Savage 340 QuickLoad ~ Literally!

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Savage 340 QuickLoad ~ Literally!

Post by Ranch Dog »

I've been wanting to switch my Savage 340C from jacketed bullets to cast and an immediate need to eliminate a hog pushed the matter. My little scout rifle is a sweet shooter and I wanted to keep it so with a relatively light load for the 30-30 Win.

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Last month with the housekeeping I've been doing in my reloading room I ran across a large stash of my TLC311-170-RF bullets that had been cast in January of 2011, about 500 of them, and that had been sized to .310 which is perfect for the little Savage. The BHN of these bullets had dropped from their original 19 to 13 but I'm tired of cooking bullets so these are perfect for the light loads that I wanted to push.

The reason for the "Quick Load" was that I had a boar hog tear up my yard Wednesday night and I didn't want see what he would do the following night.

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I used QuickLoad to generate a 1900 FPS load and of the choices it spit out I liked the case fill of W748. I loaded up 12 cases with the 28.6-grains and headed to the range.

The first two shots at 25 yards were disappointing.

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Normally at 25 yards I want to see the bullets touching but I had not shot a single cast bullet through this barrel so I cranked up the elevation and windage and moved the target out to 50 yards. The third shot is the one displaced up and left from the bullseye but shots #4 & 5 were impressive! I taped a couple of holes in a target at the 100 yard berm and shot three more rounds without any further adjustments to the Weaver. Wow, pretty good for only 8 rounds invested in the load plus I was out of time as this work had been put off until late in the day.

I was getting pretty tired by 10:30 and really hoped that the hog would not be long coming in the night. I told my wife that I had to go to bed and when I looked out the back door I actually saw the hog coming out of the brush line! I grabbed the Scout from where it sits by the back door!

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I slipped out and found a rest, let the hog settle a bit and then shot him. The bullet knocked if off his feet at 80 yards and he was done. I walked back in the house and went to bed. The next morning when my dad went out to the highway to get his newspaper, he stopped and took a picture for me. The wound on the point of the shoulder is on the exit side.

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Only 9 rounds from start to a dead hog. Not a record for me but pretty good. I did it in only 6 rounds with my 32 Special using my TLC323-180-RF and Marlin 336RC!
Michael
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Re: Savage 340 QuickLoad ~ Literally!

Post by RBHarter »

I love it when a plan comes together!
Just a Red neck,White boy, Blue blood American.....
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Re: Savage 340 QuickLoad ~ Literally!

Post by klr »

Uh...shouldn't you be working on that Enfield? :lol:

But seriously, nice work!
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Re: Savage 340 QuickLoad ~ Literally!

Post by Ranch Dog »

klr wrote:Uh...shouldn't you be working on that Enfield? :lol:
Yeah, not feeling the love with it just yet. I tried to rush it and the five yellow tape holes in the 100 yard target, one is at the right corner of the W748 jug, belong to my #5 :cry:

I was rushing it; I loaded them up but in that the scope was zeroed with the 215 Woodleigh at 100 yards, I just started shooting hoping it would work out. Kind of stupid I guess. I was feeling pretty good with the first three, the lowest of the five, and then it threw the one wild and then the one to the left of the bullseye. I was shooting 39.7 grains of Varget for an average of 2145 FPS. In that the QL predictions hit the velocity on the money, I suspect the pressure is as well; 42.3K PSI. I'm going to back it down to 40.0K even and start.
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Re: Savage 340 QuickLoad ~ Literally!

Post by klr »

Ouch. I hate it when I get a wild flier like that. My Win 94 was bad about that. Also hate that rushed feeling. This time of year I have so much farm stuff to do that all my shooting is rushed because I know I should be doing something productive.

Thanks for the update. Hopefully it will come together when you back it down some. Since you went right from shooting jacketed, I wonder if a good bore cleaning would help?
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Re: Savage 340 QuickLoad ~ Literally!

Post by Ranch Dog »

klr wrote:Thanks for the update. Hopefully it will come together when you back it down some. Since you went right from shooting jacketed, I wonder if a good bore cleaning would help?
I had cleaned it up real pretty after all the chamber castings so it was down to metal for the shooting.

Know what you mean about thinking I need to be doing something else. I'm living in my tractor right now, all kinds of stuff needing to be done. With the rain we have had, the vegetation growth is out of control. The Nature Conservancy was out to look at my bobwhite quail project areas and they need to be sprayed. With the wet ground, I don't like the idea of doing it with the tractor so I'm trying to arrange a spray plane to take care of it. This is a first for me. Also going to use the ag plane to defolate some brush for a summer burn. Never burnt in the summer before, always in the winter.
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