Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What Ever Happened to 220 Grain .30 Caliber Bullets?

Great, I had just decided to use my 257 bob with 100 grn tsx for PA black bear, but the idea of going back in history and using my old '06 loaded with a 220 sierra sounds fun. Not to mention a lot cheaper than the tsx. The '06 even has a Lyman 57 aperture on it.
Talk about extremes but I feel just as confident with either to 200 yards on black bear, although up close and personal a 220 would feel better
I guess I'll decide that day what to carry.

I found a hundred of these a while back. I'm going to load them for my Grandfathers Winchester 95 in 30-40 Krag.

Doc

I'm looking forward to thumping something next weekend with a .30cal 130gr Barnes.

Way back, probably in the '50's, I read a Jack O'C article in which he suggested if someone wanted an accurate load to try 220 grain bullets in the 30/06 with 51 grains of I4350.
Two or three years ago I decided to buy a box of 220 gr. Hornady's. I started at 51 grains of I4350 and went up a grain at a time to 54 grains. The 51 grain load was way, way under 1" at 100 yards. Even the worst of these loads shot no worse than 1 1/4" in my Remington 700. Amazing that some observations even though 50 or more years old are still valid.

Jim,

"Way, way under an inch?" How much under an inch can you get until it start coming up with a negative number? Just joshing with you buddy.

There ya go! I was wondering when somebody would bring up the 240 grain bullets.

Remembering the story of Jim Bridger trying to shoot the glass mountain elk. For some reason I'm thinking he was shooting something like -2.7 MOA. Little known today is the fact that he used a B-29 AI.

Shootist - I just went and reviewed my shooting notes. They tell me the first time I shot the 220's conditions were ideal - late afternoon, perfect light and no wind.
The first 3 shot group with a 51 gr. charge went into .122", and yes, that decimal point is in the right place!
The other loads up to 54 grains opened the groups up gradually to a max of about 1 1/8". Since that time under less optimum conditions the 51 gr. load usually shoots between 5/8" and 3/4".
Switching topics, when we went moose hunting this fall the water level was about 3' higher than last year. There were virtually no margins around the water to look for tracks of moose moving along the shores.
One of our party took a 42" bull with nice palms. Another guy, while fishing in the early afternoon, trolled near the shore and came up on another bull he said looked like a twin of the one we took. No other bull tags so all he could do was admire him!

On another day my son-in-law called in a back meadow until noon. He came out for lunch and when he went back found moose tracks on top of his own apparently made while he was having lunch.

For my extended family WWII was the reason that the 220 grain load was replaced by the 180 grain in the '06. My grandfather continued to use the 220 gr bullet in his .30-40 Krag carbine, but all of his sons in law were definitely fans of lighter bullets after their wartime experiences. We grandsons were the beneficiaries of their move to the .300 Savage and the various flavors of '06 after the war. One of my uncles did choose the .300 H&H, but also used the 180s. My family all were handloaders too, and shot a lot of lead bullet practice loads as well.

jim

Reading O'Connor was exactly the reason I decided to try IMR-4350 with the Woodleigh 220 gr bullets when I was working up a load. I settled on 52.0 grs of IMR-4350 for a chrono average velocity of 2460 fps. The best 5-shot group I've fired with this load went right at 7/8". Most of the time it runs about 1.25" but I don't claim to be the best rifle shot around by any means.

-Bob F.

Bob,
If you have the powders to try, load some 760 behind that 220 Woodleigh. I have tried it in several rifles and it is common to get around .5 MOA with 3 shot groups using 57 grains for 2600fps. The same load with h 4350 gets 2550 fps in my 22 inch Featherweight.

I am thinking about a black bear hunt and this would be a good load for them.

AGW

OntarioJim,

Congrats on the successful hunt. No tags and a pile of ilness on my wife's side of the family have kept me out of the field this season so far. May hit it a little harder once the snow flies.

Was just joshing you on the groups. That is good shooting. The best group I have with my '06 is three shots in 0.29" and that was with a 165 BTSP Hornady. It can happen -- even with hunting grade bullets. (That group, as most of my groups are shot off the hood of my truck at a gravel pit. I put a boat cushion down for padding. That day the wind was gusting and it was pretty sunny = not an ideal day.)

Aussie,

Thanks for the suggestions! I have some 760 and H4350 on hand. I'll have to try it. To be quite frank, and I'm not doubting you, but I'm a little leery of getting 2600 fps with a 220 gr bullet in the '06 from a 22" barrel. But, also, I've never tried it.

I've never tried increasing my IMR-4350 powder charge above 52.0 grs but I think 2500 fps should be easily obtainable. Since H4530 is a little slower burning, as you know, 2550 fps should be attainable without much sweat as you stated. I've just never done much load development (in any cartridge) with 760 so I'm not too familiar with it. Still, around 2500 fps with a 220 gr is no slouch. That turns up a little over 3,000 ft lb of energy which isn't too shabby.

I haven't been doing very much load work with my .30-06 in the last few years since my trip to South Africa back in 2002. I've been fooling around with other cartridges. But, I need to dust off the ol' .30-06 rifle and take her to the range. I'll have to try your load suggestions. (Reducing the powder charge and working back up, of course.)

I also want to try out those 240 gr Woodleighs! I don't have any hunts planned in the near future where I really need a 240 gr bullet in the .30-06 but I just want to try them out for the heck of it. I might have to try them out on some feral hogs just to see what they'll do.

Cheers!!
-Bob F.

I just picked up some Remington .30-06ammo on sale with the 220-gr RN CoreLokt for $12.98 with a $5.00 factory rebate per box = $7.98 for 20 rounds. Not bad.

I have been using Sierra' 220 gr Rn in my .06 for longer than probably 1/2 the people on this forum are old, and don't plan to chnage. They have killed more elk than the average elk hunbter will kill in his/her lifetime

I'm thinking that most of use that the 220 30's were put to use for have been suplanted by the 338 win mag, for better or for worse.

I wish I could get 275 gr rn 358's, they'd be perfection in my 350 Rigby. Yes, I know woodleigh has 310's, but woodleigh was iffy on whether a 1-14 would stablize them, and I'm too cheap to buy a box of bullets that might not fly straight.

I believe Swift makes an A-Frame 280 358; kind of a RN, but may or may not suit your needs.

I still use the 200 gr. and 220 gr. Woodleighs and Noslers in my 30-06 and 300 H&H..At 2600 FPS and 2700 FPS plus respectively, they work fine on everything.

I loaded up a couple of boxes of 220 gr. Woodleigh softs and solids for an older client of mine to take to Africa as that was his only gun...He shot Buffalo, elephant and all his plainsgame with them, when he got home he gave me back the ammo I loaded. Guess what? He shot EVERYTHING with the solids!! Didn't have any problems killing anything. His only comment was "I'll be darned"

I just got back from the range; one of the rifles is an old Remington 30S with a Unertl 4X Hawk scope shooting 54 gr. of AA3100 under some old Hornady 220 RN's. Not an ideal deer load but it is going deer hunting in Wisconsin this month. I just happened to have those bullets laying around and they just seemed to go with that vintage rifle and scope.

Just to satisfy my curiosity, in what country can you take dangerous game without running afoul of the .366/.375 minimum caliber rules? I wanted to take a hippo in Zim with my .35 Whelen, but the PH (rightly so) told me about the 'rules' and (again rightly so) wouldn't ignore them.