That's definitely a "duh" statement for folks who've worked with this powder or H4895 but I recently tried taking the charge weights way below anything I'd done before.

A few things prompted this - I want to conserve powder bought when it was $26/pound, I have a butt load of Hornady 150 gr. Spire Points bought on sale at Cabelas 10-12 years ago and mostly, I'm getting to dislike recoil more and more so wanted to work up some 30-30 level loads or even slightly less in my 8+ pound Model 70 .30-06.

Started out trying some loads with Reloder 7 meant for cast bullets but almost all of them gave hang fires in 25 degree weather so abandoned that and went to IMR4895. Used the H4895 formula of 60% of max to determine a starting point of around 34 grains, most manuals list 44-47 grains of IMR4895 as starting loads.

Accuracy was so-so at 34, 36 and 38 grains but something clicked at 39 grains. Don't know if that flyer at 39 and 40 grains is me or not but the other four bullets went into .366".

Rifle is a LH Winchester Model 70 Extreme Weather ordered from their Custom Shop in 2000, I replaced the original barrel with a Pac-Nor sporter contour some years ago. These are all 5 shot groups at 100 yards. There looks like a wave function going here, not shown is a group using 42 grains which spread out and then 43 grains shrunk down to one raggedy hole again. Going to stick with the 39 grain load since it more than meets specs.

Probably dink with the seating depth some just to scratch the looney itch and see if those flyers are my shooting or the load, but that's about all the load development I'll invest in this.


Nothing ground breaking here, just reproving old knowledge.

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Haven't chronographed this yet but my best guesstimate for 39 grains should be right around 2400 fps, i.e. factory .30-30 velocity. Right on target. wink

Gunnery, gunnery, gunnery.
Hit the target, all else is twaddle!