Good afternoon,

I was doing research and research for a low pressure load and the local gun store had a guy working who helped me out when starting on 38 special/357.

He did his own looking and came up with a 170 grain 30-30 bullet (just round nose) and 12.4 grains of Unique. The velocity is 1430 feet per second, but there are no figures on pressures unfortunately. This load came out of a 1937 book if that helps.

The only bullets I could find are jacketed so I bought them.
The data states for lead bullets. Will this change anything with pressures? I just want to be safe.

Thank you in advance.

Thank you. Oh well, I'm glad I asked first. I loaded up a dummy round and seated the bullet to the groove, the OAL is only 2.816" so based on the guides it seems too short although it cycles great. Well, at least I have the brass sized and primed, part way there.

The load data is from page 373 in the Complete Guide to Hand Loading, from 1937.

In my view, 12.4 grains Unique with the Hornady #3060 bullet should be a perfectly reasonable combination delivering less than 30,000 psi and about 1700 fps. This bullet is lightly jacketed and lead core, offering little more effective resistance than a cast bullet.

Ignore the position of the bullet's cannelure ("groove") and seat it to a normal Krag OAL (~3.08") for optimal alignment in the magazine. This will yield a seating depth of ~.32" - plenty for adequate neck tension without crimp.

If you're unaccustomed to reduced loading, be sure to check each charged case visually before seating bullets. This charge occupies only about 40% of the powder space, allowing an inadvertent double charge to slip by unless watched carefully. That mistake would yield about 80,000 psi - way too much for comfort!

'Parashooter' and 'Madsenshooter' are far more knowledgeable in re-loading matters than I.

Just the same...  I would avoid the Unique and find a powder more suited to a jacketed bullet at Krag pressures.  As others have said, it's very easy to mistakenly double, or even triple a charge when it's that small, and fast burning pistol/shotgun powders tend to do nasty things when the charge is excessive. 

3031 and 4064 seem to work very well with the 30-30 bullets in Krags, but consult a loading manual on this. 

Just my humble $0.02

I had my bore slugged, the tag says it was .302-.3085

The gun shop was understanding at my goof and accepted a return on the jacketed bullets but did not have any cast .30 caliber bullets. I looked on Midway but it seemed they came in quantities of 500. I'll shoot this 100 rounds a year at most so that is a bit much.

I am looking at this bullet :

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I was unable to return the powder so I would like to use up this bottle before buying another pound. Looking into the loads from the same manual, the closest I could find for the above bullet is a 154 grain unspecified bullet (assuming unjacketed based on the above posts) with the seating depth of .425" and with 7 grains of Unique should deliver 1170 FPS.

Does this seem more reasonable?

I believe you could use that 155 grain Acme bullet with 8 to 9 grains of Unique. This would probably go at close to 1400 FPS and give good 100 yard accuracy.

FWIW - My old Lyman - 44th edition - Reloading Handbook gave a starting load for: 155 Grain Cast/with Gas Check (bullet #311466)
                        
                          Unique 9.0 grains - velocity 1381 FPS

You would probably need a gas check if it was pushed much faster.

There you have it: (Thanks, 'parashooter')

Get 500 Acme bullets and start with 8.0 grains of Unique.

You can experiment by trying 9.0 grains for comparison, if you want.

(There is 7,000 grains to the pound. That's 875 loads @ 8.0 grains per round. That's some cheap shooting).

Just be careful, weigh your charges, and inspect for double charges.