Yesterday I tried something new with my two rifles. Using Quickload, I figured it's impossible to overload either rifle using 3031 and the boolits I was using. So, I patched up some Ranch Dog 190s for the 358 and Ranch Dog 255 45 colt boolits for the 45-70, using my regular 9# onionskin. IMR 3031 powder was droptubed into the cases sufficient to set the seating depth, so that finger seated boolits would end up in the right place. The 358 held 48 grains, the 45-70 held 61. Cases were previously fired in their respective rifles and not resized.
Results at the range were very promising. Both rifles shot very well, holding approx. 3 inches at 200M, and one spot on the gong at 100. Since the 358 has a scope I tried it at 500M, and was holding approx. 14 inches of vertical and wind calls were predictable. (it was pretty windy)
I had never gotten that much power out of either rifle, basically the 45-70 turned into a 444 with the 255 going just shy of 2400 fps. and the 358 was mighty close to full 35 Whelen loads, with the 190 going 2650 fps. With no neck tension, these wouldn't be very useful for hunting. But darned effective for playing around!
I don't think I would try this kind of thing without Quickload, because you could possibly end up with a big overload in other caliber/powder combinations. You can get a whole lot more powder into a case with a droptube than you can just throwing charges. But it sure works for what I am using.
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