.30 cal. Ranch Dog

popper

Well-Known Member
Tried the 170 PB (172C) with 18 gr. Rx7 today, Liked the way it shot but accuracy was poor. Round holes @ 50 but large spread. 145 PB was worse @ 18gr, holes still round but all over the place. A little too hot, need to drop to 16. FTX with LeverE did 4 touching, pulled one an inch high. So I can still shoot the 336. Went through a bunch of 22lr in the mod 60. Did fine but hadn't cleaned or shot for a year, bolt was almost impossible to work.
Gotta add, young guy shooting his 30/30 corelocs - hitting high. He was frustrated trying to move the rear sight higher. Couldn't get his AR15 boresighted either. I mentioned it needed to go back vs forward. Didn't register with him.
edit: pulled the left overs this morning and looked at the target under mag. Looks like minor striping in the MG, a couple holes almost tipped, Grooves smudged on the target. 145 is harder alloy than 170. Barrel isn't leaded, hadn't cleaned it but last outing was with GC 185. Rx7 even at top end loads didn't have much recoil, soft push mo better. Normal 16gr 2400 is light recoil but still a bit snappy. Think I found a good use for the couple # of Rx7, not much 2400 left.
 
Last edited:

todd

Well-Known Member
the one on the far right is a 165gr ranch dog, the one on the far left is also a ranch dog

4pV0D7p.jpg
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
that's an interesting phase change it went through to get from right to left , I wonder if Lyman got involved with the cherry particulars.
 

todd

Well-Known Member
it is 10 coww and about 1/4 tin(12+/-bhn).
its avg velocity from the muzzle is 1930fps.
i recovered it at 100 yards and it was a 3/4" plywood and a "dirt" berm. although i have shot deer with rd, it passes thru(20 - 173 yards)
 

popper

Well-Known Member
Thinking, thinking, dangerous! 30/30 started as a BP with cast. OK, 30/30 is a great cast case. Why? 'long neck' - why? Encloses the grease lubed heavy cast (original 150ish?) and really small exposed nose. Most cast were RN. OK. Marlin load gate appears to prefer RN. Fat and short throat/free bore. Most load the WFN (RD, 041, whatever version) to just touch the lands for best accuracy. OK, centers in the bore but sometimes jams on extraction. So make a step in the nose so nose fits and body fills the throat space. PC adds a problem. 3 approaches I've seen. RD and seat depth to solve problem. 041 with smaller straight sided nose section. Another with a low angle taper from the drive band to small straight nose section, sort of a bore rider. Nose style as to what will feed good, provide desired meplat. I've even seen long RN bore riders in 30/30 cases - won't even single feed in my Marlin. So why so ling winded? I shoot 31-172C and 185 GC cousin from 30/30 and BO. Chamber design is completely different! An OP suggested BO case needed a longer neck. OK, suggestion has been 'size to fill the throat, not the bore'. So, can we use the case neck to fill the throat and just design the cast to fit the bore and lands? Appears that was the original 30/30 (marlin goal). I keep hearing the short/fat problem in a lot of calibers.
Want to design 2 new GC moulds that work in BO & 30/30, ~140ish BO and `180ish for the 30/30 Marlin - that doesn't get the 'jam' problem.
Ideas/thoughts?
 

Reloader762

Active Member
I have the Arsenal version of the .311" RD RF in a 4 cavity design 2 gas check and 2 plain base. The bullet want chamber in my Sav. 170 pump 30-30 due to the larger ogive I haven't tried to size it to .309" yet and see if that will chamber but I'm going to make a dummy rd. give that a try later.

All is not lost as it works perfectly in my Sav. 99 in 300 Sav. I loaded up a couple test rds. with both the gas check and plain base bullets cast from 50/50 and powder coated and quenched right out of the toaster oven. The brass is Lake City 7.62 NATO reformed to 300 Sav. the smaller case capacity of the NATO brass give me around 50 fps. added MV with an identical load in standard 300 Sav. brass. The load I used was 16.0 grs. of Alliant 2400 just to see what it would do on paper.
pddQhJc.jpg

450RhTS.jpg

cFRyZ5L.jpg
 
Last edited:

Ben

Moderator
Staff member
I find that group totally amazing !
Jim, this kind of performance is what cast bullet shooters work so hard to try and attain.

GREAT ! !
Ben
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
That is more than just a good load Jim. Takes a good shot to make groups like that.

Well done
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
you can't lump 30-30 with 30-30 or use a longer case length to try to fix the marlin chamber issues.
it's not really a chamber issue so much as a throating issue.
Michael designed his stuff to work in marlin lever guns and not so much for anything else.
the 30 cal design was changed by others so they would work in other makes of rifles as well.

the marlin problem was the area right where a normal ball seat would be.
it is just a big hollow spot right there, you can use longer brass to fill in that area but you still have the issue of starting the bullet off center and no way to align it.
the Ranch dog design uses the overly large nose shape to make the jump across the gap there so it snuggles in against the lands on the other side [only without really touching]

I use the same principle for my AR-15's [the HM-2 223 mold follows that same design] only I harden up the alloy for their much rougher journey.
 

KHornet

Well-Known Member
Yep! have it in Lee original, and shoots nearly
as well as I suspect the NOE would.

Paul
 

popper

Well-Known Member
I had the original Lee version for marlin, got it to work fine but takes some tweaking. Pushed hard, very accurate. Recently tried the 31-165C I use in the LR-308, full book load in 336. Excellent results! 300AC/BO has a similar problem, (probably a lot of other milsurp cases too) of lots of 'empty' space. Other than a stepped base (hard to size), is there another approach that could give better results? The 165 is a ball seat design, I use lighter but similar in BO, drive band pretty much fills the 'space' and centers on that space but not the bore and it never touches the lands. Like the 30/30, ~ 20 thou. smaller than the neck dia. to fill.
I have a PB and slick sided mini-groove design that works, trying to derive a more generic nose profile design that will work in most anything with only very minor tweaking, and bottle neck cal. Once the 'bore' interface is worked out, any meplat could be used.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
the problem is the interface and the nose design are pretty interrelated.
IMO a lot of people really overlook the importance of that little shape of the ball seat area and forward taper into the rifling.
that is the part of the bullet that is,,, well,,, it is the 'fit' part of fitment.

looking beyond this rifle has this and that rifle has that [and working a mold for each one] really leads to you just buying molds from lyman or more like one mold from lyman and just using it in everything it chambers in and taking what you get.
 

Ian

Notorious member
Exactly. Also, if you get away from the notion that "fit" means all that hard-sought geometry has to come together when the breech is closed and instead make it so it happens after .030" (or whatever) of bullet movement, then many more possibilities for universalizing accurate ammo open up for you.
 

popper

Well-Known Member
RD works fine, IIRC 29gr LeverE, veggie oil lube, AC #2, just snicking the lands, ~40 yds. Sitting on ground with elbow on plastic cooler. Got a similar but different mould now, found if I 'nose' size about 1/10" where the lands are, accuracy increases and NO stuck bullets - kinda like the 041 has. Thinking of a 31-165 (you guys designed) with an extra 'step/short bore rider' in the nose so I just adj. seating depth. Nite before this was deer hunt and had to get a brass rod to empty the rifle. GK & his buddy put a couple LR308 into it also. Anyway just thinking aloud.
9797