iI have always been very leery of reduced loads since one resulted in the only serious accident I have ever had reloading. That was in the spring of 1960 and I was due to report to officers' training at Marine Corps Schools, Quantico immediately after graduation. I was used to shooting varmint rifles and had never shot anything as powerful as a .30-'06, so I decided to accustom myself to the recoil using cast bullets and fast burning powder. The phone rang while I was in the midst of charging a loading block full of primed cases and somehow, when I returned from answering the call, I managed to get a double load into five cases and no powder at all into five other ones. I survived, and so did the rifle, albeit with increased headspace. Since then, I have always used a flashlight to check each case to reassure myself that there was a correct load in every case. (I qualified as "Expert" with the M1 rifle that summer.)
I have been using AA 5744 for a number of years and carefully following the instructions from the manufacturer about reduced loads: I fill the case up with powder to the base of the bullet, then weigh the powder, multiply the weight by .4 and use the result as my reduced load. I have never had even the slightest problem. I use the loads primarily to practice rapid fire standing, unsupported, which was a useful position more than once in Africa. Since I now have to shoot left handed, due to a problem with my right eye, I'm teaching a new set of muscles how to behave.
Once, while hunting on a private ranch in Kenya, we came upon a pack of Cape hunting dogs which had just killed an impala inside the six foot game fence which surrounded the property. My PH, who was also the ranch manager's brother in law, asked me if I minded shooting a few and I complied with his request. The upshot was, I emptied my Model 70 Winchester and killed four with five shots. Only one of the shots was not a running shot. This was in the fall of 1971, when hunting was still legal in Kenya.
