Reality sets in

I’m not sure what I was expecting. This was not a project to make a 30-30 into a 30-06. It wasn’t even going to get the Marlin to perform like a 300 Savage. It was meant to get a 30 WCF to do as well as it could. It did. I guess I should be happy.

Saturday was my first chance to get the Marlin 336 out and see how my new Lever Evolution load would work. I meant to do this thing the way they do it in the magazines. I got up at the crack of dawn and started working on this. I wanted wind to be at a minimum. The target frame out at 100 yards had fallen over and it took a while to get it set aright. It took a few nails to get it fixed. I put up a bunch of targets.

I had not used the chronograph in a while. That was my first problem. I have a Chrony F1, and it needs a fairly good deal of sun to work. The weather was perfect for shooting otherwise, but the sun was dancing in and out of clouds and was still at a low angle. I missed tracking velocities on a bunch of shots. I had 25 rounds. 5 rounds each at 36, 37, 37.5, 38 and 38.5grains. Probably the best groupings were at 36 and 37, but that was not the answer I was digging for. What I wanted to see was:

a) Would there be pressure signs? No, not on any of the loads, even the MAX load of 38.5 grains
b) Would the hotter loads group? Yes, I got a 2.5″ group out of the 38 and 38.5 loads. I’ve done better with H4895 with that rifle.
c) Would I get anywhere near the 2500 fps with my loads that Hodgdon was publishing? Well. . .

The 2485 fps is good for a 150 grain 30-30 load. It’s not astronomical. It is not miraculous. If I had cracked 2500 fps with my Winchester Power Points, I probably would have done a little fist pumping and crowing, but 5 shots clustered right around 2480 with 2485FPS the fastest measured of 5 rounds is just incrementally better.

LeverEvolution powder was not an epiphany. It took a bullet that had travelled in the low 2300’s with H4895 and got it going in the high 2400’s but it widened out my grouping in doing so. If I was dead-set on 30-30 as my only deer rifle, I would be dancing. However, my Marlin 336 was, is, and will be the weak sister in my deer arsenal. If I splurged and bought Hodgdon’s fancy new bullets (priced right now at about the same as Winchester PP’s and Remington CL’s) I might get a little bit better performance still. In the end, it is still a Thutty-Thutty.

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