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The Universal .30 Load
Like many shooters, you have a .30-caliber rifle. You use it on big game. You may even use it on coyotes or other varmints, but not much. It hits hard, but it hits hard on both ends. Have you ever wished you had a really light load? A load that is quiet, yet accurate, with almost no recoil? A load that a child can shoot, but which you find useful? Sit right there, my friend. There is such a load. And it works in almost any .30-caliber rifle.
Let me look back into the misty past and set the stage for my discovery of this magic load. Almost four decades ago, I reloaded for only two calibers: .45 Colt and .308 Winchester. My only other guns were either rimfire or shotgun, for which I bought factory ammo. But I happily crafted my own ammo for both the .45 and the .308. I used both guns for deer and wild hog hunting, and loaded mostly full power loads for both chores. But I also had need for some reduced loads in both guns.
The revolver posed no problem. There were an abundance of reduced power loads in nearly any reloading manual. But the only loads for the .308 were at or near full power. I wanted a quiet, low power load I could use for plinking and practice without the expense, recoil and noise of regular loads. I also wanted a load that wouldn’t obliterate small game or leave the woods echoing while deer hunting. It also had to be a load easy to identify, even when mixed with full power loads in my pocket.
One day, while loading up a box of regular loads for the .45, I was thinking about such a reduced .308 load. I changed the dies in my press and prepared a box of .308 brass, then started to mull over a powder charge and bullet. I had almost decided to try a start level load of some powder or other, and was unscrewing the powder measure to empty it when the little light flashed. The powder measure was filled and set to drop the load I’d just used in the .45 Colt. Would that same powder charge work in the .308? Not sure of my footing, I looked in a few manuals. Nothing. But, what the heck, I thought. That powder charge produced only moderate pressure in a revolver with a 250-grain bullet. Surely it couldn’t be dangerous in a larger case with a bullet less than half as heavy. Right? So I charged one .308 case and seated a 100-grain Speer half-jacket Plinker bullet.
With a bit of trepidation, I stepped out behind my house where I sometimes shot a .22. I held the rifle at arm’s length, just pointing the gun at the backstop. I turned my face away and pulled the trigger. Bang. Not a huge BOOM, just a crisp bang. Recoil felt like a .38 Special target load. The bolt cycled open with ease and the case popped out in perfect condition. Hot dang! Back to the bench and load one more. This time, I held the rifle normally, took aim at a dirt clod and squeezed. Bang. The dirt clod vaporized. HOT DANG!!
Soon I had a full box filled and labeled. On my next trip to the range, the new load and the .308 were first to be fired. At 50 yards, the target showed a quarter-sized group. A final shot with my usual full power load nestled neatly at the top of the group. Double hot dang with grits and redeye gravy! This was GREAT!
For ten years, I carried a few cases with that load everywhere I hunted with the .308. I learned that it hit at or near point of aim out to 75 yards or so. It killed squirrels, armadillos, raccoons, rabbits and any other small game I used it on without wrecking too much meat if I stuck to head shots. It once finished off a deer another hunter had wounded, placed right behind the ear at a range of two feet. On close range varmints it was very deadly. The Plinker bullet made in-the-pocket identification easy, by feel alone. Best of all, it was fun to shoot and a loaded round could be assembled for less than the cost of just a regular hunting bullet. As a plinking and practice round it was faultless.
So what was this wonderful load? The initial rounds that long-ago afternoon held 9.5 grains of Unique, later rounded up to an even ten. What makes it magic, and why should you care? Simple: that one load works in almost ANY .30-caliber case. I have yet to find a .30-caliber cartridge except for the .30 Carbine where it wasn’t both safe and effective. From the venerable .30-30 to the biggest, hairiest .300 Wowsa Magnum, the load works as advertised. For cases from the .30-30 to the .308, 10.0 grains of Unique works just fine. For cases .30-06 and larger, use 12.0 grains to make up for the larger case volume.
I shot the load in my .308 for decades before I owned a chronograph. When I started writing articles about reloading, one of Dr. Ken Oehler’s wonderful Model 35Ps was one of my first purchases. Dozens of guns fired thousands of other rounds over the screens but for some reason I never tested the plinker load. I knew it worked to perfection, but I had no idea how fast it went. I recently learned. In my rifle, it leaves the muzzle at 1600 fps and keeps five shots inside an inch at 50 yards. That’s neither a sage-scorching load nor a target load, but it stays on a jackrabbit out to 75 yards or so, lets me take an occasional grouse while I’m hunting bigger game and eliminates pest critters. As mentioned before, it has also taken small game and has pulverized bags of charcoal briquettes (the world’s best plinking targets), pinecones and other fun targets.
Over the years, I’ve burned up as many .308 rounds in deer camp as I have all other places combined. The use? Having fun with the other hunters’ youngsters, kids of ranchers and just plain relaxing. Everyone who has ever shot the load, or seen it shot, wants to know about it. As a result, I’ve passed along the recipe to owners of about every .30-caliber from .30-30 to .300 Weatherby. No one ever tried it without producing a grin and a promise to load more.
I tested a few rifles over my chronograph just for this report. Here’s what I found. From a Marlin 336 .30-30, velocity runs 1675 fps, and a Savage 99 in .300 Savage gets 1600, both with the 10.0-grain load. A Savage 110 in .30-06 gets 1475 with the 10.0 gr load and 1625 with the 12.0 gr recipe. I’d predict that a .300 magnum would be right in that ballpark, although I didn’t have a chance to try one.
Those numbers just about duplicate the ballistics of the wonderful old .32-20. Using a 100-grain cast bullet, the .32-20 churned up just about 1650 fps from a rifle with moderate handloads. It was extremely popular as a great small game gun, a fun plinker and a potent pest killer out to 100 yards or so. Back then, a lot of shooters had a need for a round that was easy to shoot, easy on the pocketbook, took small game or varmints without destroying them, and was simple to reload. They also tended to use one rifle for lots of jobs. Sound familiar?
Not all guns shoot the Plinker to the same impact point as they do full-power loads, but that’s to be expected. Nor do some guns group the load as well as others. That’s also to be expected. But not many shoot worse than about two inch groups at 50 yards, some much better. I suspect that some rifles don’t handle the very short bullet well because of the long jump to the rifling. Others take it in stride.
By the way, don’t bother trying to seat this bullet close to the rifling. The half-jacket portion of the bullet measures only about .300” in length. I generally seat them so that a narrow portion of the copper jacket extends past the mouth of the case. That means that the stubby little thing has about a quarter-inch of free space to cross before it even gets to the rifling. I don’t even bother trying to set a precise overall length. I just keep screwing in the seating die stem until it looks about right. Trust me: it doesn’t matter.
At this point, a word about lever actions is in order. I’ve always loaded lever-action guns with no more than two cartridges when using this round, one in the chamber and one in the magazine tube. The load is so low-powered that I don’t believe there is enough recoil to either risk a discharge in the tube or of having the bullets driven into the case mouth. But I wouldn’t risk it. Others have reported no problem with loading more than one in the magazine tube. You’re on your own.
Another thing I don’t recommend is trying any kind of filler over the powder. Unique is very forgiving of positioning in the case, and ignites just fine no matter where it seems to lie. Standard deviation of velocities is usually quite low with this load, ranging from as low as five to no more than about 30 in the largest cases. That indicates pretty uniform ignition and burning, despite my having taken no precautions whatever to position the powder before firing. In all cases, I simply inserted a round and closed the action in the normal way, then lay the gun on the rest and fired. So skip the fillers. While I’m on the subject of ignition, I might mention that standard force primers are all you need, but magnums won’t hurt. Heck, it’s even OK to substitute large pistol primers for large rifle.
You do need to be very vigilant to avoid double charging. I prefer to drop one powder charge, funnel it into a case and immediately seat the bullet. I avoid loading blocks like the plague just because of the possibility of a double or even triple charge. If I have any doubt whatsoever about having the right amount of powder in a case, I dump that charge back into the powder measure and start over with that case. Looking into the case doesn’t help. Unique is a nearly black flake powder, and it simply disappears inside a rifle case, even with a good light shining into the case mouth. If in doubt, dump it, and tap the case mouth on the bench to be sure.
Other than that, no special loading techniques are involved. It does help to chamfer case mouths, especially if new or just trimmed, but that’s standard procedure anyway. Full length versus neck sizing is moot. Uniforming primer pockets, deburring flash holes, weighing cases or powder charges, using match primers, or any other common accuracy or benchrest technique is just plain silly. In fact, this is the perfect way to use up those inevitable threes and fours of mismatched cases and primers that every reloader has laying around. If you don’t have the Speer Plinker bullet, Hornady makes an identical model, or you could even substitute a cast bullet of 100 to 115 grains without a worry. This load just takes what comes along and loves it.
In fact, that explains why one of the ten-shot test strings I chronographed with this load became a nine-shotter. About shot six or seven, just as I closed the bolt on my favorite .308, a rock squirrel loped out onto the range. I was alone, the gun was loaded, and the burrowing pest had a disdainful smirk on his kisser. I’ll never know the exact velocity of that particular round, but I know it went right where I aimed! Considering that I was using the exact same rifle that I’d first used to bust a dirt clod with the Plinker load three decades ago, that shot pretty much tied everything together. The Load made me grin way back then – and it still does!
Rocky Raab
Copyright 2004
The Universal .30 Load
Like many shooters, you have a .30-caliber rifle. You use it on big game. You may even use it on coyotes or other varmints, but not much. It hits hard, but it hits hard on both ends. Have you ever wished you had a really light load? A load that is quiet, yet accurate, with almost no recoil? A load that a child can shoot, but which you find useful? Sit right there, my friend. There is such a load. And it works in almost any .30-caliber rifle.
Let me look back into the misty past and set the stage for my discovery of this magic load. Almost four decades ago, I reloaded for only two calibers: .45 Colt and .308 Winchester. My only other guns were either rimfire or shotgun, for which I bought factory ammo. But I happily crafted my own ammo for both the .45 and the .308. I used both guns for deer and wild hog hunting, and loaded mostly full power loads for both chores. But I also had need for some reduced loads in both guns.
The revolver posed no problem. There were an abundance of reduced power loads in nearly any reloading manual. But the only loads for the .308 were at or near full power. I wanted a quiet, low power load I could use for plinking and practice without the expense, recoil and noise of regular loads. I also wanted a load that wouldn’t obliterate small game or leave the woods echoing while deer hunting. It also had to be a load easy to identify, even when mixed with full power loads in my pocket.
One day, while loading up a box of regular loads for the .45, I was thinking about such a reduced .308 load. I changed the dies in my press and prepared a box of .308 brass, then started to mull over a powder charge and bullet. I had almost decided to try a start level load of some powder or other, and was unscrewing the powder measure to empty it when the little light flashed. The powder measure was filled and set to drop the load I’d just used in the .45 Colt. Would that same powder charge work in the .308? Not sure of my footing, I looked in a few manuals. Nothing. But, what the heck, I thought. That powder charge produced only moderate pressure in a revolver with a 250-grain bullet. Surely it couldn’t be dangerous in a larger case with a bullet less than half as heavy. Right? So I charged one .308 case and seated a 100-grain Speer half-jacket Plinker bullet.
With a bit of trepidation, I stepped out behind my house where I sometimes shot a .22. I held the rifle at arm’s length, just pointing the gun at the backstop. I turned my face away and pulled the trigger. Bang. Not a huge BOOM, just a crisp bang. Recoil felt like a .38 Special target load. The bolt cycled open with ease and the case popped out in perfect condition. Hot dang! Back to the bench and load one more. This time, I held the rifle normally, took aim at a dirt clod and squeezed. Bang. The dirt clod vaporized. HOT DANG!!
Soon I had a full box filled and labeled. On my next trip to the range, the new load and the .308 were first to be fired. At 50 yards, the target showed a quarter-sized group. A final shot with my usual full power load nestled neatly at the top of the group. Double hot dang with grits and redeye gravy! This was GREAT!
For ten years, I carried a few cases with that load everywhere I hunted with the .308. I learned that it hit at or near point of aim out to 75 yards or so. It killed squirrels, armadillos, raccoons, rabbits and any other small game I used it on without wrecking too much meat if I stuck to head shots. It once finished off a deer another hunter had wounded, placed right behind the ear at a range of two feet. On close range varmints it was very deadly. The Plinker bullet made in-the-pocket identification easy, by feel alone. Best of all, it was fun to shoot and a loaded round could be assembled for less than the cost of just a regular hunting bullet. As a plinking and practice round it was faultless.
So what was this wonderful load? The initial rounds that long-ago afternoon held 9.5 grains of Unique, later rounded up to an even ten. What makes it magic, and why should you care? Simple: that one load works in almost ANY .30-caliber case. I have yet to find a .30-caliber cartridge except for the .30 Carbine where it wasn’t both safe and effective. From the venerable .30-30 to the biggest, hairiest .300 Wowsa Magnum, the load works as advertised. For cases from the .30-30 to the .308, 10.0 grains of Unique works just fine. For cases .30-06 and larger, use 12.0 grains to make up for the larger case volume.
I shot the load in my .308 for decades before I owned a chronograph. When I started writing articles about reloading, one of Dr. Ken Oehler’s wonderful Model 35Ps was one of my first purchases. Dozens of guns fired thousands of other rounds over the screens but for some reason I never tested the plinker load. I knew it worked to perfection, but I had no idea how fast it went. I recently learned. In my rifle, it leaves the muzzle at 1600 fps and keeps five shots inside an inch at 50 yards. That’s neither a sage-scorching load nor a target load, but it stays on a jackrabbit out to 75 yards or so, lets me take an occasional grouse while I’m hunting bigger game and eliminates pest critters. As mentioned before, it has also taken small game and has pulverized bags of charcoal briquettes (the world’s best plinking targets), pinecones and other fun targets.
Over the years, I’ve burned up as many .308 rounds in deer camp as I have all other places combined. The use? Having fun with the other hunters’ youngsters, kids of ranchers and just plain relaxing. Everyone who has ever shot the load, or seen it shot, wants to know about it. As a result, I’ve passed along the recipe to owners of about every .30-caliber from .30-30 to .300 Weatherby. No one ever tried it without producing a grin and a promise to load more.
I tested a few rifles over my chronograph just for this report. Here’s what I found. From a Marlin 336 .30-30, velocity runs 1675 fps, and a Savage 99 in .300 Savage gets 1600, both with the 10.0-grain load. A Savage 110 in .30-06 gets 1475 with the 10.0 gr load and 1625 with the 12.0 gr recipe. I’d predict that a .300 magnum would be right in that ballpark, although I didn’t have a chance to try one.
Those numbers just about duplicate the ballistics of the wonderful old .32-20. Using a 100-grain cast bullet, the .32-20 churned up just about 1650 fps from a rifle with moderate handloads. It was extremely popular as a great small game gun, a fun plinker and a potent pest killer out to 100 yards or so. Back then, a lot of shooters had a need for a round that was easy to shoot, easy on the pocketbook, took small game or varmints without destroying them, and was simple to reload. They also tended to use one rifle for lots of jobs. Sound familiar?
Not all guns shoot the Plinker to the same impact point as they do full-power loads, but that’s to be expected. Nor do some guns group the load as well as others. That’s also to be expected. But not many shoot worse than about two inch groups at 50 yards, some much better. I suspect that some rifles don’t handle the very short bullet well because of the long jump to the rifling. Others take it in stride.
By the way, don’t bother trying to seat this bullet close to the rifling. The half-jacket portion of the bullet measures only about .300” in length. I generally seat them so that a narrow portion of the copper jacket extends past the mouth of the case. That means that the stubby little thing has about a quarter-inch of free space to cross before it even gets to the rifling. I don’t even bother trying to set a precise overall length. I just keep screwing in the seating die stem until it looks about right. Trust me: it doesn’t matter.
At this point, a word about lever actions is in order. I’ve always loaded lever-action guns with no more than two cartridges when using this round, one in the chamber and one in the magazine tube. The load is so low-powered that I don’t believe there is enough recoil to either risk a discharge in the tube or of having the bullets driven into the case mouth. But I wouldn’t risk it. Others have reported no problem with loading more than one in the magazine tube. You’re on your own.
Another thing I don’t recommend is trying any kind of filler over the powder. Unique is very forgiving of positioning in the case, and ignites just fine no matter where it seems to lie. Standard deviation of velocities is usually quite low with this load, ranging from as low as five to no more than about 30 in the largest cases. That indicates pretty uniform ignition and burning, despite my having taken no precautions whatever to position the powder before firing. In all cases, I simply inserted a round and closed the action in the normal way, then lay the gun on the rest and fired. So skip the fillers. While I’m on the subject of ignition, I might mention that standard force primers are all you need, but magnums won’t hurt. Heck, it’s even OK to substitute large pistol primers for large rifle.
You do need to be very vigilant to avoid double charging. I prefer to drop one powder charge, funnel it into a case and immediately seat the bullet. I avoid loading blocks like the plague just because of the possibility of a double or even triple charge. If I have any doubt whatsoever about having the right amount of powder in a case, I dump that charge back into the powder measure and start over with that case. Looking into the case doesn’t help. Unique is a nearly black flake powder, and it simply disappears inside a rifle case, even with a good light shining into the case mouth. If in doubt, dump it, and tap the case mouth on the bench to be sure.
Other than that, no special loading techniques are involved. It does help to chamfer case mouths, especially if new or just trimmed, but that’s standard procedure anyway. Full length versus neck sizing is moot. Uniforming primer pockets, deburring flash holes, weighing cases or powder charges, using match primers, or any other common accuracy or benchrest technique is just plain silly. In fact, this is the perfect way to use up those inevitable threes and fours of mismatched cases and primers that every reloader has laying around. If you don’t have the Speer Plinker bullet, Hornady makes an identical model, or you could even substitute a cast bullet of 100 to 115 grains without a worry. This load just takes what comes along and loves it.
In fact, that explains why one of the ten-shot test strings I chronographed with this load became a nine-shotter. About shot six or seven, just as I closed the bolt on my favorite .308, a rock squirrel loped out onto the range. I was alone, the gun was loaded, and the burrowing pest had a disdainful smirk on his kisser. I’ll never know the exact velocity of that particular round, but I know it went right where I aimed! Considering that I was using the exact same rifle that I’d first used to bust a dirt clod with the Plinker load three decades ago, that shot pretty much tied everything together. The Load made me grin way back then – and it still does!
Rocky Raab
Copyright 2004
