reloading first .30-06 round...couple questions

awesomeame

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Not new to reloading, just first time doing .30-06...not hunting with it, just practice shooting out to a max of 100yrds. Trying to get good at irons...

So;

1) Who makes the cheapest .308 cal bullets for this purpose? I want to get the heaviest possible (220gr I think?) since my next rifle will be a larger cal & might as well get used to some recoil..

2) Hodgdon's site says 42-45gr of varget for a 220gr bullet. Is there any reason I can't start at say 35gr? Why do I need to start at 42? I've seen low recoil rounds available from remington, is adding less powder the way they're going about that? Just thinking it's been awhile since I've been out shooting anything above .22 and might want to start low.

Matt
 
Seems like a bit of contradiction in goals here. You want to get good shooting with iron sights, you want to get used to stout recoil, but you want to load reduced recoil loads?

To get good at iron sights, try a reduced recoil load, one part of which will be a lighter bullet. (125's maybe) Extensive dry practice - empty gun, check it, re-check it, safe location, i.e. inside concrete basement walls, ensure no ammo in same room, nor on your person!, slowly run through the basics of stance, presentation, sight alignment, sight picture, breathing, trigger pressure. Fifteeen to twenty minutes a day, and after every three or four hundred dry releases, go to the range and verify your dry practice with ten or twenty aimed shots.

Four or five hundred live rounds later, provided you don't allow yourself to jack around, consciously release expected misses, and you will likely be a decent shot with iron sights. Then, for sh**s and giggles, you can have a buddy load the occasional full bore 220 grainer in the your rifle, blindly mixed in with your reduced recoil loads, and if you ain't flinching on the light loads, odds are you will be albe to handle big boomers too.

Start off kicking yourself to death with big boomers, and you will join the masses of hunter who scare hundreds of head of game animals half to death with the jerked rounds from flinches caused by a steady diet of hard kickers. Of course, no one on CGN flinches, and we all shoot sub- MOA standing with .338 Lapua's, but we also all know those "yahoo's" who break front (or back) legs of moose so close you can only see hair, because their .30-378 "don't kick."
 
The least expensive ones i found that suited well for both hunting and target was the bulk\bags of remington corelockt or winchester power points, from cabelas, they shoot well and you can work out your loads to suit your particular gun.
 
i have shot a lot of 150 gr 30 06 with irons for practice in fact i think ive shot more rounds out of my 30 06 than any other centerfire you dont need heavy bullets to produce recoil get used to the lighter ones first. in fact the heavies will hold you back it has taken me a lot of ammo to get rid of my offhand 30 06 flinch and it still happens if i get sloppy. im talking a couple thousand rounds
 
You could try heavier cast bullets with Blue dot or some other fast burning powder. It may be what you are looking for..... Cheap as dirt to reload with medium recoil and perfect for 100 yd shooting. More people seem to be getting into those loads for plinking and general target shooting fun.. because it gets boring shooting quarter inch groups all the time ;)
 
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