Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Best 30-30 bullet for deer, Mule Deer and others

Miles58,
The Model 64 has a very tight bore. It is a "fast" rifle with any book load I have tried. I started with 760 with the 130 TSX. The action gets a little sticky at about 2500 fps so LVR provides a good boost in velocity.

I should have mentioned that I also tried the 38.5 LVR/130TSX in a 1949 vintage 24" barreled 336A. I only got about 2540 fps in that rifle. The problem is that you run out of case capacity in the 30-30. You can't get much more than 39.5 grains in the case with the 130TSX.

Actually I don't know what part doesn't make sense to you. Maybe the Marlin speeds make even less sense? If you want velocity in a 30-30 use the 125 BT-short bearing surface and apparently engraves easily. I got about 2730 with it in the Model 64 without any pressure problems.

What may be not be doing quite what I expect may well be my rifle.

I looked at the bottle and saw 35.5 grains for 150s as the load on the bottle and started by assuming that was a max load just to be safe. I did a normal work up and saw nice smooth incremental velocity increases. When I hit 35.5 I started getting groups close to 1/2 inch and 2400 FPS. I quit there even though the load was quite mild in terms of recoil and muzzle blast. When I go home I checked and found max was really 38.5 which with the linear velocity increases I saw should have given me about 2700 easily.

Dropping that bullet down to 130 in my rifle I would expect to see it pick up some speed. Dropping to 130 I would also expect it to be able to handle a little more powder to come back up to pressure. What you got wasn't diametrically different, but it's headed in that direction. With a new powder I am not familiar with behavior that's not more in line with what I expect makes me take notice. With one that seems very particular about the cartridges and bullets it is being recommended for by the manufacturer I am wondering if there is some insight into LeverEvolution from this info.

Swampy must have stocked back up on his clorox toothpaste. Cause he never quits kissing remington's azz. He likes to keep his schitt eatin grin in check. So pay no mind to the little swamp man behind the curtain. He just blowing sunshine up your butt.

We have had good luck with the 150 Speer hotcor from 50-250 yards. It both opens and penetrates well. It may feed better than plastic tips in your rifle and yet still has a decent BC.

Miles, The LVR powder may be linear in its best working range but it isn't when you get out of that range. I am sure it varies somewhat from rifle to rifle as to where it works best. It is interesting that Hodgdon doesn't show loads for lighter bullets in their data. The 25-35 has 75 grain data but that is a small case. I haven't played with it enough to understand it.

Also I think the TSX is a harder bullet and is not going to correspond well with a regular bullet of the same weight. The TSX is longer too, so you have to seat it deeper and that takes up powder space.

Another thing is that lighter bullets don't always go a lot faster than heavier bullets using the same powder charge. To use up odd bullets and keep it simple, I often load lighter and heavier bullets with the same powder charge for our club high power silhouette match. I don't expect to see much difference in velocity.

Anyway to many variables to always predict accurately. I guess that's what keeps it interesting!

Pressure isn't just a function of its peak either. One way to view it is the Volume under the curve. A rapid rise to a sustained pressure could give more velocity than a spike to a higher pressure that was not sustained for the time the bullet was in the barrel.

I did see a friend hit a bear in the skull once with a 130 grain 270, and the bullet glanced off the skull. A second shot to the heart lung did the job right. But, I have never seen a rib do the same thing, even an elk rib.

Your results may vary.

I slew a fair number of deer, a bear, and some pigs with that bullet. You could not convince me it wasn't magic.

I was almost as bad as our resident core-lokt lover......Almost, I say......