Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Reduced 30-30 cast bullets in Savage 99

Seasons greetings,

So not sure why I am intrigued with shooting reduced cast bullet loads in 30-30 but I am and unfortunately don't know much about doing so. What I do know is that I have a 99 in 30-30, some 30-30 dies, a lot of lyman stamped lead ingots a pal gave me years ago and the itch. I have read occasional posts by Gary, for instance, who is into shooting cast. He makes it sound appealing enough for me to want to stick my toe into the water. I have cast round balls for my fowler and .54 flinters.

So is it possible to simply purchase some cast 30-30 bullets without getting into slugging the bore and loading them with something like 10 grains of unique? If so, what would be an educated guess or real life experience on diameter bullet please?

Anyway, thanks for any input and Merry Christmas,
Smiley

If I were starting from scratch and were in your shoes, here's what I would do:

First, decide what power level you want. Backyard tin can plinking kind of load would require only a simple plain based bullet. If you want more versatility and fear that you might like it so much that you'll be tempted to use it for hunting also, then a gas checked bullet is in order, which would cover all the bases.

Either way, the necessary equipment can be pretty basic (cheap). You seem to have the capability to melt lead so I'll skip that. I would start with a basic plain base mold of around 110-150 grain weight. Scout the mold makers or eBay. It'll be the most expensive part of the whole equation, but no way around it I'm afraid. Next grab a Lee push-through bullet sizing die (use it in your regular loading press) Make it a .310 or .311" diameter- without slugging your throat something that size is a fair bet for starters. Cast a pile of bullets out of wheel weights (old fashioned clip-on style are best), but really for low velocity plinking bullets anything harder than pure lead will work. Lubricate them with Lee Alox Tumble Lube, or stand them up in a shallow tray and pour molten wax-based lube around them to cover the lube grooves, and cut them out of the solidified wax with a cookie cutter-like tool. (A cut off fired cartridge case works fine.) Push them through the size die and voila- done. (Be sure to wipe lube smears from their bases afterwards.)

Next step, load 'em up. You might well get away with cutting a severe chamfer on the case mouths and squeeze them in with your existing seater die. Worth a try. I did it that way for a long time back in the day. Another trick is to make a tool that bells the case mouth a tiny bit, or jam a pair of needle nose pliers in and give a twist- but don't go crazy here, a little flaring sufficient to allow the unobstructed introduction of the soft malleable bullet into the case neck is all you need. Of course you can buy a dedicated neck expanding/flaring die from RCBS or Lyman (and they really are a valuable accessory), but we're doing this on the quick and cheap here.

A slight crimp when seating them will eradicate the case mouth flair.

Powder charge: for a plain base bullet use a pinch of fast pistol powder like Bullseye or Red Dot etc. Something in the range of 5 grains or so will yield many bangs for the buck out of a pound of powder. With a plain base bullet you need to keep velocity way down to avoid leading the bore. Of course, if starting with a gas checked bullet you have a lot more options and can push velocities right up to factory ammo territory. Neat thing about low velocity plinking loads is the most expensive component is the primer. Stand the cases in a loading block and scan the interiors with a flashlight to make doubly-damned sure you don't have a double or triple charge of powder in there. Most important step, for sure. Don't skip it, ever. (50 years doing this and I never screwed up in that regard. It's one of the few things in life I'm truly anal about.)

Once you've worked all this out and loaded a few that work to your satisfaction, then load up 50 or 100 rounds for your next short range plinking session because I'll guarantee that even that many won't seem like enough by the end of the afternoon!

Note: you'll need some added elevation on the rear sight, or a shorter front sight because a low vel cast load will shoot a lot lower, even at "backyard" distances.

Questions re: details to flesh out my suggestions, feel free to PM me.

I only messed with muzzle loaders a few years in my teens and twenty's. I picked up a four cavity ingot mold somewhere and used to cast all the wheel weights from our friends Amoco station. It was a Lyman mold with their logo in it. Your ingots are probably store bought, but mine were not. Don't worry Gary, they all went to the scrap yard. Guess it really doesn't matter, Gary uses wheel weights too. Just get his recipe.

Should be fun!

Tag this for Gary-Paedia future reference.

Gary do you have a cast bullet blog yet??

Only thing I can add to Gary's excellent advise is get a Lyman cast bullet manual and read it FROM The FRONT.
Then get some trailboss powder and have more fun then should be allowed.
I have molds from 110g to 220g in 30 cal
With trailboss all are a hoot in the 30-30

Trailboss works well, but it has a poor "bang for the buck". It'll take around twice as much as Bullseye to achieve the same velocity. It's claim to fame is its bulkiness which allows for easier spotting of double charges. Your choice, but I stick with the Bullseye. Example, as taken from the Lyman manual, .30-30: 150 grain bullet, 8gr. Trailboss=1140fps/31,600 pressure. Same bullet, 7gr.Unique= 1200fps/24,200 pressure. TB isn't efficient and it can be spiky in pressure. (The book doesn't list Bullseye for the .30-30, but as a comparison in the .45ACP, in a waaaay smaller capacity case, shooting a 200 grain cast bullet, 4.9 grains yields only 12,900 c.u.p. pressure and pushes it at 840 fps- out of a 5" barrel.)

Darned good advise re: the Lyman cast bullet manual. My apologies for not mentioning that.

Maybe my advice was colored by the fact I have 6 lbs of TB on my shelf and no bullseye

It's all good. Burn it up.

An old friend used a 340 .30-30 for both deer and black bear (and killed a bunch of both) shooting a case full of old war surplus 4831 and the Lyman 311284 210 grain round nose cast bullet. He played the old trick of dipping the primed case into the powder, striking it level, and crunching the bullet down on top of it. (You couldn't get enough of that stuff in a .30-30 case to over pressurize- or an '06 case either for that matter.) Do not try that trick with modern 4831, I don't know for a fact that it still holds true.

This is a good thread. Taught me a lot. There is more to casting bullets than I thought. Seems like it would take a very long time to get 100 bullets ready to go.

i have a 03 that i re barreled in 1975 that has never had anything but that 311284 down it. i'd imagine close to 6k by now.


not so bad. cast up 500 one day. size and lube the next. throw out the tv and forget football and have plenty of time!

Casting bullets is like reloading, some do it because they have to, other because they like to. I also have been casting bullets for 50 years and have come a long way from a cast iron dutch oven and a Coleman stove, but I don't think my bullets are any better now just high tech lol. I load 30 gr. of Re-15 behind a gas checked 170 bullet- Lyman 311291 for my 303s, 30-30s, 300 Savage's and 30-06 for about 1800-1900fps. They will drop a deer right now out to at least 125yds.

Mike

I reload a lot and do it because I enjoy it. I suppose it takes a decent amount of time as well. But aren't you only able to cast two bullets at a time, let the lead cool and repeat?

With a two cavity mold you should be able to cast a couple hundred in an hour. Fill the cavities, count to ten and cut the sprue and drop the bullets. Don't dawdle and immediately refill the cavities. You get into a rhythm. Other tricks include preheating the mold and smoking the cavities with a lighter to hasten the advent of good well filled out bullets early in the session.

I cast my first bullets by melting lead in a soup can with a propane torch. I graduated to a camp stove when my old man got miffed about my using up his propane bottles.

I shoot a lot and would go broke if every shot was a store bought jacketed bullet. It's fortuitous that I like casting too, and view the whole thing as a challenge- an easy hobby to learn but a lifetime to master, if indeed one ever does.

It's not as easy to find cheap or free lead today as it was 50 years ago, but it's out there.

Only a ten count for the lead to cool, that's much less than I thought. One of the top two reasons I reload so much is because I shoot so much but I just buy cheap Speer bullets. Do you have a ballpark for the cost of 30 Cal bullets, not factoring propane and equipment but including lead of course

I don't know. I never calculated as most of my lead was free and I run the lead furnace on electricity which I'm frankly clueless about its consumption and what the electricity costs where I run it. Gas checks are $25/1000 retail but I've acquired so many through alternative means I don't know what they cost me. Lube is a couple bucks per stick and you can do thousands of .22s and maybe a thousand .30s and .45s with one. If I had to guess, maybe $5/100? Probably less.

I can load cast .22 Hornets for cheaper than I can buy .22 LR's.

I also load .22LR's, with new unprimed cases I paid about a penny apiece for with one grain of Bullseye (at 7000 grains per pound) and a 45 grain bullet that costs pretty much just my time to make.

Wow, it is substantially cheaper. I think I'll explore making bullets.

Even if you have to buy lead alloy, tonight on eBay I see 14lbs of 88-10-2 alloy shipped for $26, that’s about $1.85/lb shipped. A pound will make about 40 170 grain bullets (less than a nickel each). Add 2.5 cents for a gas check. Lube is cheap. My high end estimate 8 cents each. Scrounge wheel weights and you could get down to under 3 cents. If you just want to plink at low velocity, you could use a plain base bullet that does not need a gas check.

Probably need about $250 initial fixed cost for an electric pot, a good initial mold, lee sizer, manual and gloves .. just a stab at an estimate.

From a break even perspective, if you saved 12 cents a bullet, you would need to make/fire about 2100 bullets to recover the $250 up front investment.

I'm trying to resist this. You gentleman make it sound so easy. I shoot a lot of cast pistol bullets in.45 and .357, but none in rifle calibers. Does sound fun though.