311-165-RF marlin 336 30.30

Yeap, shooting it in a couple different rifles. All of them 30-30 Win; Glenfield 30GT, M94 Win, & a Savage 340. I designed the bullet for a ’50s era 336A.

How about a few details about your casting; alloy you use and temperature you cast at. Another bit of information that would be nice is have you used a bullet placed in the chamber  to determine the COAL throat contact delivers? If you don’t know how to do that I can describe the task using a cleaning rod.

I have a bunch of company just showing up for the weekend so I might be slow in checking back in until Monday but the information sure would help figure out the issue.

I had the same issues with that bullet in a very recently made Marlin 336BL. It seemed that the bullet was basically hitting the lead/throat and stopping. I had to seat the bullet past the crimp groove to make it work. I ended up trimming down a batch of brass so I could seat it where it needed to be and still mildly crimp the case in the crimp groove. I have lots of brass so I decided just to trim and keep that brass just for that rifle.

Neal in AZ

Thank you for your response.

The alloy I use is Lyman 2. temp is uncertain as I dont have a mean to mesure it, the melting pot is set at 4,5, it is a 4-20.

Bullet drop at .313 and I resize at .311 (sizing die is .310) Bullets are gas check and lube.

I suspect a very short throat and wanted to trim the brass a bit but I am concern about having the gas check bellow the neck.

The alloy and temperature sound reasonable but I’m a bit surprised by the diameter. Three questions:

[*]Is your .311″ sizing die delivering a .310″ bullet?[*]Any chance of posting a picture of the sized bullet? A picture of your bullet showing where the sizing starts to occur wwould tell me a more about what is going on.[*]And finally back to my question about having determined the cartridge overall length that is going to be necessary to achieve the fit. Can you do that?[/list]

There is nothing wrong with trimming brass to fit the crimp groove, it is always possible that it might need to be done as Intel6 has indicated he does below, thanks for the input Intel! I have a super little Savage 340 that shoots my original 30-30 Win bullet but the brass must be trimmed to 2.000″ for the crimp groove to work out at a COAL of 2.455″. Little bugger shoots so good, sub-MOA, that I got on Lee’s website and ordered a custom case length gauge/trimmer for that length so that I would not need to run the brass through a traditional trimmer. I keep the brass separate for all my rifles with like cartridges so that is not an issue for me.

Is this the bullet you guys are talking about? (image of TLC311-165-RF)

Reason I ask, is I just ordered the above bullet on Thursday for my new 336Y (Remlin) that should be here middle of next week..
I can always use the above bullet in a couple of old Win. 94’s I think, but would like to get the 336Y up and running as soon as possible with one or the other RD 30-30 bullets..

That specific bullet was made of the tighter fit of a CNC machined rifle like Remlin is producing. Really, around 2000 with the Marlin rifles as well. It should work, I have a young fellow that hunts that uses that bullet in his “Y”.

As an aside Ranch Dog, I have your 30-30 pdf. load notes which show many powders for your 30-30 bullets designs..
I am wondering which are the top three powders that you have found to be the most accurate in your 30-30’s and 38-55’s..
I have all the Hodgdon and IMR powders that you list except for CFE223, 8208XBR and 4007SSC..
Also have most of the Alliant and Accurate powders you list along with Win 748 and 760..
No Vihtavuori..

Knowing which three powders that are the most accurate in the 30-30 (and 38-55) with cast will save me a lot of time and powder wastage and give me an idea which powders to stock up on before the U.S. election..

Thanks a lot!

Yeah, quite a list but got’ta do it or someone will ask. In a nutshell, BL-C(2) or Win 748. I wouldn’t mess with anything else.

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A couple of things about the 30-30 Win bullets I designed.

This is the first bullet, a bullet that started life as the TLC311-165-RF but that I later called the TLC311-170-RF because the weight part of the designation was a closer match to what the caster would see in his hand and my second 30-30 Win bullet was on the drawing board.



This is the latter bullet, the bullet that was already imaged.



I wanted to point this out because they are both listed as a “311-165-RF” on the NOE website as they have been cutting the original bullet for a long time, since I called it the same.

How do you proceed to find coal for a rifle?

Starting with a clean bore:[*]Drop a sized bullet in the chamber. Use a cleaning rod to seat it with a light push or tap.[*]Insert a cleaning rod into the muzzle until it makes contact with the bullet nose.[*]Mark the rod with a Sharpie or lead pencil.[*]Knock the bullet out.[*]With the bolt closed, insert the cleaning rod until it makes contact with the bolt face.[*]Mark the rod again.[*]Measure the distance between the two points as carefully as possible with a micrometer. The distance is the maximum COAL but I would suggest subtracting .005″ from the measurement as a starting point for your load and accuracy testing.[/list]

Honestly & if I were you, I would start over. I wouldn’t not use a .309″ if the rifle needed something else. You have not mentioned exactly what your rifle needs so that should be addressed. Slug your barrel to determine what it needs. With a Tumble Lube bullet, the fit is a bit flexible but it needs to be at least .0005″ over bore diameter but doesn’t need to be more than .0015″ over. The intent of any “TL” mold is to use it as cast so the assumption going in, with this design as an example, is that you actually need near a .311″ bullet. If a bullet is being cast at the size I need, I don’t run it through a sizer of that diameter but use sizer .001″ larger to seat the gas check. Experience has taught me that if I don’t disturb the definition of the Micro-Bands, things work out very well. Sizing a TL .311″ bullet to .309″ removes a lot of the features. Sizing a TL .311″ design that cast at .313″ to .309″ removes most of the bullet’s features.

I would also start over with the casting, something isn’t right with the diameter delivered and as the caster you have a lot of control over the final product through both the alloy and mold. I would not cast a large lot of bullets until you are satisfied with the bullets that are being dropped. You mentioned that you are using Lyman #2 and working with a certified alloy ends a lot of guessing, just make sure it is fluxed well and heated evenly by working the pot thoroughly. If the bullets are casting slightly under diameter, an aluminum mold responds well to heat and additional heat can quite easily give you .001″ of diameter. The opposite can be accomplished by casting with an aluminum mold at a cooler temperature. Couple the latter with well smoked cavities and the diameter can significantly reduced. The benefit of using these techniques over sizing is that the relationship of the mold features is maintained. This means that the radius of the ogive exists where sizing simply cuts it off. This is specifically is what is limiting your COAL, just as the bullet has been cast over diameter so has the ogive. I really doubt that you are gaining or losing any COAL by bullet size. It could be check by using a unsized bullet with the cleaning rod.

I’m going to PM you my email address and if you would be kind enough to send me a picture of your bullets, I will get them posted in the topic.

Don’t give up, just go back to the basics and figure out what your rifle needs and then look at each piece of the casting puzzle. You mentioned that casting the 45 caliber bullets was easy and that true in general. As the bullet gets smaller, more attention to details of casting is needed. The 30-30 Win is an easy cartridge to work with, it is very forgiving once you address the specifics of the bore.

I’m a bit slow in response, got a lot going on around here as of late and I will get back as soon as I can when more information is needed.

Ran into this exact issue with my 336 and Savage 99 (in 308 win) and 311-165 RF mold sized at .311 (standard lube groove). Bullet would not chamber in either rifle.
For me, both neck/case sizer dies were short 1/4 turn. This fixed my issue for both rifles. Hopefully it’s that simple.