Cast Bullets in a Marlin 336, 30-30, Micro Grove barrel?

[ldanes]

Hello Everyone,

I am new to reloading my own casted bullets for rifles. I have a Marlin 336 made in 1969. It has a Micro Grove barrel? Any information on loading for the Marlin 336 with cast bullets would be much appreciated. I have a Lyman 31141 (old) 173 gr .309 FN mold ( not used yet) Also have WW for a casting product. Have loaded for rifle and pistols with jacketed projectiles. This is my first post on your fine site.


Thanks in advance,

Lou

[TXGunNut]

Welcome to the affliction! Looks like you're off to a great start. What powders do you have on hand?

[RickinTN]

I've been working with several 30-30 micro-groove rifles for the last couple of years with cast. The micro-groove is definitely at least a little different animal than a "ballard" rifled 30-30 and add that the marlin is a 10" twist. In my experience the Marlin 30-30's require a harder bullet than you might get by with in a standard rifled barrel. I would suggest water dropping or heat treating if clip-on wheel weight alloy is what you have (good alloy by the way) for the added hardness. Most of what I have read suggest a "fat" bullet to fill the throat of the Marlin rifles. I have at least two rifles which will chamber a bullet of .312" plus a touch, but thus far have gotten the best accuracy with bullets sized .310" in one rifle and .311" in the other. Most of my rifles will shoot a .310" bullet into 1" or so @50yds. Most of my work has been at velocities in the 1,400fps and down range. Hopefully your mold will drop bullets @ .310" or more.
Good Luck,
Rick

[ldanes]

Varget, H 414, BL-C (2), H335, IMR 3031, Reloader 22, H4350, H4895, H1000, H4831, H4831SC, H380, H322, Benckmark, Win 748, 768, 760.
WW are an online buy. Lou

[ldanes]

Thanks for the reply, what is a "water drop" and what can a person do it the mold drops a bullet less then .310"? Lou

[wmitty]

Try the 31141 unsized with 45/45/10 lube and 25 gr Re 7 or 3031; try to get to throat diameter and don't worry too much about groove diameter. If you want to go fast, oven heat treat the boolits at 450 degrees for an hour and then quickly dump 'em in cold water. I seat gas checks before heat treating in a push thru die at .311"...
welcome to the site and ask questions!

[Green Lizzard]

i would try them, crimp on the gas check using a 310 die. i had the same thing with a 303 britt. 314 groove .312 boolit all over the target tumbling all over the place. i made up a 315 die barely crimping the check on boolit never even touched the die. accuacy was not target grade, but pretty good at 2 or 3 in at 100 yds pointy end first

[truckjohn]

So... there's a bunch of lore about these.... Many folks have good results with hard bullets... Your "typical" Marlin 30-caliber barrel ran a hair larger than 0.309... so 0.309 bullets are the absolute smallest you should consider for cast.... The "largest" will be determined by your chamber neck, reloading dies, and the brass thickness... For example... Neither of mine will chamber 0.312" bullets, and 0.311 is a real push to get it in there.... 0.310" is fine, though... so that's what I run...

The thing to do is to mic a 1x fired case inside the neck.. Take off 0.001" and this will give you an idea of safe max bullet diameter.....

Next thing is bullet hardness... Fresh cast bullets are real soft... Lead hardens as it ages... Most of the time, you have to wait a couple weeks or a month before you can shoot them or they will be too soft...

Next... Loads wise - start off with well known and tried Cast loads that work for many people....
So... Say your 31141 sized 0.310" gas checked and running over 16 grains of 2400 powder is a fine starting point... Lots of folks love the classic 4198 loads as well...

Thanks

[btroj]

I shoot cast in my microgroove all the time.
I shoot a 165 gr with 16 gr of 2400 with excellent results.

[Jeffrey]

Hey Lou, Your rifle sounds like mine. The nice thing about a 30-30, is that being a rimmed cartridge, "gallery loads (cat sneeze, mouse fart), are a lot easier to achieve than in a rimless cartridge. You'll learn the reasons why when you read the "stickies". I was in much the same place you are now when I started this thread. http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...-put-THANK-YOU
I LOVE this site, Jeffrey

[waco]

My brother has the same rifle, made in '67, and we use the Lyman 311041 cast from air cooled wheel weights, sized to .311, gas checked, and lubed with BAC, over 18 grains of 2400. I don't have my notes right in front of me, so I can't tell you the speed, but the accuracy is great!

[Maven]

Lou, Take a look at this: http://www.google.com/cse?cx=0019512...ling&sa=Search

[ldanes]

You guys are great!!!! This site is also great. Nice to know that there is help for persons new to casting bullets. Thanks again, as I will be asking more questions.

Lou

[Jeffrey]

Not to be a grammar Nazi, but you cast "boolits".

You guys are great!!!! This site is also great. Nice to know that there is help for persons new to casting bullets. Thanks again, as I will be asking more questions.

Lou

[TXGunNut]

Not to be a grammar Nazi, but you cast "boolits".

Agreed, haven't had much use for bullets since I discovered boolits.

[Lonegun1894]

Play with the sizes, and as has been said, try to shoot the biggest that will still allow you to chamber. Mine is a '71 vintage, and leaded up horribly when I was trying to size them to .309" regardless of how hard or soft my alloy was. Once I quit that and sized them to .311", I get 1.5-2.5" groups at 100 yds and my full power loads are well over 2K fps. I shoot mostly lighter loads, but that is mostly because they're cheaper on powder, but neither my light plinking loads nor my full power loads lead the bore any. I wanted to see if I could deposit any, since it seemed like once leading starts, it keeps getting worse til you break down and clean it out, but I fired 300rds of full power loads without cleaning and the bore looked like new after a single patch was pushed through it and wiped out the powder fouling. So I for one don't buy the stuff I was told before I bought my Marlin about how they supposedly won't shoot cast.

[badge176]

Look into the effects of mold/ melt temp and alloy composition to bring up the diameter of your Boolits a smidge (i.e. Pure Pb "shrinks" back most while Lino from the same mold runs larger...) I can't tell you the "magic" but somebody has already posted or referenced almost EVERYTHING there is to know about Boolits somewhere in these pages!

[Lead Fred]

I shot many a Ranch Dog cast round though my Marlin 336 before I sold it and bought a 1949 model 94 Winchester
Shoots the same Ranch Dog cast boolit, but now I has to call them 30WCF!

[YunGun]

Welcome to the site! As previously stated, the micro-groove rifling likes a 'fatter' boolit... My initial trials with the Lee 309-170GC sized @ .309 were less than impressive, but groups tightened up noticeably once I switched to a different mold & added some linotype to my melt, producing wider boolits.

If you haven't already done so, another helpful resource you might want to check out is the LASC.US site, & this page in particular relates to the alloy content/temp/shrinkage ratios as mentioned by badge176 above.

As far as powders go, I've had pretty good success with IMR 4198(~18gr) & SR4759(~16gr), Alliant Unique(~9gr), Reloder7(~22gr) & 2400(~16gr). YMMV

[DEVERS454]

I have oven heat treated rifle bullets for years using #2 alloy and using a good quality rifle lube, they work well in my mg Marlin barrels.

I use a gas check, so I really don't see much in the way of leading.

No reason you can't push a 150 or 180gr bullet past 2200fps in a 30-30, providing the rest of the system performs.

Try the 31141 unsized with 45/45/10 lube and 25 gr Re 7 or 3031; try to get to throat diameter and don't worry too much about groove diameter. If you want to go fast, oven heat treat the boolits at 450 degrees for an hour and then quickly dump 'em in cold water. I seat gas checks before heat treating in a push thru die at .311"...
welcome to the site and ask questions!