Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Hornady "American Whitetail" .30-06 powder charge???

So i just bought a .30-06 and could only find one box of ammo for it on the fly with the shortages and all. Hornady "American Whitetail" 150 grainers.

I wasn't crazy about the 150 grain bullet, prefering the 165's i already load in other 30 cals. No problem, i've got lots of bullets and powder so i pulled the bullets from the cartridges and replaced with my 165's over 57 grains of H4350. Just for interest's sake i weighed the powder charges from a couple of the factory ammo cartridges (looked like a ball powder) and was surprised to find both held almost 70 grains of powder! (69.9 - i weighed the powder charge in the second one thinking i must have been wrong about the first.) I checked all my literature and could not find a single powder listed that gave a max load anywhere near this high.

Any suggestions what's going on here?

The 3006 doesn't have 70 grns of case capacity

Check your scale

Even with a dense ball powder?

I don’t know. I’ve never tried.

Not even with water

Good suggestion, will do.

I'm gonna try a case with W 760 - said to be devised to mimic .30-06 factory powders. Not to shoot, just to see if it will go in there.

Perhaps it is a blended powder that they use.
Weatherby uses a proprietary blended powder in their ammo.
That is why you never match their ballistics if reloading

Didn't have to try the 760, Tedhorn is right. I think i must not have had the slider locked off tight enough when zeroing the other day and jogged it without realizing. In too much of a hurry to get those loads done for the new gun. Another reinforcement of the adage, haste means waste.

Thanks Tedhorn.

That American Whitetail hunter Hornady ammo is some of the best for the money ammo out there. And your going to improve it by pulling the bullets dumping the powder to gain the use of 15 grain heavier bullets when you can't even run a powder scale? Jfc you take the prize for certain..mb

😂😂😂 truer words.

Shooting copper ammo. Some of the hamburger goes to the dogs, don't want lead residue in it. So yeah, it's improved. Plus, there's elk on the ticket. 150 grains ain't the best medicine for elk.

These forums are amazing. Always some bucketmouth loser ready to jump on you with words they wouldn't dare speak in person.

Wow

Gulo don't worry about that, I'd say it right your face simply because you are owed honesty...mb

Hodgdon is showing a max of 65.0grs of Hunter and Superformance in the 30-06 with a 150gr.It would have to be a really heavy powder by volume to get 69.9 or 70.0grs in a 30-06.I'm not saying it's not possible because all powders do not weigh the same by volume.It would almost have to be somewhere in the Ramshot Magnum powder burn range if you were running 70.0grs in a 30-06.My guess if your scale is right,it may be a special powder not available for sale.
https://www.hodgdonreloading.com/reloading-data-center?rdc=true&type=54

I'm just wondering why you didn't just use the ammo to get the "new" rifle dialed in, check scope etc.
The you would of had 20 pieces of fireformed brass to work up your "165 gr. load" with and some trigger time on your "new" rifle.

To each his own I guess. A lot of critters big and small killed with slugs less than 150 grains.

There’s a lot of elk killers on this forum who would argue with your about 150 grain bullets and elk.

Worrying about ingesting lead fragments is not even an argument. Show me one time that it has been proven that people have had issues from ingested lead. You would have to eat pounds of it, to even come close to being an issue. SMDH

As MB suggested, honesty is what you should be looking at and not getting butt hurt because of it.

Maybe so, but there's more than one way to deliver honesty.

If some on here acted out their keyboard cowboy fantasies in word and deed, in real life, they’d have long since been in jail or the ground. But, as one of our icons here often says, “It’s never not amusing.”

Yep. There's seldom any reason to "break bad" right out of the gate in these situations.