Trailboss, pressure vs velocity

[nitro-express]

I too would like to add a bit of info concerning my own Trail Boss experiences.

I found a nice fit for TB, I load 6.2 gr of it in my 44 Mag, with a 240 gr Speer swaged bullet. I was using other powders but could not find a combo that didn't lead the barrel or the forcing cone, or both. I resorted to lubing them with LEE Liquid Alox for an improvement with barrel leading but the forcing cone was still heavily sprayed with lead. My theory for this was that the pressure was too low during the time that the bullet was travelling out of the cylinder and if the powder charge was increased, velocity would increase to or past the barrel leading threshold.

Trail Boss has enough pressure to obturate the 240 Speer in the throat without driving it too fast in the barrel.

Lubing the Speer bullet and using Trail Boss, created a working combination.

I also tried lubing the Speer in my Lyman 450, with equally good or perhaps marginally better results. The LEE lube is easier and quicker.

I tried Red Dot and WW 231 at various levels but was unable to better the performance (leading) of the Speer 240 SWC swaged. WW 231 worked better than Red Dot.

I tested in 2 different original Vaqueros, with good results. I'm finding it hard to have one load that will work in both, throats vary by about 0.002".

[nitro-express]

Cyber -

Howdy !

Trailboss has a pressure curve trace much closer to BP, than any other " smokeless " powder. It is unique, in that respect.

This also lends some credence to the Trailboss = Low vel.... w/ higher chamber pressure equation.

A Trailboss caution that has stuck in my mind, is that one has to be careful not to compress ( overly-compress ) the charge.
What is undesirable, is to end-up shooting loads that have fractured TB powder kernels. All bets are off ( pressure ), when this happens.

When I tried it in .35Rem, accuracy kept getting better and better, as increased the charge. As it turned out, I could not get enough TB in the case,
to have a sensible 100yd accuracy ( target ) load. IMR4759 performed ( for me in my M-336 XLR ) superbly, when shooting a " reduced load ".


With regards,
357Mag

And from texassako "is meant to be high pressure for the speeds you get so the brass will obturate and get a gas seal while keeping velocity and recoil down."

My experience supports the above quotes. In my gun I just couldn't seem to find a load for Speer swaged 240 gr LSWC in my 44 Mag. I couldn't find a load that wouldn't lead. Then I studied the data on Hodgdons site and the high pressure low velocity sounded like it would do the trick. I had to use LEE Liquid Alox to supplement the lube, but it worked, no lead, proper bullet obturation to seal the throat, low enough velocity to make it down the bore without leading. I also tried it in 44 Spl cases, and they work as well. Saves another grain of powder and as it is the only loading I have in 44 Spl cases, it's easy to keep track of ammo.

My assumption is that it has an initial hit like BP, and burns itself out shortly after than. Not enough grains of powder to keep building pressure after the initial burn, IMO.

2400 also has some of these same properties, also an easy powder to get a cast load working.

[Drydock]

I would have to contribute: Trail Boss does NOT have a BP curve. It is simply a fast pistol grade powder that has the benefit of bulk. I have found it damn near magical for low velocity lead bullet loads in bottleneck military cartridges. 3/4 case full gives in the 1200 fps range with single digit standard deviations, beneath an appropriate lead bullet lubed with Lee LA, no leading. My Krag load with a Lee 312-155 runs 1284 fps avg wth a SD of 7 fps. With a 200 LRN it gives 1211 fps avg with a SD of 6 fps.

[MOA]

When cowboy shooting sports was getting started you had two choices of powder, one, black powder, and two, reduced powder charges of pistol powder. While many did not blow up their guns, quite a few did when it came to using reduced charges of pistol powder. There were many reasons for the industry to come up with a powder that would allow the use of straight walled cartridges with low velocity AND fill the case where it made it VERY hard to double charge the case and still provide all the fps that was needed in the games. As usual there were some side benefits to come out of the development of this powder that were not the initial intent of the manufacturers. Some of the old and very large case calibers now had a chance to come down off the wall and take their place among the modern high velocity, smaller cased, high pressure cartridges at last. The entire family of 45 caliber rifle cartridges in the 45-90, 45-100, 45-110, 45-120 could now be shot without having to resort to using black powder or stuffing poly wadding in the case to keep the powder at the base where it was needed, but then one always had to worry about "ringing" the chamber. Next time your out shooting that 45-120 that no longer has a nasty clean up due to black powder, give a thank you to those men and women who developed Trailboss, I do each time I pick up my 400 Jeffery, or my 45-70 for a afternoon of plinking.

[Grmps]

http://www.handloads.com/articles/default.asp?id=37

[.22-10-45]

When I began shooting cast in my 6mm Winchester-Lee 1895 straight-pull sporting rifle, I worked up an accuracy load of 10.0grs. H4227 under an Ideal 245498. All these loads including max. loads left case necks powder blackened. Trying TrailBoss, surprisingly the same 10.0gr gave best accuracy. Right from the start, with light starting loads, case necks were clean. TrailBoss also works well with cast in a .450/.400 3 1/4" Watson Farqharson.