How to find out what commercial ammo is available? Finding available 220gr in 30-06

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huntingfish

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I want to try using 220gr in 30-06 (at least once at the range, to see what they are like). I'm wondering what are my choices with commercial ammo...I tried going to cabelas.ca, looking at their offerings in 30-06 and seeing if any are 220gr...but the pickings are slim.

Where do you guys go to see an extensive list of commercial ammo offerings that's filterable?

Cheers,

Fish

PS: Bonus question, I've read that 220gr partition are available for reloaders, but I can't find info on if anyone offers a commercial ammo with these. Any ideas?
 
Fish,

you can find Federal and Remington 220 grains.

i know a french reloading company that did reload the 220 grains nosler partition but it was not for the local market. maybe Nosler is reloading it too.
 
No commercial 220gr Partition loads I am aware of. I do reload them and love the 220gr Partition and feel it is one of the most under appreciated bullets. It is extremely effective in real world situations.
 
I have several boxes of 220s and 250 commercial loads in 30.06 that I've acquired years ago. Its my opinion that bullets exceeding 200 grains for 30.06 have lost their peak efficiency in velocity and energy. All you have is a fat slow bullet that does not perform as well as a 180grain, for close shooting as nor long. You don't gain anything with an over-heavy bullet.
 
hoytcanon said:
I like the 180's for .30/06... have tried 200's... but the difference seemed moot.
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I've used both (Partitions) in the .30/06 and prefer the 200. I don't really find a downside to using a 200 Partition vs the old standby 180gr Partition. The has a much better BC - I mean real BC, not claimed - and it does very well at longer ranges. Would it make a difference on a deer? I don't believe so. But I'd rather have the 200 on an elk.

stubblejumper said:
Most companies don't bother with them, because with today's bullets. you don't need a 220, or even 200gr bullet for hunting with the 30-06.
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I think there a situations where you want to combine the penetration of a lighter monolithic with the larger diameter wound channel of a Partition. Very heavy, potentially dangerous game and thick timber come to mind. Phil Shoemaker did some excellent testing a while back using beached whales as a test medium. He uses 200gr or 220gr Partitions when he has his .30-06 in hand. In fact he posted a picture of a huge bear he had to shoot with his .30-06 after his client wounded it. Very impressive performance.
 
1899 said:
I've used both (Partitions) in the .30/06 and prefer the 200. I don't really find a downside to using a 200 Partition vs the old standby 180gr Partition. The has a much better BC - I mean real BC, not claimed - and it does very well at longer ranges. Would it make a difference on a deer? I don't believe so. But I'd rather have the 200 on an elk.



I think there a situations where you want to combine the penetration of a lighter monolithic with the larger diameter wound channel of a Partition. Very heavy, potentially dangerous game and thick timber come to mind. Phil Shoemaker did some excellent testing a while back using beached whales as a test medium. He uses 200gr or 220gr Partitions when he has his .30-06 in hand. In fact he posted a picture of a huge bear he had to shoot with his .30-06 after his client wounded it. Very impressive performance.
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200 grain partitions for elk at 150 yards would be pretty good argument for, 180's for deer over 300 yards or so might be the only argument against I'd think.
 
cody c said:
200 grain partitions for elk at 150 yards would be pretty good argument for, 180's for deer over 300 yards or so might be the only argument against I'd think.
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So consider a 180gr at 2800fps and a 200gr at 2650fps and sight both in for 200 yards at 3000' elevation.

At 400 yards the 200gr drops 24.2", is going 2038fps, and has 1844 ft-lbs of energy.
At 400 yards the 180gr drops 24.0", is going 1946fps, and has 1514 ft-lbs of energy.

The only point with the numbers is that the 200gr is deceptively good. Try it out at longer distances side by side with the 180gr. I think you will be very pleasantly surprised.
 
Boomer said:
For new commercial 220 gr .30/06 ammo, I think Remington and Federal are your best bets, but they won't be loaded to the cartridge's potential.
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There is the key to them, they won't be loaded to the cartridge's potential!
And I have never heard much good said about them by experienced, observant hunters.
People look at that long bullet and think it should really penetrate. In reality, they just do not penetrate like one would think they should. I knew a shooter of many moose and elk from the meat hunting days that tried the 220 CIL in his 30-06 and was not impressed. He went back to lighter bullets.
I shot a moose through the ribs with a 220 CIL in a 30-06 and it made the nice looking black streak of cut hair in the snow behind the moose. on another moose the bullet did not go through the animal.
One time a mule deer buck stood facing me from about forty yards. I put the bead of the 30-06 on the centre of his chest and let fly with a 220 grain bullet. The bullet only went abut half way through the buck.
Jack O'Connor's take on the blunt nosed 220 with lots lead exposed, was they were extremely accurate when loaded with a 30-06 case full of H4831, or equivalent. But he also didn't think they penetrated any better than did a strong 180 grain bullet.
 
Bruce - I chronographed a couple of 180gr Imperial loads. They were at 2400fps. Some were in the high 2300's and others in low 2400's. I really wonder what the 220's were doing!

Edit - I also found that at 200 yards the 220gr Partition penetrated about 30% further than a 180gr Partition fired into the same piece of wet wood. Yes, I know wet wood does not = animal tissue. I'll post pictures of the recovered bullets later today.
 
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1899 said:
Bruce - I chronographed a couple of 180gr Imperial loads. They were at 2400fps. Some were in the high 2300's and others in low 2400's. I really wonder what the 220's were doing!
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That sounds like IVI Imperial!
The head stamps on IVI and the old CIL Imperial, are so similar as to be undistinguished between the two. I have both types of Imperial, CIL and IVI, in calibres of 30-30 and 303 British. The head stamps are so similar that one can't tell them apart, once they are out of the box. The sure way is to check them with a chronograph! The IVI Imperial have the lowest velocity of any factory cartridge I have ever shot over a chronograph.
My first encounter with them was a way back when I had my Ruger 77 243. We bought a box of 243, 100 grain, shortly after IVI took over the CIL commercial ammunition. I tested five with a Oehler 33 chronograph. On the box it said they had a velocity of 3100 fps, or maybe it was 3200, I forget for sure, but here are the results;
A low of 2473 and a high of 2602, with an average of 2540 and es of 125!
My first thought was something was wrong with the chronographing. So without moving the Oehler, or the rifle on the resting table, I took out my hand loads, 47 grains of Norma 205, with the 100 grain bullet in 243 and shot five. The high was 3112 and the low was 3069, for an es of 43 and they averaged 3094 fps!
I have tested the odd old CIL loaded cartridge of different calibres and they averaged very close to what it was stated they would go. Thai is, the 30-30 CIL made about exactly 2200 fps, with 170 grain bullets. I have also tested some other IVI Imerial and found themn to be sadly lacking, but I don't have the figures.
Going back to your 200 grain partition, I found that only a half grain more Norma 205 in my 30-06 than their listing showed, gave me 2700 fps, just like the Norma listing showed!
Bruce
 
H4831 said:
That sounds like IVI Imperial!
The head stamps on IVI and the old CIL Imperial, are so similar as to be undistinguished between the two. I have both types of Imperial, CIL and IVI, in calibres of 30-30 and 303 British. The head stamps are so similar that one can't tell them apart, once they are out of the box. The sure way is to check them with a chronograph! The IVI Imperial have the lowest velocity of any factory cartridge I have ever shot over a chronograph.
My first encounter with them was a way back when I had my Ruger 77 243. We bought a box of 243, 100 grain, shortly after IVI took over the CIL commercial ammunition. I tested five with a Oehler 33 chronograph. On the box it said they had a velocity of 3100 fps, or maybe it was 3200, I forget for sure, but here are the results;
A low of 2473 and a high of 2602, with an average of 2540 and es of 125!
My first thought was something was wrong with the chronographing. So without moving the Oehler, or the rifle on the resting table, I took out my hand loads, 47 grains of Norma 205, with the 100 grain bullet in 243 and shot five. The high was 3112 and the low was 3069, for an es of 43 and they averaged 3094 fps!
I have tested the odd old CIL loaded cartridge of different calibres and they averaged very close to what it was stated they would go. Thai is, the 30-30 CIL made about exactly 2200 fps, with 170 grain bullets. I have also tested some other IVI Imerial and found themn to be sadly lacking, but I don't have the figures.
Going back to your 200 grain partition, I found that only a half grain more Norma 205 in my 30-06 than their listing showed, gave me 2700 fps, just like the Norma listing showed!
Bruce
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Some good velocity data on those old loads we used from yesteryear. Thanks for this. The Imperial 30/30 in my old Marlin Texan would back out the primers at sub zero temps, I'm guessing the load was very, very mild and the deer hit solidly with them at very close range exhibited no destructive damage whatsoever except a long wound channel. No bang flop here, hence my disgust for the 30WCF at the time. A .308Win with interlocks would flatten like a 1000tonne press compared to them.
I'm giving the old WCF a second chance this fall, first time in over thirty-thirty years;), armed again with a short barreled carbine, but the Leverevolution FTX this time, so we'll see if the old cartridge has come to life with these.
In the penetration dept, I recall the old Dominion 215gr KKSP's in the .303 would shoot through some nasty sized Fir trees. They only claimed 2170fps for those, do you know what they actually clocked at Bruce?
 
huntingfish said:
I want to try using 220gr in 30-06 (at least once at the range, to see what they are like). I'm wondering what are my choices with commercial ammo...I tried going to cabelas.ca, looking at their offerings in 30-06 and seeing if any are 220gr...but the pickings are slim.

Where do you guys go to see an extensive list of commercial ammo offerings that's filterable?

Cheers,

Fish

PS: Bonus question, I've read that 220gr partition are available for reloaders, but I can't find info on if anyone offers a commercial ammo with these. Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Not aware of any company offering 220gr Nosler Partition loads. The only 220gr factory loads I've seen recently are Remington Core-Lokt and Federal blue box. Hornady makes a 220gr RN 30-06 in their Custom line, but in all honesty I've never seen a box of this for sale...

Most manufacturers like Federal have their entire product lines listed and filterable on their web site. You just have to go there and look at their 30-06 offerings. Takes about 2 minutes per manufacturer. Except Remington... their website is terrible...

Edit: I checked Norma too, they don't list a 220gr, but have 200gr 30-06 in their Oryx line.
 
RememberTheSomme said:
Some good velocity data on those old loads we used from yesteryear. Thanks for this. The Imperial 30/30 in my old Marlin Texan would back out the primers at sub zero temps, I'm guessing the load was very, very mild and the deer hit solidly with them at very close range exhibited no destructive damage whatsoever except a long wound channel. No bang flop here, hence my disgust for the 30WCF at the time. A .308Win with interlocks would flatten like a 1000tonne press compared to them.
I'm giving the old WCF a second chance this fall, first time in over thirty-thirty years;), armed again with a short barreled carbine, but the Leverevolution FTX this time, so we'll see if the old cartridge has come to life with these.
In the penetration dept, I recall the old Dominion 215gr KKSP's in the .303 would shoot through some nasty sized Fir trees. They only claimed 2170fps for those, do you know what they actually clocked at Bruce?
Click to expand...

Your primers coming out are interesting. When I build up a load for the lever actions, in this case a Marlin 35 Remington with 200 grain bullets, I load the maximum charge as shown by Hodgdon on line, in this case 3031, which they show as 37.5 grains, giving 2110. In the real world that load gave 1907 fps on my Chrony. I then keep adding more 3031 until the speed comes up to what they give. In this case it took 39 grains to get it up to a good 2,000.
At the "maximum" load shown by Hodgdon, the primers back out! But when I get the speed up to what they claim, the base of the cartridges are flat as a pancake!
Exactly the same thing happens with the 30-30! At the maximum loads shown by Hodgdon, or I presume by modern loading manuals, the primers back out to whatever headspace there is between that rifle and that cartridge. But when I get the speed up to what it should be, the primers are pushed back in flat with the base!
I have tested five old Dominion 35 Remington cartridges with 200 grain bullets and they averaged 2054 fps and of course, there were no protruding primers.
You mentioned testing the old 215 grain 303 loads. I don't have the 215 grain loads, but I do have 180 grain 303 in each of CIL Imperial and IVI Imperial, so I thought that would be an interesting test for velocity. Then damn, I just realized I don't have a 303 rifle! I gave one to each of my two sooting grand sons, so sometime I will borrow one and do the testing.
I do have 30-30 Imperial ammunition in both varieties, plus the best Savage 30-30 bolt action I ever had, which is just itching to be shot some more, so I see that test coming up!
Bruce
 
Moving a bit off topic I guess, but a 2700fps reading on the chronograph with 150gr Imperial ammunition out of a 7mm RM is what kick-started my reloading habit. That was about 30 years ago. Interestingly the year before that my father shot a moose with that ammo and the moose died.
 
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