30-30 Birdshot

04rubicon

04rubicon

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North of all the fuss
I was wondering if anyone has ever made up some birdshot for their hunting rifle. I have a few hundred 30-30 casings laying around if anyone is interested in making some birdshot for me i'd be wil ing to pay for it and supply the casings.
 
Birdshot in a bottlenecked case would be limited to loading shot and wads in the parallel section of the neck only. In a 30-30 the neck is relatively long, but if you managed to manufacture some tiny little .30 cal wads and cobbled some loads together, you'd still have a pretty useless cartridge. Read some of the threads about shooting .22 shot loads in a rifled barrel. Patterns are really patchy after about 15 ft.
 
I agree, as i have made birdshot loads with alot of different cases but all were basically straight wall cases, i don't think I would try it with cases having a shoulder. It may build up alot of pressure as well as try to take half the case down the barrel with the shot.
 
If you want to get a low noise/low recoil load for your 30-30 to shoot grouse with, get a cast bullet and some Trailboss, and make some subsonic loads for it.
 
I have done a lot of playing with #5 - 71/2 shot in my 45/70.

One way I have gone is to put the contents of a 3" .410 shell into the brass casing. That worked pretty well. I sealed it with cardboard wads and some metallic blue nail polish I found somewhere. pretty sure it wasn't mine... :)

10-12 gr of unique and about the same amount of shot works well too. Neither are very loud compared to a real shell.

All of this has a max range on grouse of 10-15 feet. I hit one with the 3" .410 load last year at about 20 feet and it took off like I lit it's ass on fire so they are not very effective. I would bet money that an actual .410 with that shell would have terminated that grouse at that distance.

I bought a mold for round balls and I have yet to really play with them much but I will before hunting season. Again with Unique or trailboss.

Since you have a 30-30 though, my advice is a hammonds game getter. It's easy to look up. You use .22 construction blanks and lead balls out of his specially modded cartridge for your rifle. He's done a lot of testing and will give you a lot of good advice. I've seen the stuff online and met him at gunshows, but I am yet to admit that I need help with my problem :)

Ryan
 
Don't bother. Shot out of a rifled barrel flies in a spiral, sending the shot who knows where. Patterns tend to have great, big, holes.
 
Years ago I came across a 79gr ball load for 375 Win in Lyman #46 manual. Did some extrapolating and comparing and came up with a load for my 32 special. Used buckshot, 000 I believe. Powder was 4227 probably, because thats what i had. Don't remember how much, but I figured the load had about the same snort as a 22 mag. POI was dead on the sights at 25m, and yes I did shoot several grouse with them. I still have a few left and throw a couple in my pocket when hunting with that rifle. One caveat thought, soft lead ball not conductive to long plinking sessions.
 
From "Pet Loads" by Ken Waters, here is a pretty good (pretty accurate and light recoiling) handload for a 30-30 chambered rifle.
Sierra 110 grain M-1 round nose, (made for WW2 M-1 Carbine) and 27.2 grains of IMR 4198.

Anyways in my 1954 made Winchester M94, 1.5 inch groups, were the average at 100 yards, from a rest, with no wind.
If using the soft point bullet, I would not call this an edible small game load, velocity about 2700 fps,I think.

Cheers & good luck.
 
04rubicon said:
yep potting grouse is exactly what i was thinking....
check birdshot is out, thanks anyways. what's the deal with cast bullets and what is trailboss? Any help would be appriciated
Click to expand...

Trailboss is a powder made by IMR. It's pretty unique looking and it fills a case up even with a little in it.

I use about 9gr Trailboss (IIRC) and a165gr cast bullet in a 30-30. This load is going about 900 fps, it's very quiet and when it hits a grouse it won't expand, just drill a 30 caliber hole through it, so it won't blow the grouse up if you miss it's head and hit the body.

I started at the minimum load of Trailboss listed, and worked down until I got what I wanted.
 
A load that existed before Trailboss came along, was a 32 caliber round ball (buy 'em at the gun shop) seated on top of a 30-30 case with thumb pressure.
The load was six grains of Bullseye.
Good for 20 yards or so on grouse
 
I load Lee 93 grain over 5 grains of 700X or Unique in 30-30. Works like a charm. Can't say that I've brought any game home with it, but have killed a lot of paper. Great for indoor range.:p:p
 
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