Has Anyone tried AA1680 for Cast bullets in a 30-30

[Sixgun]

I have lots of AA1680 and was thinking that it may be good for cast loads in a 30-30.  Has anyone given it a try and what kind of accuracy did you get.  Most of my 30 cal molds are between 170 and 190 gr as cast.

Sixgun

[Kingfish]

I never have but know you could. It's the go to powder for the 7.62X39 I found when I loaded up a few for a friend. I just used all the other powders with close to the same burn rate like 4198, RL-7, H-322, H-335 because I didn't have any of the 1680. With cast bullets, it would be easy to work up a load of some kind. AA's 1680 looks like it's a little faster than their 2015 so keep that in mind.

Bill

[Nobade]

I've tried 1680 and WC680 in cases that big, and it's not really what you want. It only burns consistantly with full case loads, such as 22 gr. in the 7.62X39. In the 30-30 you'll end up with about half a case of powder before you run into pressure problems. Without fillers you'll have large velocity spreads and huge muzzle flash about half the time. With fillers it's doable but I don't recommend it unless you're a very experienced reloader and know what you're doing. In other words, there are much better choices for this application.

[Sixgun]

Well guys,

I did finally settle on a load.  I was looking through the RCBS Cast Bullet manual and tried some of the loads in there.  On a whim I tried the 32gar IMR 4831 load for the 180gr bullet.  I didn't have any RCBS 180gr fop bullets cast so I tried the same load with some Lyman 311291 bullets.  I was getting 3 inch groups at 200 yards with this load, from a bench rest and a Redfield receiver sight.  Recoil is fairly stiff but I took it to the match anyway.  Over my Chrony I got a Av velocity of 1750fps with a Sd of 18.  I think I can live with that.

 

During the sight in practice, before the match, I rung the second ram that I shot.  The first one fell kind of slow and the second one just made a noise.  That did concern me a little bit but what can you do.

 

I started on pigs and got 7, drat, I should have got 10.  I got 6 turkeys, then went to the rams.  On the first bank I got 4.  On the second bank I got the first one, then I got a dead center hit on the second one and rung it.  I knocked down the last 2.  I got 9 chickens for a total of 29.  Not too bad for the first time.  When we went down to set the targets on the rams, I noticed that the one that I rung didn't even move on the stand.  The stand is an upside down railroad rail and the feet on the ram that didn't go down was extra wide, as wide as the rail itself.  I noticed that the feet were all different widths.  The guy that was shooting the other bank of rams at the same time as me also rang a ram with a good shot and he was using a 38-55 with a 250gr bullet.  His ram had wide feet too.  I think that was the problem.

 

Anyway, It was a fun day and I did get the third highest score out of 20 shooters so I won't complain.

Sixgun