Reply With QuoteI have eaten a catfish or 2 out of the trinity myself. Similar time frameOriginally Posted by Bobby Tomek
I need to get my .30-30 AI back in the woods, it's my favorite deer gun.
It's better to shoot for the moon and hit the fencepost than to shoot for the fencepost and hit the ground!
I have eaten a catfish or 2 out of the trinity myself. Similar time frame
I am sorry, I may have mispoke.
It will depend on exactly what stand I end up going to first. If it's a more open spot then the XP 100 in .308 Win. If a little less open then either the contender 12" 357 magnum or the S&W 586.
Bob T , Where did that XP stock come from?
Bow season started here yesterday. My grandson has 4 nice food plots with trail cams and has been seeing lots of nice bucks in the 160 ish class this year. A couple 180s but everybody and his dog are after those guys. He was out but nothing worth shooting on the first day. Gun season doesn't start here until November and we are straight wall.
I believe it is an old Fajen stock, my pistol is for all practical purposes a clone of Bob Milek's. This is a quote from Bob in an article about his gun - "The Fajen walnut thumbhole stock was fit and finished for me by Ralph Hastings and my dies were provided by Dick Bebee of Redding."
I believe Mr. Hastings recontoured the thumbhole stock to the current configuration, it's very comfortable to shoot!
I wish I had more information on this gun and whomever it was originally built For.
Last edited by BobT; 10-03-2024 at 09:08 AM. Reason: correction
It's better to shoot for the moon and hit the fencepost than to shoot for the fencepost and hit the ground!
Oh, I’ll reach out to the gentleman that sold it to me. See if he knows the history
I've been shooting rimfire so much lately that I haven't worked on loads in a while. I'm due to get a couple of Contender rigs over to the range. :)
I'm lucky enough to live close and I end up going over at least once a week, most weeks a couple of times for an hour or so. I'll be posting some range results before long and, with any luck, some hunting pics as well.
I appreciate it Mark!
It's better to shoot for the moon and hit the fencepost than to shoot for the fencepost and hit the ground!
I've gone back & forth a few times in the last month after spending some bench time with a few barrels; so far the short list for most-likley-to-go-out barrels includes:
A) 20" stainless 30/30 medium taper contour by MGM , wearing a 1.75-6x Leupold short tube, loaded with Barnes 120gr Tac-TX black tips at about 2600fps , fueled by AR-Comp. This one: https://i.imgur.com/neDG43C.jpg
B) 21" factory taper 7TCU, after i get some load issues worked out....brass was giving me some fits, but it was shooting great before the brass problems.
C) 20" .400Legend by MGM, with whatever it ends up shooting well...aint shot it yet, but started load workups. Hope to run some through it this weekend.
D) 16" .357max by MGM.
At least you get things done! I’m glad you’re still so active and continually testing.
I believe I can say the same!
For those shooting the 30/30 Ackley, what loads have worked well for you guys in your barrels for deer?
Mine is a 20" by MGM, and when i was first working with it, i found it shot pretty well with Hornady 150SST's & with Leverevolution ;
was getting 2575fps with good accuracy in that barrel....that was with 41.0gr Lever.
42.0gr gave 2620fps, but was showing pressure signs & i called 41gr max for my barrel.
i shot it that way for a few years, then had always wanted to go back & try some bullets in the 125-130gr weight class, but never did swing back around to work up more loads, and have kinda neglected to pack it around much, even though it shot quite well....too many projects working at any one time i guess.
anybody tried AR-Comp, CFE223, or maybe IMR-8208XBR in the 30/30AI?
--------------
EDITED...on a whim just now went & looked up regular 30/30 data (not ackley) on the hodgdon website, and saw StaBall Match and Ramshot TAC also showed great speeds with mid-weight bullets...have plenty of TAC on hand so may try that also in the Ackley Version .
I almost stuck exclusively with the 150 grain Ballistic Tips when I had 23, 24 and 26" 30-30 AI barrels. Varget gave me 2550-2575 fps. In the 26" MGM barrel, I did run the 125 grain BTs for a while using H4198, and while it gave terrific accuracy and velocity, I was never comfortable with that particular powder in this cartridge.
In the plain 30-30, CFE223 is definitely a winner and produces some of the highest velocities -- and at pressures that are on the mild side. With the 110 grain Barnes TAC-TX, it was giving me just over 2800 fps from a 24" Van Horn barrel.
EDITED to add: My 30-30 AI barrels did not care for LVR at all. It gave high velocities but accuracy that more resembled patterns than groups. But in a 7mm Bullberry and 25-35, LVR did beautifully. I often wondered if a hotter primer may have made a difference in my barrels, but I never got around to testing that theory.
FyrepowrX What powders are you using, and what velocities are you getting, in the 21" 7TCU. I have an MGM 20" heavy barrel and have played with a few different loads but always interested in what is working for others.
Gerald, I settled on IMR4198 and a 125 NBT. That combination has been extremely accurate. My barrel started out on a carbine when I did the load development, then a year later I had the barrel cut down to 15”. I thought for sure I’d have to tweak the load a bit after shortening, but to my surprise, the groups actually tightened up, and they were already great.
Bruce...i'll do a new thread in the morning on the 7TCU, i have a bit of info from tests on my first 7TCU carbine some time ago...also have stashed away several articles & stuff from the 7TCU in rifle-length barrels. I'm on my second 7TCU carbine barrel now, and also just finished assembling a fair bit of test loads for the new barrel....will post all that up.
i've seen a fair bit of info from guys who tried 4198 in the 30/30 ackley...i still shoot it in the .222, 45/70, and 30herrett, so always try to keep it on hand.
Gerald, I did some work with the LVR but not with my current barrel. I found that it maxed out at 40grains with 150 grain bullets for me but that gave me 1/2" at 100 yards. I stick with Varget because it just keeps putting 125's or 150's into small groups and has delivered the goods to account for a fair number of Texas whitetails.
I've programmed CFE223 into some ballistics load tests and it seems like it's a pretty good match. I tend to go with the slower powders in my longer barrels but in a 20" I bet it would do some good.
After changing jobs in march of 2023 I don't get to the range as much as I used to and when I do it's usually with a handgun of some sort but I look forward to seeing the data you have.
Bruce,...forgive the long rambling, i started typing this a couple of days ago and kept adding to it.
Cant remember when i first got a 7TCU barrel, guessing it was 30 years ago or so, and it was a 10". I shot it some, was pretty pleasant to work with, but never did much with it...kept it around quite a while, and eventually got a 14" that someone had sent in to SSK to have their hard-chrome finish applied. I shot it a bit more than the shorter barrel, and later traded the 10" off for something else...don't remember what.
Once i started shooting contender carbines a lot, i started thinking the 7TCU might be a pleasant to shoot deer-stacking machine in a light carbine, and i finally found one at the big gun show...21"taper factory barrel that looked about new. I then found that the 21"barrel did not like anything i had loaded for my shorter barrels. Accuracy was lousy, groups averaged 3-4" pretty frequently at 50 yards. but now & then it'd throw them into 2-2.5" or so.
Fought with that barrel a while, then eventually found it shot much better with heavy bullets...162's, 168's, etc. All well and fine, but i didn't trust heavier projectiles to consistently expand at 7TCUspeeds. So, that one got traded off to a fellow that wanted to shoot pigs with the same projectiles he used in his 7Mag...and the barrel was happy with those.
Fast forward several years with no 7TCU carbine, only pistols...and then found a second carbine barrel in 7TCU at the big gun show that had been Bubba-fied &was pretty grungy looking. It was also a 21” factory tapered barrel like my previous one.
Bore was dirty, outside was dirty, & it wore Burris mounts...2 of the allen-screw heads on the rings were stripped, and one of the base screw heads were stripped. In the mounts was a cheap tasco scope that was rolled about several degrees off-kilter. And...not sure why...barrel breech face that makes contact with the frame had been ultra-high mirror polished, blue removed. I can only assume the barrel didn't lock up on his frame, or maybe was hard to open, so Bubba started buffing and polishing, hoping that would make it fit better?
only saving grace was it did come with a new wood forend. Well, that and the fact it was priced cheap. Bubba assured me it locked up, and it shot well, and offered to stick it on a frame right there. I bought it, took it home, and cut the stripped ring screws out with the grinding wheel on a Dremel, and heated the base screws up with a soldering iron tip to release whatever he'd used for thread-locker.
Finally got it scrubbed, cleaned, new leupold bases, and stuck a 2x7 on it. Bore did look great after the crud was scrubbed out. Then deer season happened, i got busy, and stuck it aside for later work.
This year the fence around my farm acted as a force-field to repel all rain & moisture so i was a full month late in getting my food plots planted..in between mowing, discing, seeding, etc, i started working with several of the project barrels again, including the7TCU.
The new Bubba barrel DID shoot my pistol-barrel loads pretty well...real well in fact. With much relief, i started running an assortment of stuff through the barrel to try, since i had quite an assortment of loads from previous TCU barrels...then, one would not chamber, wondering what was wrong i pulled the cartridge out, and found the neck from the previous cartridge wrapped around the projectile of loaded round I had tried to seat. Well...crap. Nothing ever seems easy any more.
I tried a few more shots, then in just a bit pulled out another case neck from the chamber....fortunately the neck came out of the chamber easily; these were not max loads.
After no telling how many firings in several different 7TCU barrels, both short ones & long ones, the brass was simply old, brittle, and was giving up the ghost. I thought about annealing to see if it was salvageable, but in the end with an unknown number of firing on brass that might be as old as 30 years, I wrote it all off....and pulled down almost 300 loaded rounds to save bullets. In pulling bullets, a couple more necks split while pulling those loads.
About every load manual has had various 7TCU data, but always for pistol length tubes...did some scrounging & found some data for rifle length barrels. In testing my first carbine with some stuff i'd used in my 10” and 14” barrels, these were the results for speeds:
7TCUdata, 21” factory barrel:
115speer 25.5gr IMR4198 is 2478fps
115speer 25.0gr reloder7 2360fps
115speer 26.5gr reloder7 2426
115speer 26.4gr AA1680 2575fps
100sierra 24.0LT30 is 2262fps
100sierra 25.0LT30 is 2529fps
in switching to the Hornady 120 V-Max, these were some averages for speeds with a few different powders:
R7---2400fps
AA2460...2300fps
H322...2450fps
H335....2450fps
Someone had emailed me a long time ago after seeing a post on specialty pistols where I had mentioned working with the 7TCU in a rifle, they had with info from a Quickload workup on the 7TCU in rifle barrels...their parameters were at least 90% fill density, and not exceeding 100%, so no compressed loads; max 52K PSI, using Nosler120 BT's...a fine bullet for just such a project; maybe one of the best.
Cartridge : 7 mmT/CU
Bullet : .284, 120, Nosler Ballistic Tip#28120
Cartridge O.A.L. L6: 2.675 inch or 67.95 mm
Barrel Length : 18.0 inch or 457.2 mm
Predicted Data for Indicated Charges of the Following Powders.
Matching Maximum Pressure:52000 psi, or a maximum loading ratio or filling of 100 %
Actual load order can vary, depending upon lot-to-lot powder andcomponent variations.
USE ONLY FOR COMPARISON !
72 loads produced a Loading Ratio below user-defined minimum of 90%. These powders have been skipped.
Powder type / Fill rate/ LoadingCharge / Vel. / Max PSI
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hodgdon H335 - 98.4 % 31.3gr 2550fps 52000 ! Near Maximum !
RamshotX-Terminator - 99.2% 29.9gr 2540fps 52000 ! Near Maximum !
Norma 200 - 92.3% 27.9gr 2523fps 52000 ! Near Maximum !
Accurate 2230 - 100.0% 31.3gr 2503fps 51694 ! Near Maximum !
Alliant Reloder-10x 100.0% 27.5gr 2501fps 49650 ! Near Maximum !
IMR 4198 - 99.7% 26.1gr 2496fps 52000 ! Near Maximum !
Accurate 2200 94.7% 28.0gr 2480fps 52000 !Near Maximum !
Winchester 748 100.0% 31.4gr 2468fps 45829
Vihtavuori N120 97.9% 26.1gr 2465fps 52000 ! Near Maximum !
Accurate 2460 100.0% 31.3gr 2459fps 47903 ! Near Maximum !
Hodgdon H4198 95.5 % 26.1gr 2447fps 52000 ! Near Maximum !
Hodgdon H322 100.0 % 28.3gr 2446fps 45582
Accurate 2015 - 100.0% 28.2gr 2438fps 46549
Alliant Reloder-12 100.0% 29.7gr 2431fps 46394
Vihtavuori N530 100.0% 29.3gr 2427fps 45921
Ramshot TAC 100.0% 30.6gr 2426fps 45234
Vihtavuori N130 100.0% 27.3gr 2401fps 46744
Norma 201 100.0% 29.8gr 2391fps 44286
Hodgdon Benchmark 100.0% 28.7gr 2386fps 46462
Hodgdon BL-C2 100.0 % 31.8gr 2381fps 41085
Norma 202 100.0% 28.7gr 2319fps 38676
Accurate 2520 100.0% 30.0gr 2298fps 36442
IMR 3031 100.0% 27.3gr 2278fps 34589
Vihtavuori N133 100.0% 26.7gr 2266fps 38638
Vihtavuori N540 100.0% 29.5gr 2259fps 36057
IMR 4895 100.0% 28.2gr 2236fps 36290
Alliant Reloder-15 100.0% 29.2gr 2235fps 35158
Accurate 2495 100.0% 27.6gr 2228fps 31775
Hodgdon H414 100.0% 31.1gr 2193fps 34366
HodgdonH4895 100.0% 28.2gr 2190fps 34150
Itwas about that time that an article appeared in either Handloader or Rifle...cant remember which...about a rem 700 built in 7TCU. I saved the data and am posting below. His speeds were quite a bit more peppy, so maybe he has a fast barrel & I have a slow barrel, but I doubt the deer will notice the difference:
After ditching all my old & questionable brass, I found I still hads ome new virgin 7mm/223brass that was a special run Federal did way back in the dark ages about 30 years ago.
I loaded those up with a new series of test loads using several powders I had on hand, including 4198, Norma200, VV-N120, Reloder-7,Reloder-10x, and Xterminator. Bullets were the Speer 115, Nosler120BT, the Sierra 120Spitzer, and discontinued 120gr single shot pistol bullets. I didnt have enough of the federal 7mm/223, so I sent some new starline .223's to a buddy of mine that bought a commercial annealer, and it will get turned into more TCU's.
Yesterday (Tuesday), I shot about 75 rounds of assorted stuff through the 7TCUcarbine, was kind of slow going as that pencil barrel heats up fast &it was pretty warm out to boot. So far, Reloder-10x is looking the most promising with the Speer115's...but have not yet tried Xterminator or Norma200.
Hope all of that might be of use....once i get my load workups narrowed down i'll chrono some.
Last edited by FyrepowrX; 10-09-2024 at 06:54 PM. Reason: spelling
Thanks for posting the info, G!
That special run of Federal brass was some high-quality stuff and should last you a good while.
my dad (RIP) loved those 115gr Speer HP and IMR4895 in his 14" Contender muzzle brake in 7x30 Waters. man, they could kill deer.
That is alot of useful info for the 7 TCU! Thanks for sharing it. I’ve got a Custom Shop 15” barrel that I’ve yet to finish any good loads for. Your post should come in handy for me.
As I said before I have very limited testing on my MGM barrel. I also noticed that I had mis-stated the barrel length as 20" but it is a 22" bull barrel. I have shot a few loads over the Oehler 33 getting 2523 fps with a Nosler 120BT and Norma 200. Well I actually got up to 2576 fps but slower load with .6gr less powder had a much better Extreme Spread and Standard Deviation. I have also tested a few loads with Norma 202 and H322 but not enough of any of them to settle on a load. I haven't really done accuracy test only chronographing.
Todd...i've had pretty good luck with those on deer as long as i kept speeds moderate, and i've used that bullet design in quite a few calibers that speer offered those in.
Bobby mentioned he tested some a while back, i think those were the .25 version, & they fragmented...i wonder if speer has changed bullet design somewhat from their old version?
I pulled some of the real old ones, and then compared them to the new ones, and kind of looks like maybe the jacket was a bit thicker in the old version, at least by looking at the exposed jacket portion at the HP opening. If i could think of an easy way to segment one without me segmenting a finger, i might try that, but since i already got 2 band-aids on my hand from trying to move a ladder stand yesterday, probably wont be for a while.
I nosed around on my bullet shelves and saw some of mine probably date back from the late 70's , because i started loading quite a bit during the early 80's. I had those speer flat-base HP's in the old yellow box, the later black & yellow box, and the newest all black box.... got them now in .25/100gr , .270/100gr, 7mm/115gr, and .308/130gr...my .277wolverine stays sighted with the .270version, been using the 7mm's in the 7TCU, and the .30's in a couple of .300blackouts, 30herretts, and a 'tender carbine in 30-30. For the .25's, they were mostly used in .25TCU, and the .256max...dont think i ever shot any of them at much above 2400fps, although the 30/30 carbine was probably was running a tad faster.
Now that i think about it, don't recall trying them in my 7x30, but will do that.
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