Reduced .30-30 Loads.

 waepnedmann asked in comments:

I am interested in your reduced loads for the .30-30 WCF.
Would post them or email me with standard disclaimers accepted.
Thanks.

The standard disclaimer always applies, if you do something stupid, you're liable to hurt yourself.

But, reduced loadings for most calibers are easily researched by a simple Google search.  I've talked about it a lot over the past decade, and let me give you some links.

But, my standard cast bullet load in that caliber is 27.0 grains of H4895 under a Lymna 311041 bullet.  That yields about 1750 fps depending on your rifle and barrel.  It's an accurate load in my rifles, but you're running up against the rotational velocity with some alloys and barrel twist rates.  I have had cast bullets come completely apart when pushed too hard.  With high RPM and bad alloy, you won't get the results you're looking for.

Hodgdon's introduction to low-recoil loads is here.  Lots of good information.

Ed Harris's work on cast bullet loads in military rifles is seminal.    He's done a lot of work with reduced loadings for cast bullet shooting, and he is the originator of The Load, his recipe for many .30 caliber cartridges.  Ed is also the inventor of Ed's Red, a gun cleaning product that he originated.  Whatever Ed Harris says about cast bullet shooting, you can take to the bank.

This blog post from 2016 also has lots of good links.  One very reduced cast bullet load I found for the .30-30 features a 115 grain hard-cast bullet (for the .32-20).  I'll excerpt the pertinent part here.

The other load I like in the .30-30 is something I stumbled on when looking at very light loads for plinking, training youngsters and general fun.  I happened to show it to a buddy who used it quite successfully to quell a possum problem he was having.  Hence, we call it the possum load.  It features a hard-cast 115 grain bullet and Blue Dot powder.  It runs out the bore at about 600 fps, very low recoil and low noise.  More of a !pop! than a bang.  No, I'm not going to tell you how many grains of Blue Dot.  You'll have to do your own research.

When you get into very reduced loads in rifle calibers, you're walking on un-tread ground.  Be careful.   Oh, and my research is based on lots of trail and error.   Sometimes, it's like going down a rabbit-hole, not knowing where you'll come out.  Trust the data and learn from the guys who have already gone down that hole.

Reduced loads in the .30-30 are a lot of fun, and some of them are quite practical (my possum load, for example).  Be careful, have fun, and don't do anything that will hurt yourself.