300 Blackout & 7.62x39 Considerations for Suppressed Hog Hun

[DaveInGA]

RD, in red in the quote:

I don't frequent Cast Boolits anymore unless I have a question. It has gotten a bit too big for me, I'm a small town guy.
I can totally relate. One thing I've noticed is as it's grown bigger, the actual knowledge being posted is becoming much more "internet legend" rather than the expert caster/loader information that was once posted there. I don't learn anything near as much as I did when you, Felix and others who knew what they were doing (advanced stuff) were posting.

I'm hoping that the Mike's stuff is a good fix for the Load Master and really don't doubt that it will be. At least that is the level of tinkering that I've arrived at so rather than spend time trying to do the same thing to the components, I just bought his.
I totally agree, for me, it was cheaper to buy his, let him make some money and save my labor for running my business or other mods I'm doing. Messing around with fairly complex plastic parts on a press new to me was a bit more than I wanted to do when there were other things, like spent primer disposal and lost primer catching I wanted to and could address with mods.

I probably won't put my press back together until late January as I'm knee deep into my hunting season. Actually, just got started with it and have almost two months to go.
I'm envious, as I haven't hunted in quite a long time due to Father passing and health issues. But my health is finally improving and I've gotten lasik surgery, so I can see the iron sights again, my preference up to 600 yards.

It would be nice to get the one Load Master that I'm focusing on up and running to see where it is at and if I'm pleased with it, order the parts and send the carrier/primer feeds off for the other two. If all works well, I'm going to use one press for small pistol primer applications, one for large pistol, and then one for large rifle (7.62x39). Getting that one up will be on a better part of a day that I won't have any interruptions. This time, I will record everything that I do so nothing is repeated unless it works. I've been at the LM stuff for 15 years and have tried 100's of tweaks but my efforts will be a bit more organized now.
It's my opinion that the Loadmaster has reached a point of support/modification that it can be made to work well with mods, but will always be a kit, 90% complete, like most Lee's products are at the price point they're building them at. But with the internet, folks posting writeups, videos and forums, things are way better than they were even 5 years ago. Mike's feeder mods may be the best yet. Seeing all these things made me want to buy one to play with. I'm going to use mine for rifle case prep (lube/deprime/size/trim on press) and at some point I'll look to using it to load cartridges if I'm satisfied I have case feed and bullet feed going. I've got arthritis in my hands now, so smaller cases/bullets like the .223 have become a problem for me to handle when cranking out thousands of rounds. I am curious, why 7.69 X 39MM instead of 30/30 or .300 Black/AAC? I'm pretty sure you have a specific reason for loading that cartridge - hunting related, I'm betting.

[Ranch Dog]

I don't learn anything near as much as I did when you, Felix and others who knew what they were doing (advanced stuff) were posting.

Haah... don't know how much I contributed. I do miss yacking with certain folks there. I do see sundog, all on his effort, as he travels to see his kids. We are getting together next week to do something.

I am curious, why 7.69 X 39MM instead of 30/30 or .300 Black/AAC? I'm pretty sure you have a specific reason for loading that cartridge - hunting related, I'm betting.

Yeah, everything I do is related to hunting. My youth hunters turned me on to it as a lot of kids shoot it. I had no bias concerning it one way or another but found that it was a very effective southern whitetail & hog killer. Interest "poke" number two came when I looked at the cast bullets in use, read the comments about them, and then looked at the chamber drawings. I immediately saw that no one had actually fully addressed the needs of the chamber but were simply coping jacketed bullet profiles (a very common thing that is totally wrong). The cartridge chamber drawings have quite a bit of freebore in them, that is what has made the cartridge historically dependable but also leads to accuracy issues with it. These types of things are the stars lining up for me and I have to act on them.

I was somewhat interested in the 300 Blackout but after looking at the chamber drawings backed away from it. Where the 7.62x39 has freebore (precision slop for positive feed) between the case mouth and throat, the 300 Blackout has throat but unfortunately a very long throat to accommodate heavy, very heavy for caliber, jacketed bullets at subsonic velocities. From my design perspective and with such a short case neck, I envisioned nothing but problems. I think this is a "designer" cartridge made to fill a very specific need and I could not see how I was going to make it fill my needs (a sporting arm delivering a moderately tough cast bullet at jacketed bullet velocities). The cartridge is now making its way into the bolt actions so it will be interesting to see how it will do. I'm sure guys are designing bullets for it and it will be interesting to see if they are actually designing it to the chamber or copying jacketed bullets.

[62chevy]

A lot of CB former posters are at this site; http://www.artfulbullet.com/index.php

It's about the size of this site with some good info and conversations going on.

[DaveInGA]

A lot of CB former posters are at this site; http://www.artfulbullet.com/index.php

It's about the size of this site with some good info and conversations going on.

Thank you for sharing that information.

Dave

[62chevy]

A lot of CB former posters are at this site; http://www.artfulbullet.com/index.php

It's about the size of this site with some good info and conversations going on.

Thank you for sharing that information.

Dave

Glad I could help.

[DaveInGA]

RD, in red in the quote again.

Haah... don't know how much I contributed.
Way more than you realized, especially for a new caster like I was when I first came there.

I do miss yacking with certain folks there. I do see sundog, all on his effort, as he travels to see his kids. We are getting together next week to do something.
I'm jealous

I am curious, why 7.69 X 39MM instead of 30/30 or .300 Black/AAC? I'm pretty sure you have a specific reason for loading that cartridge - hunting related, I'm betting.

Yeah, everything I do is related to hunting. My youth hunters turned me on to it as a lot of kids shoot it. I had no bias concerning it one way or another but found that it was a very effective southern whitetail & hog killer. Interest "poke" number two came when I looked at the cast bullets in use, read the comments about them, and then looked at the chamber drawings. I immediately saw that no one had actually fully addressed the needs of the chamber but were simply coping jacketed bullet profiles (a very common thing that is totally wrong). The cartridge chamber drawings have quite a bit of freebore in them, that is what has made the cartridge historically dependable but also leads to accuracy issues with it. These types of things are the stars lining up for me and I have to act on them.

I was somewhat interested in the 300 Blackout but after looking at the chamber drawings backed away from it. Where the 7.62x39 has freebore (precision slop for positive feed) between the case mouth and throat, the 300 Blackout has throat but unfortunately a very long throat to accommodate heavy, very heavy for caliber, jacketed bullets at subsonic velocities. From my design perspective and with such a short case neck, I envisioned nothing but problems. I think this is a "designer" cartridge made to fill a very specific need and I could not see how I was going to make it fill my needs (a sporting arm delivering a moderately tough cast bullet at jacketed bullet velocities). The cartridge is now making its way into the bolt actions so it will be interesting to see how it will do. I'm sure guys are designing bullets for it and it will be interesting to see if they are actually designing it to the chamber or copying jacketed bullets.

Thank you for sharing that information. I've been looking real hard for a good, soft recoil, fast back on target cartridge for an AR15 for wild hogs here in South Georgia. There are lots on the sod farms I buy sod from for my business. So I get an opportunity to hunt them every once in a while. A good lead bullet would reduce costs a great deal and I have enough of that brass to reload enough for several trips. Going to have to buy a brass catch bag and a thermal scope though.

[Ranch Dog]

This is getting into another subject so I will probably split it out but I've often thought about suppressing my Mini-30 for hog hunting. I'm really not in the need of night vision because I hunt the full moon without issue. One consideration, and you have to go all in to find out, is the issue of a subsonic round providing the killing authority needed plus the various energies that allow the action to cycle.

At night here we usually have a little bit of a breeze and it is very easy for me to slip into a sounder of hogs out in a field fully in sight of them and me by them if they would look up. I've found myself on the edge of about 20 to 25 hogs within 20 to 25 yards. Of course, hogs are very comfortable at night and stay too busy eating to look up. With the wind, their crunching, and too busy to look I can see me killing a magazine worth of hogs pretty easy. The noise would cover the sounds of the shot and the action cycling I believe.

Right now, I get one shot. I've designed a heavy 7.62x39 subsonic bullet for my use that should provide the killing authority and internal energies needed but I really just have too many irons in the fire to pursue it.







Okay... I will figure out how to split this out now.

[Ranch Dog]

The 300 Blackout might seem more sporting support in that the Ruger American is now chambered in the cartridge. I've never figured out why Savage & Ruger offered the cartridge in their upper end rifles. Just doesn't make much sense to me.

[Missionary]

Greetings
If this rifle was to be dedicated to subsonic only ever I would go with the 300 Blackout. It has all the powder capacity ever needed to project the 240 grainers at plenty of velocity.
But if I thought that ever I would want to get supersonic and distance was a possible issue then go the 7.62x39. That neat little cartridge will do everything I can think of for it out to 150 yards.

Art & Science is a good place to park. I have no regrets hanging my hat there.
Mike in Peru

[DaveInGA]

In my case, here in Georgia, both hog and deer hunting is at fairly close ranges. I also have an AR308 if I want to get long distances like across a large sod field. But my preference is either a stalk or tree ambush where the range is less than a hundred yards and the hogs have to run a bit to get clear of my range. I'm not positive, but I think a soft shooting 7.62 X 39 might be the more versatile. I've never been real sure of the 300 black out design if one needs the powder capacity to push a large lead bullet faster.

Ranch Dog's design would be great for the shorter ranges and a supersonic bullet could probably be sprung board off of the design above. In any case, the little commie cartridge has been around a long time and not likely to go away. While the 300 blackout just may.

RD, that's a fine looking bullet. When you decide you want to go all in, please keep me in mind for a group buy if you're so inclined. And I don't even own a 7.62 X 39 upper. Yet.