs. I have never recovered a bullet as there is always full pass through, even on the quartering Fallow shoulder shots and I have been fortunate in never having had a runner. Obviously, when using the lead projectile, a soft backstop is vitally important because of the low velocity non frangibility.
The UK firearms laws are what they are and we have to comply whether in the real world they are relevant or not, they are the baseline.
I know this helps, not at all, with your post! But thought it might amuse you.
Regards
Nick.

 

[Norfolk Deer Search]

Tinkering with getting a 30-30 lever action as a tracking rifle but struggling with the 1700ftlb minimum.

Looking at GRT the PMax for the cartridge is 46,412psi. I can get to 1700 ftlb and 2350 fps and stay within pressure. Yet Hornady LeverEvolution ammunition manages 1950 ftlbs and 2500 fps with 140gr bullets. Everything I play with says they are at about 55 kpsi which is way over SAAMI.

What am I missing??? Help.

The lever revolution ammo is crap!

I hand loaded barnes 150gn tsx to about 1650fps mega accurate ammo free hand at 30-40 yds.

I am sure your load will kill quite adequately!

But you really are over thinking things, i used a lee load all with a rubber mallet and a reloading book and good old fashioned common sense none of this complicated pressure lark, i just used my eyes and looked at the case after firing, that told me all i needed to know about pressure!

 

[Smellydog]

Last summer a friend was shooting his creedmore on my place out to 500 yds or more but for giggles between strings he would challenge me with my stock open sighted 94 to shoot at a 400 or 500 yard rock.
Using a wide range of ammunition.small game loads on Herco or intermediate power loads on a2400 or full power loads and simply guessing hold and wind I got surprisingly close nearly every time! He was certainly impressed! ( And I was!)

 

[Norfolk Deer Search]

There is a video on YouTube of a bloke shooting, a full grown adult bull moose with a 30–30 with 170 grain soft point ammunition, probably doing no more than 1600 ft./s maximum, that moose took three steps dead!

After watching that video, from that point on, I didn’t give a monkeys, how fast my 30–30 was going.

It is truly one of the all-time great calibres, along with the 270 Winchester of course, and the 7 x 57, I thought I’d slip that one in right quick!

Oops, nearly forgot and the 30–06 I will go to hell for forgetting that!

So Nigel, in all honesty, just go shoot, the bloody gun and go and kill stuff with it because it will do exactly what you want and bugger how fast it is going because it will kill end of subject, and to be brutally honest, who in their right mind is gonna go and find you in the woods to worry about how fast your dirty 30 is going?

The simple answer to that is no Bugger is!

 

[alberta boy]

There is a video on YouTube of a bloke shooting, a full grown adult bull moose with a 30–30 with 170 grain soft point ammunition, probably doing no more than 1600 ft./s maximum, that moose took three steps dead!

After watching that video, from that point on, I didn’t give a monkeys, how fast my 30–30 was going.

It is truly one of the all-time great calibres, along with the 270 Winchester of course, and the 7 x 57, I thought I’d slip that one in right quick!

Oops, nearly forgot and the 30–06 I will go to hell for forgetting that!

So Nigel, in all honesty, just go shoot, the bloody gun and go and kill stuff with it because it will do exactly what you want and bugger how fast it is going because it will kill end of subject, and to be brutally honest, who in their right mind is gonna go and find you in the woods to worry about how fast your dirty 30 is going?

The simple answer to that is no Bugger is!

That might be Brobee223 that did that video . I've met him a few times , he lives just south of me . A nice guy . There's been a lot of Moose , Elk and other game killed with standard old 30/30's . Mostly by people who don't read about shooting , they just do it .

AB

 

[Norfolk Deer Search]

That might be Brobee223 that did that video . I've met him a few times , he lives just south of me . A nice guy . There's been a lot of Moose , Elk and other game killed with standard old 30/30's . Mostly by people who don't read about shooting , they just do it .

AB

Absolutely, 100% spot-on!

Too much, thinking, going on in this country, and not enough doing!

People worrying about Will this bullet do that and will that bullet do this, well, the only way to see if that, bullet will do is by doing!

That would cut the amounts of threads on copper bullets down by 99.9%.

 

[Smellydog]

My bullets are hybrids. Part copper and part lead. Work well.

 

[scrumbag]

Seems to work. The last video is part of a series where the guy goes hunting lots of things with a .30-30

Scrummy

 

[Smellydog]

Seen a couple but will watch the other

 

[Laurie]

Looking at GRT the PMax for the cartridge is 46,412psi. I can get to 1700 ftlb and 2350 fps and stay within pressure. Yet Hornady LeverEvolution ammunition manages 1950 ftlbs and 2500 fps with 140gr bullets. Everything I play with says they are at about 55 kpsi which is way over SAAMI.

As @Smellydog says, Hornady uses one-off blends of very high energy ball powders to achieve its claimed MVs in its special high-performance range. The nearest equivalents available to the handloader are the two Hodgdon 'super-performance' powders which the company claims should only be used in the listed cartridges, bullets, and loads in its data.

The 30-30 version is 'LEVERevolution' (often abbreviated to 'LVR' in loads data) and Hodgdon gives 30-30 loads for the 150gn Sierra FN (max claimed MV 2,512 fps); 160gn Hornady FTX (2,389 fps); 170gn Sierra FN (2,332 fps), all MVs being well above those claimed for conventional powders in the same data tables and with MEs in the 2,020-2,050 ft/lb range. These results are from a 24-inch test barrel and whether they're achievable, or even desirable, in 'real guns' may be another matter. R.H. VanDenburg Jr wrote LVR up in a 2011 Handloader magazine 'Propellants Profile' feature and obtained 2,264 fps with a 150gn bullet and 2,169 fps with a 170, in his well-used 20-inch barrel Winchester 94. Interestingly, maybe significantly, VanDenburg fails to mention (or even hint at) how well it performed (groups and MV ES) which he usually does for the many other powders he's tried over the years in this particular 30-30 rifle.

LEVERevolution is REACH-compliant and in theory available here. How much, if any, is actually imported and put on sale I can't say. It wasn't available when I tried to get some last year.

 

[scrumbag]

I have shot some "super-formance" ammo in my .257 Roberts and it was decidedly "warm"

 

[Smellydog]

As @Smellydog says, Hornady uses one-off blends of very high energy ball powders to achieve its claimed MVs in its special high-performance range. The nearest equivalents available to the handloader are the two Hodgdon 'super-performance' powders which the company claims should only be used in the listed cartridges, bullets, and loads in its data.

The 30-30 version is 'LEVERevolution' (often abbreviated to 'LVR' in loads data) and Hodgdon gives 30-30 loads for the 150gn Sierra FN (max claimed MV 2,512 fps); 160gn Hornady FTX (2,389 fps); 170gn Sierra FN (2,332 fps), all MVs being well above those claimed for conventional powders in the same data tables and with MEs in the 2,020-2,050 ft/lb range. These results are from a 24-inch test barrel and whether they're achievable, or even desirable, in 'real guns' may be another matter. R.H. VanDenburg Jr wrote LVR up in a 2011 Handloader magazine 'Propellants Profile' feature and obtained 2,264 fps with a 150gn bullet and 2,169 fps with a 170, in his well-used 20-inch barrel Winchester 94. Interestingly, maybe significantly, VanDenburg fails to mention (or even hint at) how well it performed (groups and MV ES) which he usually does for the many other powders he's tried over the years in this particular 30-30 rifle.

LEVERevolution is REACH-compliant and in theory available here. How much, if any, is actually imported and put on sale I can't say. It wasn't available when I tried to get some last year.

Thank you Laurie.

 

[Smellydog]

In all honesty I don't see the point. Why make it close to 308 in performance. It's really just appealing to more is better syndrome.
It's perfectly fine in standard levels.
It's kind of ironic in a way.
For years data has slowly throttled back many loadings and factory ammo and then come along Hornady suggesting they can transform certain cartridges, like as if there was a problem in the first place!
Just marketing I guess....

 

[Sharpie]

LEVERevolution is REACH-compliant and in theory available here. How much, if any, is actually imported and put on sale I can't say. It wasn't available when I tried to get some last year.

It is, or at least has been imported. E.g. Reloading Solutions are showing 2 lbs in stock. £33.12 each. Hodgdon Leverevolution 1Lb HDHLR1 - Reloading UK As are Hodgdon Lever Evolution 1lb | Aaron Wheeler at £49.50. Just a minutes search.

As I understand it it is a blended ball powder, energetic but inhibited to try to keep pressures within limits for things like 30-30 lever guns. I imagine it as giving a more progressive burn whilst also delivering an extra 100-200 fps in suitable barrel lengths.

I don't imagine that there is really much demand for it here.

I have an interest in it since I have a Marlin 336C, 30-30, 20" barrel, but have not yet asked for a deer condition for it but maybe should. 30-30 is allowable on the list as an all-deer chambering for England/Wales, and can just about scrape through the Scottish MV requirement with e.g. 150 gr bullets. On paper. As to what ordinary factory ammo, might realistically achieve in a 20" barrel, well that would take a chrono test, maybe best not to look, as for say a 16" trapper style levergun, I'd politely suggest, not a chance for anything except muntjac and CWD in England/Wales.

Nevertheless, with a designed-for-it soft nosed lead bullet, or even cast lead pushed fairly quickly I'm sure it is very effective in reality, at suitable ranges, 100, 150 yards/metres, maybe even a little more, the external ballistics fall off a cliff, in energy and drop, plus the usual levergun levels of accuracy potential to be factored in. Point and shoot it is not, at least compared with that expected from bolt guns in stronger chamberings with more powder capacity, much higher pressure ratings and pointy bullets.

 

[Smellydog]

Why I don't worry about it......

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