Reduced load for .30 WCF

[vancelw]

I know this has been discussed before, but my searching didn't drag up exactly what I was looking for....

My dad is in poor health and doesn't need a lot of recoil. I want to load some reduced recoil or cat sneeze loads for him to shoot out of his dad's 1906 version of a Winchester 1894.

I have gobs of cast .312 bullets intended for .32-20 in weights from 85 to 115 gr. I can resize them or can I use them as-is? I have several rifle and pistol powders available.

Has anyone here everl worked up a load using .312 cast bullets? Care to share either here or via PM? I promise to work up my own load after I get a starting place so there's no liability on you for sharing!!!

I'm hoping to get Dad to shooting at 50 to 75 yards as some clays or milk jugs. I don't have any round ball moulds that would work. MY only .308 mould is a 173 gr Lyman. I was hoping to use a lighter bullet than that.

Thanks!

[w30wcf]

If your rifle will chamber a cartridge with a .312 bullet in it, then you are good to go.
6 grs of Trail Boss, 4756, Unique, Universal, will produce close to 1,200 f.p.s with the 115 gr and a bit more with the lighter bullets and should be pretty accurate.

w30wcf

[vancelw]

Thanks. I'll load up a dummy round and see if it will chamber before I go any farther. I do have some Unique here at the house.

[Sixgun]

Vance,
My good friend Jack Kort (above) is the men of all men when it comes to cast bullets. I will second his recommendation. My all time "out back load" for cast bullets of any weight in the 30-30, 32 Spl., 32-40 is 6 to 7 grains of Unique....loose in the case and like Jack says, the 312 will be fine....as long as it will chamber and it most likely will as I size .311 for my 30-30 which is about 6 of them.-

A little more spiffy load is 20 grains of 5744 with a 175 gr for like 1800---6

[vancelw]

6, I have gobs of 5744, buy it 8 pounds at a time. Cause I can I did notice some 5744 loads in my Accurate #2 manual. I may start on the low end and see if I need to work down.

At 85, my dad's pelvis is eaten up with cancer, so his bones are fragile. He has had a subdural hematoma in the past. So...I want to keep the recoil as low as I can without making one stick in the barrel. I gotta get off my butt and get him shooting while he still can, even if he had to sit at a bench to do it.

This old carbine has been in the family a long time. No telling how many whitetail it has killed. My dad had 8 brothers/sisters and I had 27 first cousins. Most of us used this 1894 at one time or another. I may add mule deer to it's list one fall.

[earlmck]

I've been shooting 117 grain 32/20 cast bullets in several of my 30 calibers. Mostly they will chamber OK with a .312 bullet but that size bullet is too large for the chamber throat and so has to be seated deep. This deep seating is OK in my Marlin but not in any of the others. So my other 30's get bullets sized to .309 which allows the bullets to be seated out a little farther to take advantage of the chamber throat area, and they feed better. My danged 300 savages, however, will need the bullet a bit smaller yet, 'cause even the .309 is too large for their throat area. And I don't yet have a .308 size die. The 300 Savages are both giving me feeding problems with the short cartridges.

But if the model 94 feeds short rounds OK you won't need to worry about getting a bit extra length using the throat, so leaving bullets .312 will be fine. This bullet is shooting nicely from all my rifles but it is not feeding smoothly from all of them.

I've been using 10 grains of Green Dot from the 30/30 or 30 Rem for about 1700 fps (11 grains from 300 Savage or 308 Win for about the same velocity). This is much warmer than the 6 grain loads and would be way to fast for a plain based bullet (mine is a gas check design). If I were shooting a plain base bullet I'd use 5.5 to 6 grains of the Green Dot (or Unique, or Red Dot, or.... what ever I had in that range) for 1250 to 1300 fps.

[Sixgun]

Vance,
Good ole Earl also gave some excellent advice.

I hate hearing stories like what your dad is going through. He worked hard his whole life. Probably did not have anywhere near the play time you and I have had in our lifetimes and it all ends with pain. Sucks brother. Your dad and my dad are only one year apart. My dad passed on in '07. I think about him everyday.

As for the 6 grains of Unique load, it would be fine even with the 170 grain bullets....as to recoil....won't be hardly any at all. Set up a steel plate for him......he will get a kick out of smacking it around.

Best of luck for your dad-----6

[Alan in Vermont]

I have a mess of light bullets that I have been playing with for just what you want to do.

93 gr Lee RN loaded with anywhere from 2.7 to 3.5 grs Bullseye.

NOE 311008, listed as 115 gr, mine come out at 120-124, depending on alloy used. So far I have only shot them over 5 grs Bullseye and they have proven to be wonderfully accurate.

PM me your address and I will send you a bunch of them, all of one or some of both, sized either .309 or .311 (your choice) and lubed with NRA formula 50-50. The 311008 shoot better than the 93 Lee in the two 94s we have here but neither one is too shabby out to 50 yds, haven't shot them further yet. Our guns prefer .309 but only marginally. Neither load has any appreciable recoil.

[AJMD429]

At 85, my dad's pelvis is eaten up with cancer, so his bones are fragile. He has had a subdural hematoma in the past. So...I want to keep the recoil as low as I can without making one stick in the barrel. I gotta get off my butt and get him shooting while he still can, even if he had to sit at a bench to do it.

That is awesome that you are getting him out 'afield'. I've helped some terminally ill friends get out to the range or hunt, and it's as much 'vitality' as we outdoorsy types ever get to have. Pretty cool...

[vancelw]

Thanks, guys. Alan I will send a PM. I've got to get busy and get this done so I don't fool around and wait too long

My dad was raised by poor sharecroppers. Poor, but rich in other ways. Never had much, but died debt free, just like my dad wants to. He preached full-time from his mid 20's until probably 5 years or so ago, and worked 2 or 3 other blue-collar jobs to pay the bills.
I'm so glad there were no video games and not much TV when I was a kid. Spent most of my spare time catching crawdads, fishing (with and without firearms ), snake-hunting, and just roaming the woods. Never could afford many guns other than a shotgun and a .22. So....once I got out on my own and could afford some, I tried to buy every gun in the world It's a sickness, I tell ya.

I'll post an update once I get something worked up. I've never posted a pic of this old carbine on the forum. I've been quizzing my cousins, trying to find a certain pic of my grandfather with it.

[Catshooter]

vance,

The loads given, such as the six grains of Unique will give so little recoil your dad will probably laugh out loud with the first shot. I know I did.

Good on you for caring enough for your father to do this for him. The really important things in life are not money and can't be bought.


Cat

[mark]

MY only .308 mould is a 173 gr Lyman. I was hoping to use a lighter bullet than that.

Thanks!

Morning, I load a plain base 165gn cast bullet on top of 8gns of Blue Dot, accurate and pretty easy to live with.

Yesterday, I cast two hundred 115gn Lee FN projectiles, I'll try 8-10gns of BD. Trying to replicate the old 310 Greener loading for metallic silhouette.

Thanks for looking after your father.

Cheers Mark

[Chuck 100 yd]

I get very good accuracy with plinker loads in the .30-30 using Trail Boss.

[JReed]

Junior (rip) used to load 310 round balls over unique. Tried it in my 303brit once It is like shooting 22's. They shoot great out to 25yrd or so.
http://www.castbullet.com/shooting/rb30.htm

[DerekR]

I run .312 cast through a Lee sizer to .311 and load them over 7 grains of Unique. My rifle likes em.

[vancelw]

Well, I got to looking in my stash and found a new box of Berry's 71 gr .312 bullets intended for .32 H&R loads.
I also had a new, unopened 8# keg of AA #5.

So I loaded 2 rounds of .30 WCF with the 71 gr Berry's and 6.0 gr of AA#5 and 2 with 115 gr Magnus (Lyman style) cast bullets.
Had to use the M die from my Lyman .32-20 set to get the bullets started. My lack of experience didn't get them opened up enough, so I shaved quite a bit of lead on the cast bullets. I'll know to be a little more aggressive next time and also get me a Lee FCD for .30-30.

I used my 1994 model 94AE trapper to test fire, watching for impact downrange. All cycled and chambered, and fired without incident.
All the primers looked good after firing. Recoil was more than I expected, but both my trapper and the old carbine are pretty light.

I went back to the bench and loaded 6 more with the 71 gr Berry's and same powder charge, then went and got Pa's 1906 mfg gun. I fired 3 offhand at 25 and hit the bottom half of the bull. The 3 at 50 were low. I will have to see if I can coax up the other leaves on that express sight without bending or breaking them. Time to get the Kroil out.
All 6 rounds fed through the action perfectly. Only issue I had was the llifter didn't want to drop far enough to let me open the loading gate. I had to coax it down with my knife blade. I hope a good cleaning and oiling will fix that.

Next time I get a chance, I'm going to load 10 or 20 and get the chrony out. See if I can get that middle blade up and get it hitting in the black at 50 yards.

Thanks for all your input guys...it got me on the right track.

[Alan in Vermont]

Vance, I did some casting again today, sized some of what I cast and some that were cast a couple years ago. There is a care package heading your way tomorrow with 346 NOE 311008 and 320 Lee 3**-93-RN inside. Both are sized to .311 and lubed with NRA 50-50. The lube may not fare too well in your summer heat. I thought about that after they were all done but since I don't have any other lubes in my supply (never felt the need) the issue was pretty much moot.

[Shasta]

Express sight!? Boy O boy I'd like to see a picture of that! I've never had one but I always thought they were pretty cool!

It sure is great that you can help get your Pop out to do some shooting. Be sure to take pictures!

SHASTA

[vancelw]

Thanks Alan! I'll give them a proper try.

Shasta, according the the book (I can't remember the name, but you know which collector book I'm talking about that includes 1894s and 1895s...I'm too lazy to go look ) the express sight is so common that it does not increase collector value and may even detract. 4
No for me, because this used to belong to my Pa! And now it's my Dad's. My cousins like to opine that it may have been great-grandpa's due to it's mfg date being the year before our Pa was born, but I'm sure he traded for it and it was used when he got it.

The forearm is worn from being carried so much.