30-06 rifle. 170 gr lee cast bullet. 16.5 gr of Unique powder. 1 1/2 inch groups at 100 yds.
30-06 rifle. 170 gr lee cast bullet. 16.5 gr of Unique powder. 1 1/2 inch groups at 100 yds.
45-70 350g Ranchdog 12.5 Unique/Universal ........12,5 Unique/Universal 30-06 314299(GC) Accurate Molds clone . Universal 7.5 200g 41 mag....................
.45-70 - 10 gr Red Dot under 350 gr Ranch Dog
9mm - 4.0 gr Red Dot under 120 gr Lee TC
.380 ACP - 1.5 gr Red Dot under 100 gr Ranch Dog RFN
For any reduced load in my experience, my favourite ingredient in all regards is Unique gunpowder. All you need is a pinch to get the performance you want, so it's very cheap to use, and because it's not position sensitive, you can use it even in large cases like the .45-70 without any ignition issues. It's consistent as well with a low deviation of speed between shots. Really, I can't say enough about it. I think it's the best. I don't know why anybody recommends Trail Boss. You have to use a lot of it to get the same performance you get out of a few grains of Unique, so it's not cheap. It's dirty, and worst of all is that it's higher pressure. If you have an older firearm and you want to keep the pressure down, what's the point of an expensive, bulky powder that doesn't perform, AND stresses your firearm much more than something like a reduced load of Unique? Anyway.
.38-55: 9 grains of Unique with a 255 grain booltt. 1300 fps or so and very accurate out to 100 yards. It's a reduced load, but also a near-hunting load, so maybe that one doesn't really qualify. So the other one I use is 5 grains of Unique with the same boolit. It's about 750-800 fps. Almost no sound at all and extremely accurate under 50 yards. It's actually the most accurate load I've ever used in my .38-55, and I can hit anything I want with it.
.45-70: 10 grains of Unique with a 405 grain pure lead boolit. 1000 fps or so, all kinds of fun to plink with, accurate.
.44 Magnum: Rifle or pistol, I use 5 grains of Unique with a 240 grain pure lead boolit. It's about the same performance as this load in the .38-55.
.30-06: Unique, anything between 12-16 grains, with a 180 grain Saeco #305. Like all the others, accurate and fun.
Its been awhile since anyone posted.
I only load the quiet loads close to the catsneeze loads anymore.
In the 30 cals, i use Bullseye, Unique, Titegroup, Titewad, etc. Under 77gr cast .32 caliber bullets to stretch my dwindling lead supply.
I have cast plastic hot glue boolits and used wax boolits as well, where i once used to cast and shoot the ,405 grainers in 45/70, i now cast round ball and collar button slugs.
Still lots of fun though.
Easier on the old shoulder and the wrists.
Low as 2grains of the fast powders like Bullseye up to only five grains of Unique.
Well, now the factories are even selling reduced loads for rimfires and centerfire pistol and rifle.
More shooters and reloaders than ever. Thanks
Minimum suggested load of trail boss (which I think is 5.2grains...I’m not by my load book) with a 255 grain lee in my Ruger new vaquero. I can hit quarters at 25 yards if I hold still enough with the load. Barely any recoil as well. Similar to a 22 WMR recoil.
Anything else I load with trailboss I can’t hit the broad side of a barn with.
Amazing amount of good information here!!
Keep your powder dry and watch your six !!
My nephew with his .458 Beowolf wants to compare it to my .454 Casull.
Oh well, the cycle starts over at the top with the younger crowd.
I will load and He can shoot it.
I prefer the powder puff .45 Colt loads, but don't tell him
That!
He won't understand till much later.
It looks like a lot of fun loads .
Re-primed, un-sized 357 case. Smallest Lee scoop of BE. Push a cast bullet all the way down on the powder charge and shoot out of my 357 Rossi carbine, single-loaded, of course. Surprisingly accurate at 50 feet. You might mop the soot out of the inside of the case before loading.
I took a piece of 7/8-14 all thread and drilled and reamed with a taper pin reamer a tapered bore to where I could push a .490 muzzleloader ball thru and it would size it to approximately .460 dia. I would coat them with LLA and load them over 5 grains of fast powder such as bullseye or 700 X and use them to shoot different pests from my yard and garden out of several 45-70 rifles.
I never shot them for groups but at 25 - 35 yards they were quiet and killed everything I shot them at.
I used to shoot literally dozens of groundhogs, raccoons, possums, feral cats, and even fox squirrels that would not
fear me when raiding my bird feeders for sunflower seeds.
I called them resized lead balls jellybeans as that’s what they kinda looked like and from back in the day when I use to use 50 cal. round balls I have hundreds of them and found a good use for them.
Jedman
finally someone who reads the pressure line of loading data....... trail boss its lots of fun BUT you need to look at pressure figures and then make up your mind. in the wee 7.62x39mm case wit ha 151grn HP cast std primer and 4-5-6 grains will go subsonic...if you use magnum primer you down the 4grn end of it and that is scarey low amount of powder.
so here is a question for you light load gurus.....
I have AP30N and AP50N I have 405grn cast projectiles and a .45/70.....
what would be a good place to start n finish powder weight wise???? Im not really interested in cat sneaze slow load but something usable for small/light skinned game or plinking would be great....currently I use BP for this job,its a heck of a lot of fun...but man is is dirty and rusts gun very quickly...
as said in above post...pressure levels with trail boss make me reluctant to use it for this job....
looking at equivilent charts..the above are SIMILAR to red n green dot....
normally Im a paper book load data sort of a guy,but you lot have got me thinking on this one.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |