Why I Shoot the 30-30 in Benchrest

Pictures

I said I would post pictures this evening, so here they are. The receiver is 17-4PH wire edm cut, H900 heat treat. Bolt lugs are S7, bolt body is 6AL4V titanium, bolt handle is 7075-T6, cocking cam D2. The bolt shroud, bolt stop, trigger guard, and action screws are all 7075-T6. I should have made more of these while I was at it. Now it would take almost as long to build another as it did the first one. I probably could have made six in twice the time it took to make one.

Michael


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I never really bought into that "non American Cartridge" thing. Just because Lapua stamps 220 Russian on the face of the head belies the fact that when we get through with it, it is as "American" as something invented by two guys named Palmisano and Pindell could be.

Remington missed their chance. When they developed the 6BR, someone failed to recognize what made the 6PPC so accurate, that ideal powder column to bullet diameter ratio that kept it from being over bore, but offered adequate case capacity to achieve the velocity potential in the hands of experienced shooters with top notch equipment. In short, it broke all of the rules.

They should have made the case 1.375 long from the start.

But we are talking well over 30 years ago. By now, the PPC is as American as, well, those Toyotas that are built in Texas.
 
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mturner said:
It looks like your picture is of some kind of hot rod. Way too small to see what it is. Can you elaborate? A guy on here was just asking about our crankshaft balancers. Not sure how he found it, but I'm certain you are familiar with it. www.crankbalancer.com

Michael
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Mike, that is the 540 inch Big Block in my '67 Malibu. Here is a thread I started almost 3 years ago that is still active. A lot of Hot Rodders are also shooters.

http://benchrest.com/showthread.php?85767-We-Haven-t-Had-A-Good-Car-Thread-In-A-While-My-67-Chevelle

I have done quite a bit to the car since that thread started, the biggest improvement being the Holley Multi-Port Fuel Injection. Here is the latest incarnation. And sitting in my garage right now.

http://benchrest.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=18278&stc=1&d=1472523460

http://benchrest.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=18279&stc=1&d=1472525667



As for the Balancer, I have seen similar units. it's handy to be able to remove metal without taking the crank from the blocks. My engine is internally balanced with Mallory Metal added to the faces of the crank.
 

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What a fantastic looking action.

mturner said:
I said I would post pictures this evening, so here they are. The receiver is 17-4PH wire edm cut, H900 heat treat. Bolt lugs are S7, bolt body is 6AL4V titanium, bolt handle is 7075-T6, cocking cam D2. The bolt shroud, bolt stop, trigger guard, and action screws are all 7075-T6. I should have made more of these while I was at it. Now it would take almost as long to build another as it did the first one. I probably could have made six in twice the time it took to make one.

Michael


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mturner said:
Tim,

One thing that I did not mention at the top of my post. The story about the Texas State match. I mention missing the target completely after shooting 3 groups in the .1" range. My first thought was that someone must have readjusted my scope for me. After removing the bolt, and getting back on paper, I continued to believe that someone had moved my scope adjustments. After getting home and seeing my broken scope mount, I felt better about the whole situation.

That being said, about 99% of the guys I compete with in BR are some of the best guys in the world. Even the ones that don't like my 30-30 for the most part are really decent guys. After all, we are talking about the backbone of America, not the deadbeats or anti-gunners.

Michael
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Michael I agree with you. Are you sure it's not 99.9%? There are some really great people in BR.
Been to the Super Shoot? 16 different countries. Never a problem. Never heard of a problem(well, had to deal with one lazy guy with wind flags.). I have only been 3 times. Wish I could afford to go more often. Time and money.
I didn't mean to hijack your thread. And thanks for your story. As I have wondered about the 30-30 and mturner.....

Holy COW look at those pictures. Wow. That's nice work Micheal.
 
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OK, fine, but the 6 Taldog? (0.125 short 6BR) has exactly the same case capacity as the PPC, but did it beat the PPC enough times to take over?

Given the work shooters put into the PPC that shortened 6BR possibly could have....but???


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Jerry, my point is that If Remington would have made the 6BR with a .1375 over all length when they first brought it out, shooters would have had decades to work with a case that, besides turning the necks, would have been ready to shoot right out of the box. I suspect that if you had, at a typical match, an even split among shooters using a 1.375 length 6BR, (besides turning the necks), and a 6PPC where the shooter had to make it from another case, then today the .1375 length BR might be the go to round.

Of course, I am assuming that Lapua would have still decided to manufacture the case. It is no big secret that in part, the success of the 6 PPC, as we shoot it now, is due to that phenomenal Lapua Brass.
 
Beautiful looking action Michael. My dad has been making his own since the 1980s. I certainly appreciate the time it takes to build one from scratch; especially if you machine the bolt too.

-Lee
www.singleactions.com
 
I remember years ago my buddy had me load for his Kmart special 336 marlin lever action. I used 748 powder because that's what I had a lot of at the time. It had a 3X9 on it and when I sighted it in I shot a group which kept going in the same hole. I ended up shooting a ten shot group which was about a .350. Unreal.
Brush
 
Marlin 336

Bob Brushingham said:
I remember years ago my buddy had me load for his Kmart special 336 marlin lever action. I used 748 powder because that's what I had a lot of at the time. It had a 3X9 on it and when I sighted it in I shot a group which kept going in the same hole. I ended up shooting a ten shot group which was about a .350. Unreal.
Brush
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Bob,

I have a Marlin 336 RC made around 1959. It is capable of shooting 3 shots in about .375" all day long. I never really tried more shots. I did shoot a .030" 3 shot group with it. It has the factory barrel, but I have made a lot of modifications to make it a fine rifle. The trigger in 1.5#. I modified the locking lug and lever so that the locking lug could be pushed higher. Because of the taper in the lug, this took the .010" headspace down to zero. I found this necessary for good case life since the Marlin action can handle much more thrust than the 94 Winchester. I modified the magazine tube to stagger pointed bullets so they wouldn't set against the primer. By doing this, I could put 125gr Ballistic Tips through it with a OAL of 2.8". Next the long OAL called for modifying the feed ramp to allow the cartridge to move back far enough to clear the magazine tube. To eject the 2.8" long cartridge without firing it required the ejector to be moved back further in the action. After all mods, I wound up with a 336 Marlin that launches 125gr Ballistic Tips at 2900fps and shoots into .375".

I also have a G33/40 Mauser action that I built a custom 30-30 on. It has an old Mashburn trigger that breaks like glass. The barrel is a H-S precision with a twist around 14". This rifle has shot many 3 shot groups in the .1" range with a 125gr bullet at 3100fps. The rifle used to be a 25-06 Imp. Curry. The stock is a beautifully figured piece of walnut that was finished in the late 60's or early 70's by long time friend Charles Chism from Odessa, TX. I purchased the rifle from Charles at age 11, within 2 years I shot the throat out of it. At age 13, I turned my first Douglas barrel from a blank for it, and chambered it standard 25-06. I shot it that way for many years, and then eventually lost interest in it. That's how it became a 30-30. As a 30-30, it's more accurate than the 25-06 ever was. It has more energy at 500 yards, but compared to the 25-06, it does drop 5" more at 500 yards. If I can hold over 33" with a 25-06, I can hold over 38" with the 30-30. See above ballistic chart.

Michael
 
jackie schmidt said:
Jerry, my point is that If Remington would have made the 6BR with a .1375 over all length when they first brought it out, shooters would have had decades to work with a case that, besides turning the necks, would have been ready to shoot right out of the box. I suspect that if you had, at a typical match, an even split among shooters using a 1.375 length 6BR, (besides turning the necks), and a 6PPC where the shooter had to make it from another case, then today the .1375 length BR might be the go to round.

Of course, I am assuming that Lapua would have still decided to manufacture the case. It is no big secret that in part, the success of the 6 PPC, as we shoot it now, is due to that phenomenal Lapua Brass.
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Success goes out the window when many hours of case preparation are required. Many PPC accurate cases could be developed by following simple capacity rules, but you need quality brass, and nothing better to do with your time. More time on case prep also means less time at the range practicing. Harvey Miller's 6 MCR is an example of a very accurate cartridge with a .1629 world record agg., and based on the 30-30 case. The case making process is way too much for me. Even with the 6.8 SPC case, I still got tired of making PPC capacity cases. Harvey would have loved starting with that brass. It's not Lapua brass, but way better than the brass he had to work with.

Michael
 
jackie schmidt said:
Jerry, my point is that If Remington would have made the 6BR with a .1375 over all length when they first brought it out, shooters would have had decades to work with a case that, besides turning the necks, would have been ready to shoot right out of the box. I suspect that if you had, at a typical match, an even split among shooters using a 1.375 length 6BR, (besides turning the necks), and a 6PPC where the shooter had to make it from another case, then today the .1375 length BR might be the go to round.

Of course, I am assuming that Lapua would have still decided to manufacture the case. It is no big secret that in part, the success of the 6 PPC, as we shoot it now, is due to that phenomenal Lapua Brass.
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Probably so. IIRC, Freddie Hascuster got HOF points from the Taldog. The original BR was the 7 BR we used to shoot in IMHSA pistol Silhouette It was 1.550" long. . The first 6 BR, IIRC, was the 6 CBR and it was 1.550" also.

Nothing really magic about the PPC, but it does shoot very well. From 2000 when I bought Ferris Pindells PPC tooling there were 4 reamers. All had 40 degree shoulders. I took one that had the 40 degree shoulder through the neck/shoulder intersection, the 6-40 Dune and ran it 0.035" deeper. It won a lot of wood and almost dominated the 2008 IBS 600 Nationals winning 4 awards. The 6-40 Tyger had the 40 degree shoulder running through the body/shoulder intersection. It once shot a 0.1430 agg in a NBRSA tournament. All these had 0.266" necks.

One of Ferris's notebooks I read, while going through his stuff, he had wrote "the first 6 went exactly through the same hole". This was a 6-40 BR shooting an 81 grain bullet, on a 0.9-something jacket, he had made and put the "needle" point through. Don Geraci said this bullet would defy the wind!


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I've shot...

A few times with Mike at New Braunfels and he wins with great talent to read the conditions, prepare excellent loads, and dispels the notion that only one caliber is competitive. One great proof of this is what caliber holds the bench rest small group record?

Mike is a great competitor and a pleasure to shoot with. Mike proved the point that it's not the caliber that wins, but careful load and rifle preparation, coupled with a talent for reading the conditions.

Virg
 
virg said:
a few times with mike at new braunfels and he wins with great talent to read the conditions, prepare excellent loads, and dispels the notion that only one caliber is competitive. One great proof of this is what caliber holds the bench rest small group record?

Mike is a great competitor and a pleasure to shoot with. Mike proved the point that it's not the caliber that wins, but careful load and rifle preparation, coupled with a talent for reading the conditions.

Virg
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yow!
 
Thanks

Al Elliott said:
Mr. Turner:
Your personal messages are full. I mailed the brass.
Al
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I was concerned about that when I tried to send a message to you and got an error. I have cleaned it up a bit now, so if you need to message me, it should go through now. Thanks again.

Michael
 
Brass preparation

I have a few tricks in my brass preparation, these are covered in "how I make the 30-30 agg". However, I must mention that the requirements to get the 30-30 to agg are actually far less than other cases, including the 30BR, and the 6PPC. The PPC needs to be fire-formed, other than that it is a neck turn only round. The 6BR needs to be necked up to make a 30BR. Some actually fire-form the neck to 30 caliber. Then it is neck turned for proper neck clearance.

For many years, I only neck turned my 30-30 brass. That is all I did to win at the Burnet club and in New Braunfels. After building my LV gun, and it shooting ones at the TX state, I came up with the flash hole swagging tool. That tool shrinks the flash hole around a mandrel to a very consistent size. While it is cool, I have zero proof that it actually improved my aggs. I shot my best before taking a 8 year break from bench rest shooting. Since that time, even though I have continued to use that special tool, I have never shot any back to back aggs to prove or disprove its worth.

The latest addition to my case preparation was to face all the rims to .0555" thickness. I set the distance from the back of the barrel headspace ring to the bolt face at .056", leaving only a half thousandth headspace. I have been using this practice for 8 years now. By doing this, I didn't create any extra case preparation, because I eliminated the case preparation that normally takes place at the match. I NEVER have to lube my cases for full length resizing, or bump the shoulder back .001", or wipe lube from the resized cases. It takes about 30 seconds to face each rim to a precision thickness, and have perfect headspace on both ends of the case permanently.

If I were to only use two case mods, it would be neck turn, and face rims. If only one, I would neck turn. Even without facing the rims, headspace is accurately controlled by the fact that the shoulder is never bumped.

Michael
 
Pictures

Al,

Just as soon as I get a chance, I will take some. Been down with back pain lately, and kind of backed up on getting things done.

Michael
 
Bob Brushingham said:
I remember years ago my buddy had me load for his Kmart special 336 marlin lever action. I used 748 powder because that's what I had a lot of at the time. It had a 3X9 on it and when I sighted it in I shot a group which kept going in the same hole. I ended up shooting a ten shot group which was about a .350. Unreal.
Brush
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Glad you posted this. I bought a Marlin 336C at a K-mart in Plattsburgh NY when I was stationed at the AF base there about 40 years ago. Had the clerk pull out 5 boxes and picked the one with the best wood. Paid $69.95 for it. Didn't put 20 rounds through it. Still in pristine condition in the back of my gun safe. Now, I've got to bring it to the front, put some glass on it and see what It'll do.
 
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