Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors 190gr bullets

I waz pondering Reeeloading with my brother a few years back.

I waz learning him, and finally he said......


" my lord why don't you just tie baling string to the trigger and hide behind a rock?"


Crickets.............

What would you hunt with a 190gr .303? I'm guessing Elk, Moose, Black bear and things bigger than mulies?

Anything up to what you mention. Anything below that is fair game too!

For what it's worth, I worked up 3031 loads with 190 cast bullets and stopped at 28 grains because I had reached my velocity goal, accuracy was excellent, and I felt I was edging into territory that would see case life suffering. I have no idea what pressure I'm getting, but I bet it's fairly healthy. I actually took some grief on another forum for going that high with 3031. I dunno, it's a case of uncharted "Beyond this Pointe There Be Dragons" perhaps?

Never tried the 190s. Had such good luck with the Sierra and Hornady 180 gr RN I didn't feel the urge to look further. Have one magic target (will NEVER be able to repeat) of <.750" @ 100 yards peeped with my 1899 B. Other 99s in 303 I've had performed quite well also with said projectiles.

I loaded some of the 190 gr Barnes bullets up with 28 gr of 3031 this winter. It's been too cold here to get an accurate velocity, but spring is in the air. I will try to get some chrony data on them within the next couple of weeks.

Well I survived the shooting/testing of the 190 grain Hawk loads. Carbine is a 1913 1899H in better than average condition, 20" barrel. I loaded 3 rounds (each) with 29,30 and 31 grains of current production IMR3031 powder. Charges were weighed on RCBS scale. New PRVI brass and Winchester large rifle primers.

29 grain results: (1) 1789 fps (2) 1800 fps (3) 1800 fps AVE> 1796 fps. Primers backed out slightly with no flattening of other signs of pressure. Easy extraction.

30 grain results (1) 1850 fs (2) 1860 fps (3) 1850 fps AVE: 1853 fps. Slight flattening of primers. No backing out. No other signs of pressure. easy extraction.

31 grain results (1) 1899 fps (2) 1885 fps (3) 1876 fps AVE: 1886 fps. Slight flattening of primers. Very slight cratering on one primer. Easy extraction.

Conclusion: 30 grains gave the best velocity with least pressure signs. 31 grains did not improve the velocity enough to be worth the extra wear and tear on the rifle. 29 grains, while a good starter load is somewhat slow and allowed slight backing of primers. In my carbine I will loads 30 grains and see how the accuracy rings out once I can get 100 yards snow free.

Disclaimer: These loads are considered to be safe in MY carbine. I cannot endorse the use of them in others firearms. Also I have no control over how people load so there for not responsible for the use of this data.

Darryl

Been shooting 28grs since 2012,24" bbl. He didn't like it.

Damn !!!! nice !

Hard to argue with the results! 28 grains it is.

I suspect 28 grains in a 24" barrel will be right at 1850fps. Just about the same as 30 grains in my 20" carbine. Look's like it performs well. Nice deer.

Darryl

Damn! .....Nice buck!

Lee

Yikes! Nice deer!

My 28/3031/190 load chronos at 2065fps out of a 24" Winchester M54 barrel (assuming .30-30 and .303 are identical for our purposes). 1930fps out of a 20" carbine .303.

What a deer!!!!!!


gnoahhh are you shooting 190gr bullets from a M54 chambered in 30WCF?

wow! wish we had those genetics here!

Yes. One of my top favorite rifles.

Squeeler, buddy, you been holdin out on us!

Mine too.

Gnoahhh, I got 1853 fps with 30 grains of 3031 in my 20" carbine. Your carbine gets 1930 fps with 28 grains of 3031. Do the cast bullets register higher velocities over jacketed? Curious because of the big difference in velocity between our carbines and loads.

Darryl

Good question, and I thought I always knew the answer, but now I'm not sure. Some say that cast bullets seal the bore better and hence generate more pressure and velocity. Other's say that lead bullets offer less friction than jacketed bullets and hence generate lower pressure. Either way, I sent for some of those Barnes 190's and intend to conduct side by side tests over the chronograph. I'm curious too. (But in the long run I'll stick with the cast bullets because, well, they're insanely cheap, accurate, and kill like lightning- not to mention easier on 100+ year old barrel steel.) I'll report my findings either in this thread or a new one. Stay tuned.

I first tumbled to 190's and 3031 back in the mid-80's when I was messing with my first M54 .30-30 and chrono'ed them over a first generation Oehler owned by a buddy. Since then I took my velocities with that load on faith with a variety of .30-30's and .303's until recently when I got another chrono and lo-and-behold nothing had changed since 1985. Results are the same. (Verified via my old loading journals- I have a record of every single cartridge I've loaded for almost the last 40 years now.)

Could be just a simple case of variation between guns, brass, powder lot, and moon phase. We shall get to the bottom of it!