New 30-30 Dies - Need Hunting Bullet Recommendations

[ikocher]

I just got a set of Hornady Custom dies for 30-30 for early Christmas. This will be my first bottlenecked cartridge I reload for so it’ll be a new experience. Anyway, my 30-30 is predominantly for putting food in the freezer and I would like recommendations for which bullets to start loading with in the 170 grain range that are suitable for whitetail out to 150 yards.

I had been looking at the Speer SPFN 170s as a starting point. Any other recommendations?

[JimT]

I have used the .30-30 to take Mule Deer and Whitetail, but I have never used the standard 150 or 170 gr. bullets. For most hunting I use the Speer HotCor 130 gr. bullet. Running at 2400 fps or better it never failed me. For something totally different I loaded the 150 gr. Winchester Silver Tip spizer bullet. They have to be loaded single shot, but I took my time, waited for a good position and never need more than one shot.

IMG_4758.JPG

30-30 Whitetail.jpg

Whitetail taken with the 150 gr. Silver Tip spitzer

[Rockrat]

Try the Speer 130gr hot core and Leverevolution powder

[44shooter]

Those 170 gr Speer bullets you are looking at have a pretty high ballistic coefficient for a flat nose. I think it would be a good choice for most anything a 30-30 is appropriate for. There’s a Nosler Partition 170 grain if you want something a bit tougher or Hornady FTX 160 grain if you want something more pointy. Honestly, about anyone’s 170 grain flat or round nose bullets would probably be satisfactory for what you seek.

[veeman]

My method it to try multiple bullets with multiple powders to see what your rifle likes.

[ikocher]

Thanks everyone. Bass Pro has some LeverEvo powder and I’ve be recommended 335 so I will try to pick up those and rifle primers at some point.

I ordered a 100 round box of the 130 grain Speers along with a box of the 170’s to start with. I’m seeing good things about the Sierra stuff too so I may try those next.

Mostly I was looking for recommendations on which bullets people had success taking deer with but it sounds like most of the manufactures have sorted out the 30-30 specific bullets enough that I don’t need to hunt far for a good one.

[JimT]

if you haven't read it, there is an article I did years ago testing various factory .30-30 loads and handloads.

One test was a penetration test where I shot through the leg bones of a steer we had butchered. I had a solid oak door covered with carpet behind the bone. I measured how deep each load went after penetrating the bone and what the recovered bullet weighed.

The 3 best loads were the Federal 170 gr. Nosler, the Winchester 170 gr. Silvertip, and the Winchester 150 gr. Power Point. The Winchester 150 gr. Power Point retained the most weight of the 3. The best penetrator was the Federal 170 gr. Nosler.

https://www.leverguns.com/articles/tayl ... 4_3030.htm

[wvfarrier]

The 150 grain TSX from Barnes is an absolute hammer

[Griff]

I've taken several deer with 150 grain Federal HyShok in the .30-30. I've taken a couple with handloads. I used a Sierra 150 grain FN in front of 27 grains of RL 7 and Winchester primers. Makes 2290 out of my mdl 94 w/26" bbl.