Well men, I was getting a little stir-crazy in my office, and I realized I hadn't been getting enough range time. At lunch hour, I headed down the road to the range to try out three different loads. Here's the report.
The levergun: A Winchester model 94, 30-30, made in 1954. It is the only gun I have a name for .... Old Savage. It is a good name, and fitting for the Canadian wilderness, where it will be my camp gun when canoeing and camping with my wife and kids in remote areas. I'm also hoping to bag a deer with it come fall. Here's a photo I took after getting back from the range ...
The three loads that were tried:
Load #1: 177 grain hard cast gas check bullet over 27 grains of IMR 3031. These bullets had fat butts and I couldn't get the gas checks on all the way. I got them half way on, but the bottoms of the gas checks were a bit concave. I couldn't even hammer them on without mushing the bullet. I wasn't sure what this would do for accuracy, but I wasn't betting the farm on spectacular results.
Load #2: 150 grain, gas check bullet over 30 grains of IMR 3031
Load #3: 150 grain Speer JFP over 30 grains of IMR 3031.
All charges were plus or minus half a grain (my dadgummed powder measure has a hard time with IMR 3031. Someday, I need to try RL 7.)
Results for Load #1:
This load chrono'd at 1,989 fps, with an E.S. of 114 fps and a S.D. of 37 fps. Ten shots were fired at the target below. As you can see, this load was no great shakes. One shot didn't even hit the paper .... matter of fact, I couldn't even find it on the spanking new back board, which extended beyond the paper about 6" all around. I figure this is a bad load, but I think it is primarily due to the fact that I couldn't get the gas checks all the way on. The butts were too fat for those thick Hornady gas checks. Here's the target (the bullet in the photo has the gas check beside it because I used up all the ones that I managed to get the copper diaper on) ....
Results for Load #2:
This load chrono'd at 2,236 fps, with an E.S. of 98 fps and a S.D. of 34 fps.
Shown below is the first 5-shot group I fired. As you can see, this is a big improvement over load #1. I'm glad about this, because I have a bucket of about 900 of these bullets. This will be my load until I've used them all up. Here's a photo. Again, the as check is beside the bullet in the photo, because I'd used all the ones up that I'd diapered. ....
Results for Load #3:
This load chrono'd at 2,185 fps, with an E.S. of 62 fps and a S.D. of 20 fps. It's always interesting to see how a jacketed bullet goes slower than a cast bullet for the same powder charge. Notice that the E.S. and S.D. is down a bit as well. I'm guessing this is due to the higher resistance of the jacketed bullet raising the pressure a bit, causing more consistent burning. Anyway, I fired 10 shots at the target below. Here's the photo .....
It's nice when a cast bullet equals or beats a jacketed bullet. For you boys who don't think you can use a cast bullet at 2,235 fps and get as good results as with a jacketed, take another look at the photos of the two 150 grain bullets and their targets.
Concluding thoughts:
All the above targets were shot with me sitting at a bench, holding my 30-30, with my forearm hand resting on my shooting bag and my elbow resting on the bench. I was using open iron sights, and I'm out of practice. I figure that Load #2 (the 150 grain cast GC bullet) will group tighter than this, with a little practice. I did some offhand shooting with load #2 as well. At 100 yards, only about 60% of the bullets were in the black and 80% would have been killing shots on a deer at that distance. All this to say that I need some practice with this carbine, and I'm looking forward to practicing offhand shooting for the remainder of the summer. I find shooting a carbine, with its shorter sight radius and light barrel, is more challenging to shoot offhand than some of my old Winchester rifles with a longer, heavier octagon barrel.
The levergun: A Winchester model 94, 30-30, made in 1954. It is the only gun I have a name for .... Old Savage. It is a good name, and fitting for the Canadian wilderness, where it will be my camp gun when canoeing and camping with my wife and kids in remote areas. I'm also hoping to bag a deer with it come fall. Here's a photo I took after getting back from the range ...
The three loads that were tried:
Load #1: 177 grain hard cast gas check bullet over 27 grains of IMR 3031. These bullets had fat butts and I couldn't get the gas checks on all the way. I got them half way on, but the bottoms of the gas checks were a bit concave. I couldn't even hammer them on without mushing the bullet. I wasn't sure what this would do for accuracy, but I wasn't betting the farm on spectacular results.
Load #2: 150 grain, gas check bullet over 30 grains of IMR 3031
Load #3: 150 grain Speer JFP over 30 grains of IMR 3031.
All charges were plus or minus half a grain (my dadgummed powder measure has a hard time with IMR 3031. Someday, I need to try RL 7.)
Results for Load #1:
This load chrono'd at 1,989 fps, with an E.S. of 114 fps and a S.D. of 37 fps. Ten shots were fired at the target below. As you can see, this load was no great shakes. One shot didn't even hit the paper .... matter of fact, I couldn't even find it on the spanking new back board, which extended beyond the paper about 6" all around. I figure this is a bad load, but I think it is primarily due to the fact that I couldn't get the gas checks all the way on. The butts were too fat for those thick Hornady gas checks. Here's the target (the bullet in the photo has the gas check beside it because I used up all the ones that I managed to get the copper diaper on) ....
Results for Load #2:
This load chrono'd at 2,236 fps, with an E.S. of 98 fps and a S.D. of 34 fps.
Shown below is the first 5-shot group I fired. As you can see, this is a big improvement over load #1. I'm glad about this, because I have a bucket of about 900 of these bullets. This will be my load until I've used them all up. Here's a photo. Again, the as check is beside the bullet in the photo, because I'd used all the ones up that I'd diapered. ....
Results for Load #3:
This load chrono'd at 2,185 fps, with an E.S. of 62 fps and a S.D. of 20 fps. It's always interesting to see how a jacketed bullet goes slower than a cast bullet for the same powder charge. Notice that the E.S. and S.D. is down a bit as well. I'm guessing this is due to the higher resistance of the jacketed bullet raising the pressure a bit, causing more consistent burning. Anyway, I fired 10 shots at the target below. Here's the photo .....
It's nice when a cast bullet equals or beats a jacketed bullet. For you boys who don't think you can use a cast bullet at 2,235 fps and get as good results as with a jacketed, take another look at the photos of the two 150 grain bullets and their targets.
Concluding thoughts:
All the above targets were shot with me sitting at a bench, holding my 30-30, with my forearm hand resting on my shooting bag and my elbow resting on the bench. I was using open iron sights, and I'm out of practice. I figure that Load #2 (the 150 grain cast GC bullet) will group tighter than this, with a little practice. I did some offhand shooting with load #2 as well. At 100 yards, only about 60% of the bullets were in the black and 80% would have been killing shots on a deer at that distance. All this to say that I need some practice with this carbine, and I'm looking forward to practicing offhand shooting for the remainder of the summer. I find shooting a carbine, with its shorter sight radius and light barrel, is more challenging to shoot offhand than some of my old Winchester rifles with a longer, heavier octagon barrel.
