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Bi-Mart usually has it at a good price. Don't recall what I last paid, maybe $10 give or take.
before u spend money on it,my opinion,it's a VERY wimpy powder..as it's designed to be.I tried it in my 3030 and was much happier with my Unique loads than I was the TB loads. Those big 'cheerio' shaped flakes arent the easiest to meter either. fyi,ymmv,etc.
I am just freaked out about double charging those large cases. Any thoughts on how to be careful?
You can screen for a double charge by weighting the loaded ammunition. This will inspire more confidence the more familiar you are with statistical analysis. But here is the gist: Let's say the cases weights 100gr +/- 2gr, charges 10gr+/- 0.1gr, bullets 170gr+/1 2gr, and primers 5gr+/- 0.5gr. You add up all the mean values and worst cases up and down, that is 285gr, 289.6gr upper bound and 280.4 lower bound. If you double charge a cartridge using all mean weight materials, you'd get 295gr, obviously out of bounds. But if you double charge with everything on the lower limit, you get 289.8gr, not only is it outside of the range but it is too close to the upper limit, so, I'd pull this one, and anything falling around the upper limit, even if it is within the range, at least initially. Same goes for squibs if you reverse the logic. As you measure your lot, the data will start showing a bell shaped distribution, bunching up around the mean value, 285gr. As data gets accumulated, out layers (double charges and squibs) can be more easily and accurately picked out.
Hope this helps.
Trail Boss has been my go-to powder for subsonic loads in several calibers. But my go-to powder for transonic and supersonic cast bullet reduced loads is AA5744. Has worked exceedingly well with 45-70 and 7.62x54R. But Unique is good, too. IMHO, IMR3031 is too slow to safely load at 1300 fps muzzle velocities. Plus, you will get a very wide velocity spread.
Depending on the bullet weight, 1300fps may be pushing it with Trail Boss. But I would not know. I've never tried loaded for 30-30. I've read on several places you should not compress Trail Boss. Allegedly pressures go up very rapidly with any additional charge increase. Double check with Hodgdon.
From my Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook, 3rd edition, for Unique powder:
bullet, start load(gr), velocity(fps), max load(gr), velocity(fps),pressure (CUP)
#311441 115gr, 7.5,1480,11.4,1913,36400
#311440 151gr, 7.5,1333,11.0,1691,37300
#311291 169gr, 7.0,1211,10.6,1568,36000
#31141 170gr, 7.0,1240,10.6,1555,35500
Does the manual say the pressure generated for the #311440 151gr low end load? I was running the hardness calculations from the link you sent and wanted to see what the optimal hardness is for a 7.5gr charge would be.Yes, data for #311440 should be good. That's all I have. I have found a lot of data in the web for 30-30 for most of it is for gas checked bullets.
If you are relatively new to cast bullets (as I am), I recommend this read: Missouri Bullet Company
What rifle are you loading these for? Marlin 30-30 with micro-groove, has a tendency to lead up. The Marlin Cowboy has the deep Ballard rifling.
I run light loads for the grandkids, in my 30-30 model 94's and the old Stevens 325. I will check the loads tonight, and post them here.
The projectiles I bought for my 30-30 are sized at .309General knoledge says that .309 is too small for most rifles in a cast bullet. 310 and even .311 will provide more bite into the rifleing. however,ya just never know until you actually try them in YOUR rifle.