Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters MuleDeer- reduced loads

Mr. B,
The two advantages most often cited for using reduced velocity cast-bullets loads are economy and reduced barrel wear. Lately, I've begun to wonder if a lot of the reduced barrel wear is a result of the lower heat and pressure of these loads as opposed to the bullet material. If true, that combined with the increased price of alloy, gas checks, and equipment, makes the use of jacketed bullets over Trail Boss a lot more attractive, especially for maybe a couple hundred rounds a year. The availability of blems for roughly half price makes it seem even better.

What do you think?

My initial experiment with Trail Boss in my .243 using Sierra blems was very promising, except for the change in POI, which I may be able to improve by trying another bullet weight.

Thanks, John.

Part of reduced wear in handguns is indeed from using lead bullets, especially in revolvers, because unlike jacketed bullets, cast bullets tend to bump up to bore diameter, reducing gas-cutting.

The same effect can be seen in rifles, especially with boattails, but to a lesser degree. But the biggest effect in rifle comes from high temperatures, which is mostly due to the powder burning, though bullet friction is also a small component. Plus, centerfire hunting rifles use a LOT more powder than typical handgun rounds, so the length of the burn is longer, which also raises temperatures.

No doubt your barrel will last longer with TB, even with jacketed bullets.

The brass too, no doubt; no small thing these days.

Thanks again, John.

May I jump in here and ask a question about reduced loads? I've been wondering: what bullet will reliably expand inside 150 yards when launched at slower muzzle velocity? I know that without specific parameters (weight, caliber, etc) it's hard to say, but if you were loading reduced hunting loads for younger or newer shooters, what bullet would you use?

I don't mean to hijack the thread; I've just been thinking about this lately, specifically for one of my 7x57s.

A few years back, one of the Hodgdon Annuals had an article on reduced recoil loads for hunting. The author listed data for a whole slew of standard rounds featuring Barnes X bullets used with light charges of H4895 and a few others. He claimed excellent bullet performance on game and that his loads allowed shooters with low recoil tolerance to use larger calibers that killed better than .243s and the like. He was also a big Steyr fan. If I recall, his loads ran from about 24-2700 fps. Sorry I can't remember the exact issue. I looked for it on my bench, but to no avail.

I think most cup and cores are supposed to expand at about 1800fps and up. There are also a number of bullets designed for hand rifles, including 7mms that should work pretty good, but I think I'd stay with something like an NBt.

The Nosler program on my iPad shows a 140 BT at 2400 still has over 1300 ft. lbs. at 200 yards and nearly 2100 fps. Sighted 1.2 inches high at 100 puts you right on at 150 with the old standard 1.5 sight height.

The Hodgdon site shows a whole pile of loads that put you at that velocity level including my favorite H4895. Their data uses the 140 BT.

Good luck.

That would be the 2009 Annual Manual. The article is pretty much exactly as you stated.

Does Speer still list reduced loads in it's reloading manual?

If so,Rev,that would be a place to start.

Lead. The buffalo can testify to that.

In Richard Lee's book "Modern Reloading", he lists powder/pressure reduction calculation factors with many modern powders and bullet weights per cartridge. He found that for many, the reduction is linear in pressure, and lists how to go about calculating reduced loads down to a 1/3 reduction from max charge wt.

I've used it a couple times, but haven't felt the need to do much exploration, as there are many powders that work well for reduced loads in the cartridges I've been shooting most of lately. Most bullets would work for reduced loads to 150 yds, even the mono-metal, as noted above. Amax, at low speeds, act like a typical controlled-expansion bullet. Anything with a lot of exposed lead will generally open readily too.

Try the Nosler 120.

Bullets can't read barrel stamps.

The easiest and surest path is to load to mimic a smaller round.

A 7mm - 30 Waters bullet or a .35 Remington bullet at their design velocities work as well launched from bigger cases as they do from the originals.

Others claim successes with reduced loads in any cartridge, but I've run into poor accuracy and burns with higher capacity small bores: 7RM, 25-06, 264WM. Reduced loads work well and easily in anything with larger bores or lesser case capacity; or, maybe, even just with a more determined loader.

Hodgdon is pretty helpful with these:

http://www.hodgdon.com/PDF/Hodgdon%20H4895%20reduced%20rifle%20load.pdf

http://www.hodgdon.com/PDF/Trail%20Boss%20Reduced%20Loads%20R&P.pdf

Many of the Managed Recoil Loads on the market, were using IMR 4198 as their GoTo powder....

IMR's old Brown Sheet, had it listed with most of the cartridges they provided load data with...

also don't overlook info in Lyman's Cast Bullet manuals...they work just fine with jacketed bullets...

IMR 4895 can also be substituted for H 4895 loads and you'll find it more accurate, and also giving less of a retort than H 4895 the lower your charge is...

Hodgdon claims they usually get better results with H4895 than IMR4895 in reduced loads, but I've gotten excellent results with both. H4198 is another good one, but so is Accurate 5744, and of course Trail Boss.

Just about any single-based powder in the medium to fast-burning range can be used, but double-based powders can be a little wonky, depending on the application.

Another jacketed bullet that can work well in reduced loads is the Nosler Partition, because the front core is a relatively soft lead alloy. The 170 RN designed for the .30-30 is particularly good.

I haven't used the H4895 for reduced loads per se, but have gotten excellent accuracy with starting level loads in the .308 and '06.

I've told this before, but years ago I loaded some of the Speer .308 110 gr. hollowpoints, the ones that look like a pistol slug, over some SR4759 to presumably about 1500-1600 fps. I whacked a few groundhogs and a big male red fox with them and the stubby little buggers really mowed 'em down. When I can find some more, I'll try them over Trail Boss.

Are you saying boattails reduce or increase gas cutting?


BTW: Here' my take on reduced loads. Let's say you have a factory-level load that you would not hesitate to use on game at 300 yards. If the load is dialed back a few percent and now you are getting the same velocity at 200 yards that you were at 300 yards, then expansion at 200 yards should be the same as it was at 300.

Thanks for all the responses. They've been helpful.

I have used a bunch of H4895 reduced loads in my 270's. It has worked with 85gr TSX's, 110gr NAB's & Hornady V max, 130gr NBT & Hornady SP, and 140gr Hornady BTSP.

These are/were used with much success for my nephews, sons and may other people to get them comfortable with a rifle at the range and on deer/antelope. The velocities have ranged from 1900 to 2600 fps. I have not had any problems with bullet expansion. I have recovered a couple of bullets, and they were expanded nicely.

Typically I have had better accuracy with H4895 than simply starting loads of other powders.

I have not tried any of the other "reduced" load powders.

I suggest you try a 175gr round nose at 2200-2300 fps. I've been using Hornadys, but any standard-grade round nose with lead exposed at the tip will do fine. Don't know if they make Rem Cor-Lokts or Win Power Points in RN/175gr/7mm any more, but I would use them if I didn't have so many Hornadys on the shelf. Got a screaming deal on seconds a few years back.

That's about what Federal's factory load is listed: 2390.

I don't think lowering the velocity of a 175 will give you much recoil reduction. Something in the 120-140gr. range should and be plenty for deer. For your pigs, maybe an X bullet in that range should give you good penetration. A Partition would be a good compromise. The lightest .284 NP is a 140.