Tumbling Brass

 I have an old Dillon brass tumbler that a reader sent to me a decade o more ago.  It's processed a lot of brass, and it's still going strong.  For a CFDA championship match, the host club provides the ammunition.  When I put on a championship, I like to start with 10,000 rounds of ammo, loaded and ready to go. That suffices for a three-day shoot.

That is the old Dillon, with 400 pieces of .45 Colt (LC) brass.  It's loaded and I prefer to do 300 pieces at a tie.  I feel like 300 pieces gives me a better brass/media ratio and the brass comes out a bit cleaner.  I use walnut media, and I don't use a polish.  I'm looking for clean, not shiny.

When it's time to separate the brass fro the media, I find that one of these Frankfort Arsenal devices works as good as anything.  It's less than $10, and it fits over a five gallon bucket.

Forgive my sloth, but I have forgotten the reader who sent me this tumble so many years ago.  It's still running strong and processes about 20,000 pieces of brass each year.  It's still running strong, as a matter of fact, there are 300 pieces tumbling as I type this.  I will turn it off in an hour or so, and dredge the brass out for loading tomorrow.

Primers

 I've been loading shotshells for decades.  I started in the '70s when I was shooting competition skeet, and continued as I raised four children, all of whom shoot shotguns.  I started buying primes by the brick of 1000, then graduated to the brick of 5000, but each time, the primers were packed in little sleeves of 100.

This weekend, I saw something new.  We shoot a lot of shotgun primers in our sport, and with the recent shortages, the availability of primers has become acute.  I buy primers in bulk to support the club, and recently the supplies have dried up.

One of the shooters this weekend mentioned that he had some primers for sale.  And, he wasn't scalping.  I think that I got a good deal, considering the times, for a brick of 10,000.  We made the deal, shook hands, and I took possession.  These are Nobel Sport primers, made in Italy, and one of the favorites of our sport.  I thought a brick of 10,000 was a bit odd, but beggars can't be choosers.

Today when I got home I decided to open them to look.

The front of the box.  Nobel Sport, pretty standard

The back of the box.  10,000?  That's interesting.

So, I took our my pocket knife and cut the tape.  What a surprise.

Yeah... that's a sleeve of 1000 primers.  I have bought a lot of primers in my day, from a lot of places, but I've never seen anything like that.  All I can figure is that this is the way Nobel packages them for other manufacturers.  But, no worries.  I have them now, and I'll save them for a big shoot.  Still, I thought you guys might have some insight.  Isn't that odd?

Lever Carbies

 Regular readers know that I spent some time several years ago experimenting with handgun cartridges in lever carbines, specifically, in the .357 magnum.

Junior and I did some work in this regard, and if you follow the links, yo can see it here, and some more here.  Suffice it to say that both Junior and I regard the .357 magnum as perfectly capable for deer-sized game out to about 100 yards, especially when fired through a lever carbine.  

As it turns out, the Lucky Gunner recently revisited the question, with better equipment than either Junior or I had, and came much to the same conclusion.  In both cases, the .357 and .44 magnum showed the same energy at 100 yards from a carbine as the same rounds showed at the muzzle when shot from a 4" revolver.

The video below is interesting, if only because it tells me what I've known of years, that a handgun cartridge fired from a lever gun is potent medicine indeed, with the proper ammunition.

It is good to see our early work validated.

Cast Bullet Leading Myths

Leading is a problem with cast bullets, and it's a factor of three things:  Velocity, lube, and alloy.  This is an over-simplification, as are most things I put in here, but believe me, we have to take those three into consideration when we're working with cast bullets.

Mark O asks in comments:

I am a pistol guy. In a pistol with lead you have to be concerned about leading above 1000fps. What about a rifle?

With the proper bullet alloy, and good lube, bullets can be pushed much faster than the 1000 fps limit.  My favorite cast bullet load for the .357 magnum runs a hard-cast, gas checked bullet of my alloy out to almost 1200 fps with a 180 grained bullet.  That same load from a rifle give me almost 1600 fps with   no problems.

I push my favorite .30-30 load to about 1800 fps with no leading.

On the other hand, I can push a soft lead bullet out of a pistol at 650 and get leading.  It's a function of alloy and lube.  My heavy cast loads are normally cast from good alloy, dipped in liquid alox, the the gas check is applied, then it's dipped again in alox before I load it.

You never know what a cast bullet is going to do in your barrel until you try it.  It's all part of the trip down the worm-hole.

The Wron-Hole

I found a correspondent in my inbox, a fellow who inherited his grandfather's old Winchester 94.  And he asked me about cast bullets in the .30-30.

Let's drop down this worm=hole, shall we?  His question:

So I can't use the same load data for FMJ for lead ammo ? What's a good manual you recommend? I've found this load data but I wanted your expert opinion.

 I bought some 155 grain lead bullets without the gas check can I use the same load data as a 155 grain with gas check?

I feel sorry for this guy.  He's about to drop down a worn-hole with the best of intentions. It's a world where sane men sometimes venture and learn that everything they thought they knew was patently false.

My latest answer:

My rule of thumb.  Below 1500 fps, no check.  Between 1500 to 1900, gas check.  Above 1900, jacketed.  A gas check is important s that bore gasses don't erode the base of a plain based bullet.  This becomes more important as speed, and pressure increases. 

Be cautious using factory made cast bullets.  Many of us use a lot of factory cast in handguns, but in rifles, you're getting into that range of speed whee alloy really matters. You ca't drive a soft, pure lead bullet much over 1200 fps and expect it to perform properly.  Over 1200 fps, you need to alloy the melted lead to give it toughness.  Many of us grew up using wheel weights, which used to contain 95% lead, 3% tin, and 2% antimony.  This was a great alloy for cast bullets, and approximated the Lyman #2 alloy.  Some of us alloyed our own metal with pure lead and Linotype metal.  Be careful using wheel weights today because most of them are made of zinc, which is totally unsuitable to casting bullets and will ruin your alloy.

Getting in to cast bullets is like going down a worm-hole, and you might not be the same person when you come out the other side.  Everything you thought you knew about reloading is wrong.

For hundreds of years prior to the late 1800s, everything was shot with pure lead bullets, but they used black power as the only propellant.  Black powder is a low-pressure propellant and is perfectly suited to pure lead.  However, in the late 1800s two things happened, almost simultaneously: the invention of smokeless powder and the invention of the cupro-nickel jacketed bullet.  Smokeless powder gave higher pressure, and velocity and the jacketed bullet let us take advantage of that pressure.

In 1895, Winchester unveiled their new cartridge, the .30 WCF (.30-30) which was the very first cartridge designed to use smokeless powder, and the world changed. It was advertised as a whiz-bang modern wonder, capable of taking any game in North America, to include grizzly bear.  In the intervening century, advances in smokeless powder almost mad the lead bullet obsolete for rifle cartridges.

Surprisingly, the most popular cartridge today, the most sold ammo in the United States is ab obsolete design that uses a heeled, pure lead bullet and is loaded to black powder velocities.  The .22 Long Rifle.

The very best resource for cast bullets, almost a bible among cast bullet enthusiasts, is the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook, available from Amazon. It is a wealth of knowledge from cover to cover.  It covers bullet casting, alloys, and has load data or almost every cartridge suitable for cast bullets.

Have fun going down this worn-hole.  Stay safe.

I hope I didn't scare the guy off.

More Frustration

After yesterday's fiasco with the chronograph, I went today to our local Ace hardware to see what they had in the way of inexpensive lights I could use on the diffusers to get better light on the chronograph sensors.

I found some small LED lights that I thought might work.  They came in a 3-[pack for under $20, so I thought I'd give them a try.   I also moved the chrony out from the bench, ten feet in front of the muzzle, to get away from measuring ejecta and muzzle blast.

With lights installed on the diffusers.  You would think that would be sufficient.

Evidently, it still needs more or better light.  I'm still getting spurious readings, or error readings.  I got several Err 3 and Err 9, which the chrony manual tells me are related to poor light conditions.

The view fro the shooting bench.

I got a few reading that might be useful, but with the number of spurious readings and error codes, I can't put any faith in them.  I may have to buy a set of accessory lights that I see in at least one YouTube video.  They seem to be optimized for light in the near-infrared spectrum that the sensors see best.

In a lot of cases (and I learned this when I was writing for The Frugal Outdoorsman) experimenting is often one-step-forward-and-two-steps-back.  But, back in those days, we didn't announce our failures publicly.  Here lately, this project has been a cascade of failure, but I know that once I break the code, success is just around the corner.

But, the brass is in the tumbler and I know what steps I need to take next.  We'll keep plugging away at this until we get it right.

Chrono Fristrtions

I was outside in the shop, playing with loads for the cowboy shooters.  I set up the chrony to test data, and the data was all over the place.

CFDA publishes a handy data sheet, but there has to be more than one powder that's suitable and I was playing with some powders that are already on my bench. 

I've been a handloader for four decades and I'm pretty confident in my technique.  I understand SD and VMD, and I know how to interpret velocities  When you're working down in the low-pressure that wax bullets necessarily put you in, consistency is the key, and I know how to be consistent.

I'd load five cartridges, looking for an average muzzle velocity of 750, and those five would be all over the map.  721.2, 9715, 167.3, 50.61, and ERR.  Just dam, what's going on?  Just about the time i was about to lose my cool, I realized that lighting was the problem.  The sensor couldn't see the bullets.  I tried some known loads, and got the same type of data.  It was all garbage.

I went to YouTube and that data is all over the map, too.  Lots of low-cost alternatives, lots of high-cost alternatives, but it gives me some ideas.

It's frustrating as hell to set up equipment, run the very best test possible, and get data that is garbage.

Is It Worth It? Good Question!

Jonathan asks, in comments:

How much do you do precision shooting versus just plinking? I'm finding that cheap stuff for plinking is about the cost of reloading, even before I put the time into it, so I at this point I don't reload much. Have the higher prices for components, particularly bullets, changed how or when you reload?

I don't do much "precision shooting" any more.  I assume that you mean long-range  shooting form a bench.  Two years ago, I was diagnosed with macular degeneration and that has affected my ability to see anything with precision, including a scope reticle.   But, I see your point, so lets look at what a box of regular store-bought ammo would cost if we loaded it at home.

We'll use Midway USA as our resource, and look at some prices.
Sierra Matchking bullets cost $34.03 per hundred, or 34 cents apiece
Winchester large rifle primers cost $34.99 per thousand, or 3.5 cents apiece.
Reloder 15 powder costs $26.99 per pound.  My load is 43.0 grains.  That equals 162 shots pound (700043), which means 16.6 cents per shot.
If my math is correct, the component cost for one round of very good ammo is 54.1 cents per shot.  A box of 20 costs me $10.82.  That same box of ammo, at the same store, costs $23.39.

How much is your time worth?  That's a valid question, and everyone has to answer it in his own way.  How much minutiae are you willing to invest on uniforming primer pockets, turning necks, etc?   Some handloaders get very particular with their preparations and spend a lot of time prepping cases.  Sorting primers by weight, sorting bullets by weight, and marking cases so that they are always oriented in the chamber the same way.

But, if you start casting your own bullets, the component cost drops almost to zero.  As you amortize the initial cost of a smelter and molds over 100,000 bullets, the cost of equipment drops toward zero on a per-shot basis, but you're going down a wormhole that many shooters don't want to go down.  I once figured that the cost of my ammo for .38 special, or .45 ACP, (or .30-30 Winchester) was less than 5 cents per shot.

C.E. Harris,in this article, describes how The Load is safely assembled.   This load features 13.0 grains of Red Dot in military cases and is very accurate.  Mr. Harris did some fantastic precision rifle shooting with this load.  Mr. Harris is also the guy who invented Ed's Red, a bore cleaner that you can assemble at home.

But, each shooter has to answer the question; How much is my time worth?  In my case, and in the context of the posting you asked about, I used that time to introduce my grandson to handloading ammo.

Grandson, Brett, introduced to handloading.

With ammo I've assembled, I also get to spend time with my family over the shooting bench.

2nd son, stretching out the Ruger 77 in .25-06

Is it worth it?  For me the answer is a definite yes!  I get great ammo, spend time with family, pass along information, save money, and have the satisfaction of using ammunition that I have assembled on my bench, or inn my kitchen.  I'm sill using equipment that I purchased over 30 years ago, and I'm still having fun with family ad friends.  Oh and over the years, it's put a lot of meat on the table.

I hope that I've answered your question.  For more information on cast bullet shooting, go to the Frugal Outdoorsma and read some of the articles that Junior and I wrote at the turn of the century.

Reflections on Powder

Flugelman says in comments: 

I had some good results with IMR3031 and Sierra Matchking 168 grain

You're not the first person to report that, but I've always considered 3031 to be a bit fast for the .308.  I've always considered 3031 to be perfect for the .30-30 WIn, and for years, the chant-mantra for reloading was "30 grains of 3031 in the .30-30."  But, even this load will get you in trouble nowadays because about the turn of the century, 3031 changed.  It got a little aster.   We learned that we had to back down to 29 grains for a standard .30-30 load (here, I'm talking about the lever gun load with the 170 grain RN jacketed bullet.)  Of course, the .30-30 shines as a cast bullet cartridge, but we're opening a whole 'nuter wroms when we talk about cast bullets.

I cam to the .308 Win late in my career, simply because I shot so much o it when I worked for Uncle Sam.  It was a commodity, not worth study or reloading.  I simply shot what my Uncle gave me.  But, about 2004 and after finding my pet load, never looked back.  It simply works.  Every rifle I've tried it in gives MOA accuracy as long as the shooter does their part.  Everyone loves those little bug-hole groups, and the .308 will deliver them, time after time.

But, as my interests change over time, I've come to realize that bug-hole groups, while interesting are not the end-all.  Many of the shooters that I know are perfectly capable of shooting tiny groups on the bench, but when you take them away from the bench, simply can't shoot the rifle.  Groups on the nature of 4"-6" are more common.  There is a difference between bench accuracy and field accuracy, and most shooters don't spend enough time away from the bench.  But I digress.  Where was I?

Powder.  We were talking about powder.  3031 is a great, old-time powder, but we have to be careful when we're exploring the limits.  When we're working with a powder as fast as 3031, one grain might get us in trouble.  I like to stay on really conservative ground.

My go-to hunting rifle is an old Savage 110 in .30-06 and when I began reloading for it, I used IMR 4895 exclusively.  4895 is a fine old powder, and very versatile.  I could dig out my old loads, and my readers probably can too.  But, several years go, I decided to simplify and stumbled upon a load for the .30-06 using Reloader 22.  Many hand loaders consider 22 to be too slow for the .30-06, but I've found that if I load it to the base of the neck , then seat a good 168 grain bullet,   I've found that 60.0 grains o RL22 will fill any .30-06 case to the neck, and gives about 2700 fps when it pushes a 165/168 bullet with very good accuracy, better than most of us can use in the field. 

My Savage 110 in .30-06

Roloder 22 is very versatile in a rifle cartridge.  It gives great results in the .243 Win, and is my got-to powder for that cartridge. (100 grain Hornady, 45.5 gr RL22 and WLR primer for over 3100 fps) It's also good in the .25-06, pushing a 115 grain bullet over the 3000 fps mark.  My son uses it in the 7mm Rem Mag, and my brother-in-law uses it in the 270 Winchester.  It's a little slow for the .30-06, but still gives great results with low pressure and great accuracy. 

Which is all to say, I'm done experimenting.  I have my loads, and while other folks may want to push the limits, and make ground-breaking discoveries, I'm past all that.  I have my loads.

My pet loads are here.  They reflect a decade or more of experimenting, and I'm satisfied with the results.  This is not to take anything away from anyone else's favorite loads, and I know that there are a lot of good powders that I don't talk about. 

Back to Basics

I started reloading back in 1976, and quickly became hooked.  With three boys and one daughter that likes to shoot, we lived in the country, and my ammo bill was .. interesting.  So, I started reloading for shotgun, then pistol, and finally for rifle.  For a time, back at the turn of the century, I was the managing editor of a webzine called The Frugal Outdoorsman.  In 2003, I penned an article about reloading on the kitchen table.

Today, I recalled a conversation with my daughter.  It seems that the hunting season is approaching and she was inquiring if I happened to have any spare .308 Win cartridges laying around.  the kids have been scamming ammo from me for years, and I make batter ammo than most of what is on the shelves at the stores, for a whole lot less money.

So, I was digging through my scrounging stocks, and found a bag of once-fired brass, .308 Federal Gold Medal Match, that I found at the local Sheriff's office range.  So, I found my hand press, brought tem inside and decapped them.  Then took them out to the tumbler and gave it a two-hour spin in walnut media.  Shook it all out, inspected it, then dug out the priming tool and went back in the house.

The  garage is currently 96F with 80% humidity.  The house is 70F.  It's much more pleasant inside than it is in the garage.  The priming tool doesn't know the difference, but I do.  It's a lo cooler indoors.

Tomorrow morning, I'll get the scales, powder, funnel, trickler, etc and set up on the kitchen tale.  I'll charge the cases then set up the hand press to set bullets.

For the record, our preferred hunting load for the .308 Win is good brass, seated with WLR primers.  43.0 grains o Alliant Reloder 15 and a decent 168 grain bullet.  Tomorrow, it will be Sierra's good Game King bullets, some I bought several years ago and still have in stock.  But, it could just have easily been Hornady or Nosler.  I've used all three at varying times, and the smallish whitetail deer we have in these parts can't really tell the difference.

I haven't really reloaded any ammo in the past three years.  I've been playing the CFDA game and that reloading is very easy.  It elt good to use my tools on the bench again. 

A Golden Age

Back in 1957, Townsend Whelen said, "Only accurate rifles re interesting."

I believe that to be true, and I believe that we live in a golden age of rifle manufacturing.   The rifles we buy off the shelf today are much more accurate than the rifles we could buy only  20 years ago, much less when compared to the rifles available when Mr. Whelen was shooting.  When I started shooting rifles back in the '70s, about all we could expect were 3" or 4" groups at 100 ards.  If a shooter were chasing the grail of the 1" rifle, it took gunsmithing ability.  You'd take the metal out of the stock, hog out the wood and bed the rifle in fiberglass, float the barrel, and adjust or hone the trigger and hope that when you put the rifle back together, you had not done more harm than good.

Likewise the glass.  Scopes in those days were eminently unreliable.  Erectors would break, crosshairs would shift, and recoil of the rifle would shake scopes apart.  It was not at all uncommon to take your lovingly tuned rifle out to the woods on a cold morning to find that the nitrogen had leaked out and the entire inside of the scope had fogged between taking it out of the warm truck and the cold deer stand, making both rifle and scope absolutely useless.

Nowadays, it is absolutely simple to buy a rifle off the shelf, put some inexpensive glass on it, take it to the range and be fairly confident that the rifle will shoot into almost an inch at 100 yards, and that the glass will stand up to the rigors of normal hunting and shooting.   These rifles may not have the beauty and soul of a pre-64 Winchester, or a custom Remington, but by God, they'll shoot.  Regular readers will know that I'm a fan of Savage and Ruger rifles, and will know that I've lovingly tuned several Savage 110's and Ruger 77s to be accurate, reliable, hunting rifles.  It is still possible to do those things, but nowadays if you want a rifle that is simply ready to shoot, go no further than two of my favorites, the Savage Axis and the Ruger American.

A couple of weeks ago I picked up a Ruger American Compact in .308 Winchester.  It has a plastic stock and a bedding block and the cost, out the door was well under $500.00.  Everything I had read about the rifle told me that it was a great little rifle.  My daughter wanted to deer hunt with her husband, and she didn't have a rifle.  She wanted to borrow one of mine,   The little Ruger was on sale, and if she borrowed one of mine, I'd need another.   The next day I found a sale on Leupold VX-1 scopes.  Anytime you can buy a Leopold for under $200 it's a deal, so I picked that up and mounted it on the rifle.  I didn't get a chance to shoot the rifle until yesterday, when my daughter and ounger son went out to their brother's place where he has set up a 100 yard range.

Setting up.  Second son and I at the bench, younger son downrange.

I brought two rifles to shoot.  The Ruger American and my Savage Scout.  I wanted daughter to try them both.  She's a neophyte to rifle shooting and I wanted to give her the experience of both styles.  We quickly bore-sighted the Ruger by the expedient of locking it in a cleaning jig, removing the bolt and looking through the bore toward a 9" gong at 100 yards.    Adjusted the scope to the gong without moving the rifle, then we moved over to the shooting bench.

First shots, getting it on paper.

Three shots later, the little Ruger was on paper, hitting a one-inch dot at 25 yards.

"Okay, " I told my son, "Reach out and hit that six-inch gong at 100 yards.".  He squeezed the trigger and we hard the bullet splash, a satisfying whack.  With the rifle sighted, it was time to have a little fun.  We took turns shooting the rifle, making the gongs dance downrange.  Then we took out the Scout rifle and played with it for a while.

Second Son on the Scout.  It's entirely possible to hit a gong at 100 yards, offhand.

We let my daughter shoot both rifles, discussing the pros and cons of both rifles, the pros and cons of the scope mounting on each, and letting her explore the mysteries of  her first foray into the world of centerfire rifle shooting.

Diging the 6" gong.

After we had gone through over half the available ammo, I asked her which one she liked.

"The American," she replied.  "But I don't want to take your new rifle."

"Why do you think I bought it?", I asked her.  "I've given rifles to all your brothers,.  Now, it's your turn."  In truth, I have my rifles.  I don't need any more, but the chance to shoot something new is always an urge I have trouble passing up.

But, the point of this vignette is that I didn't have to spend a lot of time and effort getting this rifle to the point where I feel confident giving it to her.  Right out of the box, it shoots just fine, and I have no doubt that with an experienced shooter and a still day, it would put bullets in that magical 1" group.  My daughter is a neophyte to rifle shooting, but she has a rifle that should serve her well for many decades, one that she can pass down when it's her turn to stay in the camp.    But, in the intervening decades, I hope that she takes a lot of venison with it, and remembers the day that she first whacked a 6" gong across her brother's range.

And, shooting with family on a backyard range is probably the very best way to spend a Saturday morning.

Author's note. - For the record, my favorite load for the .308 Winchester is one that we stumbled onto a decade or so, ago.  Good brass with a Winchester or CCI large rifle primer.  43.0 grains of Reloder 15 powder and a good 150 or 168 grain bullet.  Depending on your barrel, the 150 will fly at better than 2800 and the 165/168 will run out at about 2650.    With benchrest preparation, it will keep them almost in the same hold.  With normal components, it will stay inside an inch, if the nut behind the stock knows his business.  I have a lot of confidence in this load.

The .357 Revisited

The younger generation is learning what we learned twenty-or-so-years ago.  The .357 magnum is a hoss when properly loaded and shot from a carbine.

Out of a Marlin 1894, the bullets shoot into the front sight (a 6-moa dot) with boring regularity, and they hit the steel plate hard enough to foul it on it's chains, necessitating going downrange to unwind the target from it's stand.

That bullet is a custom, 180 grain, tumble-lube, gas-checked, wide flat nose bullet that a bunch of us designed on the Cast Boolits forum several years ago.  It was designed for the .35 Remington cartridge, but several of us stuffed it into a .357 magnum case with a stiff dose of L'il Gun powder.  And something magical happened.

That bullet runs out of the Marlin at something over 1600 fps and that wide flat meplat hits like the hammer of Thor.  You'll note that the boy said they'd have to walk downrange to un-foul the target from its stand.   I know that particular range, and it's about 80 yards from the firing line to the gong.

It's a great load, out of a light, handy, short carbine that gives sufficient energy out to 100 yards for whitetail deer and hogs.  The .357 magnum and the lever carbine are a great woods-cruising combination.

Pet Loads

All this talk about reduced loads, and my readers will start to think that I'm some sort of wild-eyed lunatic.  The fact is that I make a lot of standard loads and over the years, I've come to rely on them.  I'm also happy to share them.  For example.

.38 Special.  4.3 grains of Unique under a 158 grain semiwadcutter or round nose bullet.
,38 Special .  2.7 grains of Bulseye under a 148 wadcutter.
.357 Magnum. 14.5 grains of 2400 under a 158 semiwadcutter.  You might want a gas check
.44 Special.  7.5 grains of Unique under a 240 SWC.  This is Skeeter's Load.
.44 Magnum.  19.0 grains of 2400 under a 240 SSWC.
.243 Win.   45.5 grains of Reloder 22 under a 100 grain Hornady.  This gives me 3100 fps.
.25-06 Rem.  50.0 grains of Reloder 22 under anyone's 117.  Accurate in every rifle I've shot it in.
.308 Win.  43.0 grains of Reloder 15 under anyone's 165/168.  Very accurate load.
.30-06.  47.0 grains of IMR 4895 under a 150 grain bullet.  This is almost the Garand load
.30-06  61.0 grains of Reloder 19 under a 150 Nosler Ballistic Tip.  This load is getting hot, better than 2900 fps.  Approach with caution.  Kills deer like crazy.
.30-06.  60 grains of Reloder 22 under anyone's 165/168.  This is actually a fairly mild load, showing only 2700 fps across the screens, but it gets the job done in true .30-06 fashion.
and, finally.
.30-30 Win.  29.0 grains of IMR 3031 and anyone's 170 RN bullet.  The go-to load for .30-30 used to be 30 grains of 3031, but at the turn of the century, 3031 changed and everyone backed off a grin.

UPDATE:  How could I forget .45 ACP?  My standard load is 4.5 grains of Bullseye under either a cast or jacketed 230 grain roundnose bullet.    That's the only load I've ever used for that caliber.

Again, all the standard cautions apply, but I think anyone who uses these loads  will be on firm ground.  They've served me for two decades.  As far as I know, they're all published loads, although I have to admit I haven't double-checked this year, but I haven't loaded any centerfire this year.

Again, as in all things, use this data at your own risk.  They work in my guns.  Your guns may be different.

Very Light Loads

Jerry the Greek cautions in comments:

Reference the reloading pages of M.D. Smith, specifically warnings that light powder loads in large capacity cases may cause ... problems.

http://www.reloadammo.com/liteload.htm

Well, yeah. I'm not advocating that anyone use any reloading component in any way that is not a published load.  But some of us are experimenters and go down rabbit holes that are not in the published data.  Some of it is very satisfying, and some of it is not.  There is a lot of trial and error, and for every load I've found that works, I've found ten that, for one reason or another, didn't.

There is a difference between the reduced loads I referenced earlier, and very light loads I've experimented with.  For example, the .30-30 load I published that uses H4895 is safe, effective, and comes right off the Hodgdon reloading pages.

Very light loads are entirely different.  I don't publish my very light loads because I can't control what someone else might do.  Many handloaders don't want to go there.  For good reason.  Many of us do go there.  I don't recommend it, but it is smoothing that some of us do.

Handloading ammunition is a safe and effective way to reduce your ammo costs, have good quality ammo, and enjoy the craftsmanship that goes with producing quality ammo.  Use loads from well respected sources and pay attention to detail.  

All the standard disclaimers apply.

Doing Science

We got out the chronograph this morning to obtain data.  The data is weirdly inconsistent, but it's data nonetheless.  It's time to re-set and make some changes.

The brass is tumbling right now.  If we get time, we'll try again later this week.

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.

Adventures with Wax

As regular readers know, I've been a Cowboy Fast Draw Shooter for two years now.  It's an intriguing game, shooting wax bullets at steel targets.  The vast majority of our shooting is done with special cases, cut for shotgun primers, which provides the impulse that drives the bullet toward the target.  That's okay, as far as it goes, but for a handloader, they're not really satisfying.  They lack a certain.. je ne sais quai.

Oh, I like shotgun-primer loads fine for casual shooting, but the limits of them come to light during a big match.  the host club supplies the ammo.  This is for a number of reasons, not the lest  of which is that some of our shooters fly to matches all over the country.    The rule of thumb is to have 100 cartridges loaded and ready to go for each shooter.  If you' have 100 shooters, then you need to have 10,000 rounds on hand.

That's problematic.  I don't know of any club that has 10K pieces of brass on hand, the darned things cost 75 cents apiece.  While that's not unreasonable for the average shooter, when you're talking a sanctioned shoot, even at bulk prices, it costs well over $6500.00  jut for th e brass.  Normally, what a host club will do is borrow brass from other clubs and load during the match.    We orten make this work, but it's never the best solution.  Better to have the ammo loaded and ready to go, so that we can spend time actually running the match.

Luckily, Starline makes .45 Colt brass with enlarged flash holes, and the Association has done some research on what they call a Cowboy Fast Draw Cartridge.  There's a .pdf that explain it, but it's basically a cartridge made from  Starline blank brass, black powder substitute, and a large pistol primer.  This brass costs $186.50 per thousand, which is a hell o a lot more affordable than the shotgun primer brass.

The problem with black powder and the various substitutes, is the same problem that we've always had.  It's dirty, it's messy, and it gives off a big puff of smoke, which makes it unsuitable for working indoors, or even in a covered facility.

I've been a handloader for three decades and at the turn of the century, Junior Doughty and I were playing with reduced loads for the .30-30 WCF.  Over the course of the months we worked on that project, it produced some very satisfying results, but not without the failures and hard work that come with such a project.

In the final analysis, a Cowboy Fast Draw Cartridge is nothing more than a handload with a weird bullet, operating at very low pressures.  It should respond well to common reloading practices and testing.  I need a powder that operates well under low pressure, is relatively clean, and meters well.  Luckily, Hodgdon sells such a powder.  Trail Boss.   So, I got a jug and started this morning trying to work out the loading.

A standard wax bullet is the same diameter as a .45 caliber slug, but it weighs only 17 grains.    We have found that it is best to seat the bullet deeply in the cartridge to get the pressure we need.  The loaded cartridges look like this.

That's my third test batch of ten. cartridges each.    The first hatch was .3cc of Trail Boss.  Velocities were abysmal.  The second batch was .5cc of  Trail Boss.  Velocities were better, but Es and Sd where horrible.  This third batch is .7cc of Trail Boss.  I believe that this will get me to my target velocity of 725 fps.  The bullets are all loaded 0.375 below the case mouth, which is a standard starting point for these cartridges.

This is the trail I'm walking right now.  It's like nothing I've ever done at the loading bench, but the process might be very satisfying.

Two Rugers

Ruger Blackhawks are rugged as hell.  I saw this picture on the Book of Face on a Ruger forum and wonder what the hell the guy did to these two revolvers.

I ca't imagine what it might take to blow the top strap off a Blackhawk, but here ya go.

The guy really needs to review the basics of his handloading procedure.  He got something horribly wrong.

The .25-06 Remington

My love affair with the .25-06 Remington began back in 1978 as a young lieutenant in the Army.  Sitting at my desk one day, I happened to read an article in Gun Digest about the cartridge.  Some gun writer or another was talking about the cartridge in the Ruger Model 77 rifle.  I admit I was smitten, but on a lieutenant's pay, with one kid and one on the way, I didn't have the spare cash.

Designed by the renowned Charles Newton in 1912, it's certainly not a new cartridge.  It was a wildcat for many years, until being standardized by Remington in 1969.  It was a whiz-bang cartridge back then and it's a whiz-bang cartridge today.  I bought my first one in 2008, a used Ruger 77 off the resale rack at a pawn shop.  Even then, it was the older, tang-safety model and I got a good price on it.  I took it home, studied it, and started searching about for brass and bullets.  I started with a load of Reloder 22, 50.0 grains, which filled the cartridge to the case neck, then seated one of Sierra's 117 grain Gameking bullets on it.

When I took it to the range, I got settled on the bags and started shooting a string, it threw them all into 0.8" at 100 yards with boring regularity.  On a later trip, I got out my chronograph and pushed those little Sierrras over the screens.  The numbers showed 2971 fps with a low Sd and Es, and I said the hell with load development.  I was done.  An old used rifle, turning those numbers with MOA accuracy is nothing to sneeze at.

Since then, I've bought four rifles in that caliber.  Two Savages, and another Ruger, and they all turn in great accuracy, each of then below MOA with that same load.  I am of the same opinion now that I was in 2008; don't mess with it. And, I admit today that I don't currently own a rifle in .25-06.  They went to family members who showed a liking for the cartridge, like my daughter-in-law, who I featured earlier in a post.

That grin is the one that I usually get when someone shoots that rifle.  Women and young shooters find it easy to hit with an accurate rifle, and the .25-06 is accurate.  It has lighter recoil than many other long-action cartridges, the long, slender Gameking, or an equivalent bullet from Hornady or one of the other manufacturers carries well, and from what I can tell from the gong targets we shoot, it hits like the hammer of Thor.

I consider the .25-06 Remington to be one of the pre-eminent cartridges for medium game in the US today.  Why it hasn't caught on with more shooters today is a mystery.  Maybe because it's not a "new" cartridge and the gun writers don't talk about it much, but like its parent, the 30-06, it's just as useful today as it was when Newton designed it, over a hundred years ago.

Last week, my son came over and asked if I'd reload some for him.  We looked at my stock of bullets and I found that I was out.  There were no more of those lovely, slender 117 Gemkings on the shelf.  I fixed that today by ordering some bullets and some extra brass.  For a hundred-year-old cartridge, it's got a lot to offer.

Cast Bullets in the .30-30

The family was sitting around the back porch on Sunday, waiting for the pork chops to finish roasting, when second son asks me,  "Pop, do you know anything about shooting cast bullets in rifles?"

I gave him that mysterious smile that old men give to young'uns, and he continued.  "I've been thinking about the .30-30.  That long neck should give plenty of support."

I chuckled, left the porch and went into the shop.  When I came back, I had two white boxes of .30-30 ammo. I dropped them in his lap.  "Yeah, I've thought about it."

Back in 2001, Junior Doughty and I started a website called The Frugal Outdoorsman.  Junior died a couple of years ago, and his daughter is keeping the site alive, and there is a wealth of information on that site that she wants to keep as a legacy to her dad.  I applaud her for keeping the site alive.  It's still a well-sourced website for shooting, hunting, and some of the more archaic facets of our game. Like shooting cast bullets in rifles.

Junior loved the .30-30, he loved cast bullets, and he tried to wring all the accuracy possible out of his Buffalo Bill commemorative with his favorite cast bullet, the Lee C309-170F.  He thought it was the cat's meow for the cartridge and did good work with it.  Junior was able to get groups of under two inches with his commemorative, using iron sights.  Junior's magnum opus was a piece called "Optimum Accuracy with Cast Bullets in a 30-30 Winchester Model 94.  It's still online and well worth the read.

For the record, I have just exactly two cast bullet loads that I like in my .30-30,  The first features the inestimable Lyman 311041.  It is a gas checked, bore riding bullet that weighs about 170 grains when cast from good alloy.  I double-dip it in liquid alox and load it over 27.0 grains of IMR 4895.  It's good for about 1750 fps,out of my Model 94 and I can get an honest 3" group with that ammo at 100 yards when I do my part.  That's the bees knees for deer and hogs in the thick woods.

One day I watched Junior Doughty shoot a 3/4 inch group with that ammo in a scoped Handi rifle.  It's good ammo, and I see no reason to change a thing.

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.

But, yeah, to answer my son's question, I've thought about cast bullets in rifles.