30-06 subsonic / reduced load question ???

[PAV]

Did anyone ever loaded 30-06 subsonic / reduced load? And if you did, do you still have recipe?

Thanks

[M1NM]

Try one for 300 blackout.

[krwada]

Yes

Did anyone ever loaded 30-06 subsonic / reduced load? And if you did, do you still have recipe?

Thanks

This is for a bolt gun...

16.5 grains Trailboss behind 110 grain plated RN .308 projectile.

This load has very little recoil. Instead of the thunder of a .30-06, it gives out a dull 'POP' sound when fired.

It is not very accurate however. The best I could do with it was around 1.5" at 100 yards. The average grouping is around 3-5" at 100 yards with this thing.

I did this because I managed to lay my hands on 1000 each of the 110 grain plated RN projectiles for cheap!

I would stick to the more normal 150-168 grain copper jacketed stuff using medium burn powder like Reloder-15 or Varget.

[CGT80]

150 jacketed over 13.0 red dot (look up "the load" for red dot and 30 cal rifles
150 jacketed over trail boss (look up universal trail boss load data)
cast boolits over red dot, hp38, win 231, herco, bullseye, trail boss, probably unique, etc.

For a mid powered load, 150 jacketed over 30.0 grains of IMR 4895 (look up youth loads for hodgdon 4895)

Castboolits is a great forum for reloading info on light loads.

Bolt gun?
What powders do you have?
What bullets do you have?

Bullseye seems to be used for cat sneeze loads, but I haven't used it. Here is a thread about loading for a 30-30, for some ideas: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ze-30-30-loads

My go to load is a 180 grain flat point plain base boolit that I make from an NOE mold (profile is Saeco #315) over 9.6 grains of herco, seated in a 30-30 case or a 30-06 case. In the 30-30 it is 1300 fps, so may not be subsonic, but it is very fun to shoot and pretty light. It feels softer and quieter, probably due to the gun, in my 30-06. The 30-30 is a 16" win 94 and my 30-06 is a win model 54 bolt gun with a longer barrel.

What you can do is kind of limitless, but this forum isn't really tailored to that sort of loading. Castboolits is the best I have found for the mechanics of shooting.

[sghart]

Lee C311-113-F bullet, cast from wheel weight lead, sized to .311 and tumble lubed, loaded over 3 gr of Bullseye.

Whenever I camp/hunt I have 5 or 10 of these loaded in 30.06 or 30-30, whichever rifle I have with me.

Very quiet, accurate and has put camp meat on my fires for many years.

[rsrocket1]

I had to go down to 6.5g Red Dot under a Lee C309-200-R without GC in order to get to subsonic velocity. Very good group out to 50 yards.


You might be able to stick a couple more tenths and stay subsonic with that bigger 30-06 case. My barrel is 24".

[rm1911]

If you don't cast there are several options. Hunters supply makes .311 bullets that work great out of my 03A3 but won't chamber in my son's marlin X7. Dunno why. Xtreme makes 308 150's that I've got to try out. I grabbed some bulk 150 fmjbt's a while back. And of course there's some older assorted noslers and sierras that kill condors and I can't hunt with anymore.

Trail boss works for all of them. Same basic load: 17 gr. I've used 10gr unique with the lead. I imagine unique would work with jacketed but seems internet consensus is unique only with lead. Although it would be fine with the xtreme plated since you load plated with lead data.

But with the pistol powder crisis what to do if you don't have trail boss or unique? Well, pretty much any pistol powder will work with cast bullets. Anything that's on the faster side will be effective. Keep charges in the 5-6 gr range to start. Work up slowly. Always always always make sure you don't double charge!!!

There are several sources of 30cal lead bullets online. With lead you'll need at least .310 to get a good seal. I used some 309's and they tumbled. The 311's were very accurate. Although I imagine the xtremes would be fine. I gotta get some of those.

[PAV]

Thanks for the info. I have to look through my supplies to see the powder and bullets I have. I'll post in the next day or two.
Thanks

[1idcat]

Hodgdon has a recipe using trailboss powder:

http://www.hodgdon.com/PDF/Trail%20Boss%20Reduced%20Loads%20R&P.pdf

I've used 13 to 17 gr. of Trailboss in 30-06 using jacketed 150s. They shot well in my Rem700, about 12" low at 100 yds. from normal hunting loads, about 1 MOA.
Recoil was about .22LR level.

Hodgdon also lists reduced loads for H4895 on their site.

[CEDaytonaRydr]

tagged

[ElvenSoul]

.30 Herrett

[rsrocket1]

For a reduced load, the Xtreme .308 110g RN bullets made for the 30m1 carbine work great for plinking. 10g Red Dot/Unique/Bullseye/Clays/Titewad all get about 1750 fps and can get you close to 1-2" at 100 yards. Not subsonic, but cheap, low recoil fun plinking loads.

With pistol powder under a heavy rifle bullet, they all perform pretty much the same when used at the 10g-12g level. I've used powders as fast as Clays, e3, Extra Lite and as slow as Power Pistol and 800X and they are all good enough for plinker loads.

What I did when going for low recoil fun loads was to zero my gun for the standard loads I shoot. That was 38g H335 under a 150g JSP bullet @2460 fps. I then tailored the low recoil load to hit the same POA as the standard load. The load on the upper right was close to POA and accurate enough as a plinker load, so I stayed with it.


A few years later I started casting to save even more money.
This was my first outing with newly cast boolits using pistol powders. At 50 yards, the shots in general hit 2" above POA.



I have since been playing around with lots of pistol powders using three different bullet weights. 113g for really inexpensive plinkers, 170g for potentially "serious" uses like hunting and 200g for subsonic or heavyweight shots.



For subsonic, you want a heavy bullet and really fast powder. Otherwise you simply cannot get enough pressure to expand the case to seal off the gases. Light bullets simply go too fast at 10,000+ psi and lower than that gives sooty cases, lots of smoke and unburned powder. At low pressures the powder burns irregularly and you get really inconsistent MV's sometimes to the point of stuck bullets.

Hope that helps.

[PAV]

Thanks a lot for the info.
I am thinking to use Unique and spears 168 or 180gr sp. This is what I have now. I read a a lot about Trailboss. If anyone have some for sale in SF pl let me know.

Few more questions.
#1. Is subsonic round powerful enough for hunting 100 - 200 yards?
#2. Should I use filler and if yes what should be used?

Thank you

[CGT80]

Never use filler with trail boss, as it is already bulky. The powders I listed should not need filler. Red dot and herco are the two I use all the time for rifles and I don't use filler. I have run as little as 6.0 grains of red dot in the 30-30 with no filler and no issues. It seems people are not using filler with bullseye and some charges are quite low. Double check on this as I have not run bullseye in rifle cases. I haven't used unique.

It probably depends on what you are hunting and the shot placement. Hopefully you will make your loads hot enough to get humane kills.

[PAV]

Thanks.I have to find some Trail boss locally. It seems very popular for reduced loads.