Leverevolution ammo question?

[KYdeer88]

Question? I went out last week and shot my 336 30-30 to get it lined in for rifle opener. The only place I had to shoot close to school offered an 80 yards shot. I set my scope at 2.5” high at 80. I used the 160gr leverevolutions, first year using them. I have shot them before but had a feeding issue, but got that solved. So my question is for those who may know, where do you think my POI will be at say 100, and 150. Where I’m hunting most of my shots “80%,” will be under 100 yards. I have looked at the ballistics on Hornadys’ sight and they say 3” high at 100 will get you even at 200, but then again I think they may use a longer barrel than my 20” barrel for their testing purpose. I figured that 2.5 at 80 would get me in the ballpark. I don’t have a shot over 150 anywhere in the woods here so I’m not concerned about the 200 yard mark. Thanks for any help.

[shaman]

Download a copy of POINTBLANK software.  It's free, and you can figure all this out for yourself.  Really, the last thing you want to do is guess-- especially with a round like a 30-30 at long distances.  I cranked some numbers for you and got 2" high at 100 yards got you 3.5" low at 200 yards, but I was guessing at the ballistic coefficient. 2.5" high at 80 yards gave you 3" high at 100 yards and 2" low at 200 yards.

Given a killzone of 4",  and sighting in at  2" high at 100 yards, you have a maximum point blank range of 181 and crosshairs are dead-on at 161 yards, but please don't take my word for this.

Me?  If  I had an 80 yard sight-in and a 30-30 and the data on Hornady's site, I'd sight in dead on at 80 yards and know the bullet drops about 3" at 150 yards and be done with it.  Beyond 150 yards? There be dragons.

As I said, I guessed at the ballistic coefficient, and this is an important number.  Get POINTBLANK!!!  You'll see what I mean.

[KYdeer88]

Thanks, I'll download that. These rounds do shoot nice but I know they wont turn my 30-30 into a field gun.

[shaman]

I found the BC for this bullet is .330.  I cranked the numbers again, and it really didn't change things.  I think it was a max PBR of 186 yards instead of 181yards with the scope set 2" high at 100 yards. 

Again, if you're dead on at 80, just don't shoot past 150, and you'll be fine. 

[CB on the run]

How'd the ammo pattern for you?  I've been trying to work up an acceptable handload for my TC Contender 30-30.  I've been shooting a variety of bullets with IMR 4895 & 3031 with little success.  2"-3" groups at 50-70 yards aren't acceptable to me.  All the reloading books state that this caliber has the capability of being very accurate.  I see that Hornady is going to market the blended powder that they use for that ammo.
 
CB

[KYdeer88]

Honestly, after I burn through this box its back to the old 150 grain Winchesters for me. Leverevolutions patterned better than Core lokts, but on par with the Power Points. As far as a factory load for 30-30 I liked the Hornady’s that weren’t leverevolution, 150gr lead tip, but can’t find them anywhere in the stores around here. I would like to play with some hand loads some time. I have seen some guys around here get very good groups out of the 30-30.

[shaman]

This is by no means a damnation of 30-30. However, I found mine was quite finicky also.  It just so happens that  after, oh. . . I 'm guessing 20 tries, I finally settled on a load that used the 150 grain Win PP.    I'm sure it was a combination of the rifle and me that caused this.  However, it's was a good thing that I had lots of options to try.

My final deer load used H4895.  On the chronometer, it had the most consistent velocities of any of about 4 different powders.

Suggestions to make a 30-30 load work:
1)  Cut back a few grains off the MAX.
2)  Put a light crimp on the bullet
3)  Anneal the brass

. .. but that was all for a rifle with a tube magazine.  In a pistol, I'm not sure.  You tried the top choices of powder I'd have gone to.  Have you tried BL-C(2)?  Make sure you use magnum primers if you do.

[CB on the run]

Crimping the brass has had no effect, positive or negative.  The gun is a TC Contender rifle, 22" bull barrel.  Most of my reloading specs come from the 30-30 pistol section as I looking to use a bullet with a better BC than the standard tube mag loads.  I've been through NBT 125, 150 & 165's.  Sierra 135's & Barnes 130's.  The 165 NBT shot the best with a 5 shot group @ 1 3/4" @ 75 yards.  I have tried IMR 4895, 3031 & H335 powder.  I got my hands on some W748 & R15 and have some Sierra 165 BT's loaded for the range.  I load or have loaded for the 204, 222, 223, 22-250, 257, 270, 308 & 30-06 and have never had this much trouble finding an acceptable load.  I know you really like the H4895 but I have money invested in all these other powders already and that doesn't include 4 or 5 shotgun powders so I'm hesitant to go buy another at this moment.
 
CB

[shaman]

Well, IMR4895 is close enough to H4895 that I wouldn't change.  In fact just about anything I say about H4895 would probably hold true to IMR4895-- except I seem to remember H4895 is a bit more temperature-stable.  I'm not saying it's 1:1 compatible (it's not), but if you're well under the MAX, you won't blow things up making the substitution.   Varget is another choice that I've worked with.  However, if you look in the middle of the burn rate chart there's a WHOLE lot of powders in this arena.

I wonder:  What if you try the minimum load and work up?  Say, take it in .5 grain increments, 5 rounds each and explore a range  starting at the MIN and working up? 

Another idea:  time to bring in the cheap bullets.  You've tried Noslers.  This sounds like a long slog-- best to keep the price of the project down as much as possible.

Lastly:  Are you sure it's not the barrel?  An imperfection in the crown might cause this kind of nonsense.  Recrowning might fix it.

One more, and then we should probably take this over to the reloading forum and leave this thread for dealing the KYdeer88:   Have you played with bullet seating depth?  Sometimes adjusting that makes all the diff in the world. 

[CB on the run]

I haven't changed any seating depth.  I have used existing published loads that my books(5 total) say are the most accurate.  I have shot minimum, max and in between but have not worked in .5 grain increments.  The barrel is brand new except for the 30-35 rounds II have put through it.  It was cleaned every shot for the 1st 5 then every 2 shots for the next 10.  Now I'll shoot it about 4-5 times then run a bore snake and clean patch.  The gun went right to the 'smith' before firing to check the head space as it is a G2 barrel on an original Contender frame.  I'm pretty sure he inspected the barrel as he has on all other work I brought him plus he changed my mind- I originally was ordering a 6.8 rem for it.  I think I'll try seating the bullets a little longer as most of the specs are for tube mags and flat bullets.  If I don't get it fixed I'll be hunting with the 308 or 280 opening weekend.