Hunting round similar to M2 Ball?

I've been out of the loop for some time. Deer season is coming soon and I'll be using an M1 Garand. That being said I'll be zeroing the rifle with Greek M2 Ball, so does anyone know of a hunting round that mimics the ballistic characteristics of M2 Ball?

 

Most commercial stuff that I know of exceeds the pressure ratings of M2 Ball and I've heard of numerous op rod failures resulting from using it. Why use another round?

 

WI forbids the use of FMJ rounds.

 

Ahh, got it. Maybe someone can come up with a commercial alternative. I've been waived off it for my Garands by many people because of the load pressures. I'm about to start reloading instead of chasing mil surplus ammo.

 

Gonna have to reload it with a 150gr softpoint. might be able to just pull the bullet, and seat the new one. (using reloading dies and reusing the powder that is)

eta---- that finding the sweet spot with operation on a Garand is tough unless you want to play around with diffrent powders and charges

 

The best bet for hunting would be to reload a monometal bullet with the correct powder for the garand. I load TSX bullets in my M1A with the same powder and to the same velocity as my ball loads. Note that is not always the exact same amount of powder though.

The Garand, like the M1A, is a tough old bird, but the operating rod was designed for a certain pressure curve. Using a powder with faster or higher pressure curve can do serious harm. If you install an adjustable gas plug, you have a bigger safety range with factory hunting loads, but it's still not ideal for the Garand.

 

Unfortunately I've never reloaded/hand loaded my own rounds before.

I may go for the Schuster adjustable gas plug. I forgot all about those. I also did some more digging around and found a few old forum threads floating around the web and it seems quite literally the only non-FMJ round out there designed for the Garand is the Hornady Match rounds.

http://www.hornady.com/in-the-news/latest-news/new-30-06-m1-garand-match-ammunition-from-hornady

Prices don't seem bad either.

 

I would have no problem at all hunting with the Amax bullet. Looks like a good round if you can find them.