I'm wondering how many of y'all may have tried this powder along with Hornady's 170 grain FP (#3060), or 170 grain FP-style offerings from Speer, Nosler, Sierra, or other manufacturers? And can ya possibly let me know how accurate it was/is, and how much of this powder was stuffed in the case?
I have 3 older reloading manuals from Nosler, Hodgdon's, and Sierra. They're of the age that they don't even list Leverevolution powder. And the loads for my Winchester 748 & Hodgdon's H-335 have quite a bit of either "not listed for this bullet" or large variations of starting and max powder charges for these 2 powders.
I've found a load that shows promise with the 170 Hornady FP bullets and Win. 748 powder. I worked up to a charge of 33 grains that showed some promise in the accuracy dept.. I have around a dozen each of more cases loaded up to 33.5 gr. & 34 gr. to try out when some range time becomes available.
But as I said above, I came into this Leverevolution powder, and would like to try it. Bullet availability has kinda "stuck" me with Hornady bullets for now, which isn't a bad thing at all. I have had better luck with Sierra bullets in other rifles, but can't get ahold of any of their 30-30 bullets. Probably won't be able to for awhile. So, I have Hornady's free app on my phone. I then paid $.99 to get their reloading data for the .30-30. I had been looking on other forums for their recipes of LVR powder in .30-30, and it seems to vary a bit as to what folks use. So, I got the reload data from the folks that made my bullets.
And the amount of powder they stuff in a 30-30 case for their 170 gr. FP kinda surprised me. For Leverevolution, they begin with 27.7 grains of powder, and work up in 2.2 grain increments to 36.5 gr..
For H-335, they begin 29.3 grains, and go up in around 1.6 gr. increments to 34 gr..
For Win. 748, they start with a charge of 31.4 grains, and go up in 1.7 gr. steps to 36.5 gr..
This is several grains higher than my my old manuals have listed for 170 gr. bullets, and a grain or two more up from some online sources like Nosler. The Hornady app, for the .30-30, states that their best test rifle (a Winchester M94 with a 20" barrel) accuracy and uniformity came from Win. 748 powder.I'm not one to chase velocity figures. I'm after an accurate load first, and then hopefully with enough velocity to work a 170 grain bullet inside an Elk and do some damage. I've only killed just 3 elk in my hunting career, all with a .30-06. A spike walking by at 15 paces, a cow at 40 yards, and my biggest one in Hell's Canyon was at 125 yards. It was the only bull that never knew I was ANYWHERE around, and fell upside down, dead, almost instantly. It never ran. The other two elk (the spike and the cow) were spooked by other hunters or myself, took just a few steps after being shot, and died. So I figure those Sierra 180 grainers at around 2500 fps worked well.
I'm hoping a 170 grain Hornady lauched around a "theoretical" 2000 fps. would work well at the ranges I mentioned above; hopefully 75 yards or less. If I can gain more fps and still match the accuracy I have with my 33 grains of Win 748, I suppose that's "A Good Thing". Somewhere I've seen these bullets need to be moving at 2000 or so fps to work and expand well, but I'm confused as to if muzzle velocity was what they meant. If you calculate muzzle velocity and energy down to, say, 100 yrds., there's probably barely enough speed and energy to do the job on an elk. Dunno if it would expand much at downrange velocities of 1600 fps or not.
