OK fellows, not that I'm a sissy or anything, but I'm coming off of surgery for a detached retina... so I'm a little nervous about heavy recoil!

I'm looking at a 30-06 rifle.  I see that Sierra makes a 125 grain Pro-Hunter bullet that is rated for the local Whitetail deer.   Where I hunt, the shots seldom present over 200 yards, mostly under 100 yards actually.

So, can I develop a lower recoil load for a 30-06 using this bullet and still keep some kind of accuracy?  Anybody have experience with such?

Thanks in advance,

JerryinPA

IMHO.........don't shoot until your Doctor gives you the OK.

Why take a chance?

Aloha, Mark

PS.............not to mention that there other choices (of calibers) for a deer rifle.

+1 good advice just wait.

A customer wanted reduce recoil loads so I pointed him to the ones in Hodgdons manual .  After working up some loads he said they worked real well.

One of the guys at work has a detaching (not detached yet) retina.  He has essentially put up his rifles and taken up handgunning  more seriously.

Talk to your eye doc obviously, but I'd think seriously about maybe a large frame revolver or TC Encore pistol instead of a rifle this year.

I buy the Remington reduced factory loads for the wife. Very mild!

In 308, I load a 125 gr Sierra spitzer with the starting load.

Lot less recoil than a 180 gr.

At the risk of starting a flame war, at the Hodgdon reloading data site http://data.hodgdon.com/cartridge_load.asp they have a 30-06 150 grain load using 13.3 to 19.0 grains of Trail Boss.  I don't know for sure when they posted this load (also have it for .308 too) but I think it would have been after July when I was searching for light loads myself.  I have not tried this load and I do not own any trail boss powder.

Bullet Weight (Gr.)  Manufacturer  Powder  Bullet Diam.  C.O.L.  
150 GR. NOS BT  IMR  Trail Boss  .308"  3.250"  

Starting load
Grs.  Vel. (ft/s)  Pressure  
13.3  1061  14,700 PSI      

Max Load
Grs.  Vel. (ft/s)  Pressure
19.0  1477  26,400 PSI

WARNING, THESE ARE UNPUBLISHED/UNTESTED BY MANUFACTURES LOADS.  USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.  I ASSUME NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR USE OF THE FOLLOWING DATA.  

I hope I am not violating any forum rules here, if I am, Aero, please delete.

You can also search around on the internet and find loads using Red Dot, Unique & Blue Dot powder.  I have personally used a load of 13.0 grains of Blue Dot and a 110gr Hornady SP with no ill effects and have shot that in a vintage military match in July & August.  I'll be using that load this Saturday in the next match.  I also raise the muzzle and shake the rifle a bit to get the powder down toward the primer before each shot because of one of the comments in the thread.  So far I have shot ~75 rounds of blue dot/30-06 loads, so don't think I've shot 1,000s of these with no problem.  This is still very experimental - I will finish the 1st box of 100 bullets this weekend at the match.

Here is a copy of a posting I made at another site in July, PM me if you want the URL so you can read the whole thing.  I will tell you that several people said I was nuts using an untested load like that and was liable to have my rifle blow up in my face.  You have been warned, I am not trying to hide anything.


At one point in the thread, I asked a poster to post a graph from quick load that would give the pressure curve for my 13.0gr load - which peaked at a little less than 10,000psi.  This was after he posted a QL pressure curve that peaked at a tad under 100,000psi if everything went bad at the same time.  I asked for more explanation of what he did to peak the load like that and his reply was

I do not have a copy of QL and know very little about it.

Also in that thread, someone gave me this link which you might want to check out for reduced loads: http://www.gmdr.com/lever/lowveldata.htm

If you should decide to experiment (against your Dr's orders I might add) be VERY VERY VERY careful of double charging.  It was recommended to me to charge 1 case with powder, then seat the bullet, then go to the next case to remove the possibility of a double charge.  Being hard headed, I did not do it that way, but I put each charged case on a digital scale right before I seated the bullet.  If the case+powder+primer weighed more than 115 215 grains, I dumped the powder back into a scale to check it.  (1 case out of 100 failed, the powder charge was fine, the case weighed 3 grains more than normal)

A double charge at 26 grains may or may not be bad because the theoretical max with blue dot is 26 grains in a 30-06 case.  The problem is a case holds ~54 grains of blue dot and that would be bad.  Real bad.

Again, I hope I have not violated any rules posting this.


****edit
changed case weight of 115grains to 215 grains

I chose the load from my testing of 13 grains of blue dot because 1) I really want to use lead bullets and did not want to get above 1600fps to get a barrel leading problem.  2) 10 & 11 grains were sooty around the mouth which I took to mean low pressure.  3) If I double charged at 13 grains that didn't put me above theoretical max and 4) was the most accurate when I tested 12 & 13 grain loads for accuracy.

I have a similar situation.  My daughter wants my .458 WM.  I tried to down load it from 510 to 350 grs.  I can't tell the difference in recoil.

 So I decided to build her a 300 H&H. and down load it to '06 recoil levels.  Found this a problem as well.  She wants a 'Classic' M98 rifle.

 To an extent I'm somewhat insensitive to recoil, but I do recognize it.   My options don't include a muzzle brake, but this might be something you could consider.  
458