Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles Trail Boss reduce velocity loads...

Looks like it’s shoots really well. I was playing with Vihtavouri N32C yesterday. Ended up at 4.9gr with a 75eld getting 1040fps, 5gr was 1065-1088 which went supersonic at my elevation. 88eld in a 7 twist might be fun!

You keep looking in your garage and there's no telling what sort of treasures you may find.

I need to just find the time to clean it out....

Last week I was looking in there, and finally found out where the Queen Mary ocean liner ended up...

also wasn't aware I had a B 29 in parts in there....getting rid of those two items, might give me some more room
to put other stuff....

Trail Boss isn't so slow. I'm getting 2050 fps with a 58 gr Vmax in 6 BR. Super nice load with a suppressor. Not as accurate as normal loads but plenty good for varminting at 100 yds or so.

yeah Maxwell my friend... but who varmint shoots at 100 yds or under?

but this time last year with a 223 and 55 grain bullets, fueled by 8.5 to 9.5 grains of Unique I was ringing steel pretty consistently at 300 and 400 yds on our local range. A scope with a Christmas Tree style reticle helps out an awfully lot tho.

Heresy! You will excommunicated from the Church for not using Blue Dot. Are you switching?

Next thing we'll hear is Ol' Seafire packing FFFg black powder into a .223 case.....

Tried that one also...required an ATF Funnel and a Rubber Mallet.... messy as hell...

Blue Dot and using Unique also? Does that make me a "switch hitter", hence the Excommunication from the Church?

Was D.B. Cooper camped out there?

Nah. He took one look and decamped for a government warehouse to hide out in where it wasn't so cluttered. You know the one, depicted at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

It seems like you are evading the question. Curious minds need to know why you are using Unique? Is this merely a contrarian spirit or are there advantages?

I load 3gn TB under Speer 45gr FP in my 5.56 for 22LR level loads. Very accurate at squirrels-in-a-tree range which is what I generally use it for. Have used it in 308 as well, but like it in 5.56 loads better as it's accurate and pretty much a 22LR. Other relatively bulky, fast powders have worked well for me too, but maybe not -quite- as well as TB. Those are, Extra-lite, Red Dot and Unique. I think a lot of the fast flake powders will work reasonably well for ~1,000 fps load with lighter bullets.

Fantasticly tight groups! Which powder charge are you going forward with? Did you chronograph?

Oh just testing, "what if?" Unique did just fine... In fact last year at this time until like early June, I was ringing Steel at 300 and 400 yds with charges of 8.5 to 9.5 grains of Unique...Went thru 750 bullets in that time period and just a hair over a pound of Unique... Pretty economical and it will reach out there, more than one thinks.

someone asked me one day what was I shooting, after he packed up to head home. When I told him, he asked had I shot them further out... and I said Yeah, but I didn't know if I was hitting them as there was NO "TINK" if the bullet hit the plate.

So he got out his spotting scope and called out 450, 500, 550 and 600 yd targets which I took a couple of shots at each.

He came off the last shot and was laughing... Said I had hit them each time out to the 600 yd target. He had heard no "
Tink", but saw paint come off the white spray painted target when hit. So at 500, he took one side of his ear muffs off, and said he couldn't hear the "TINK" but say the paint fly off the painted target. So evidently, there was not as much energy left out there to make a noise you could hear 500 and 600 yds away, but the optics showed they were still hitting steel at those distances, knocking paint off of them.

That kind of practice makes hitting 200 yd sage rats with those loads, fairly easily.

Blue Dot is probably still hard to beat if you want decent velocity. How do you guys meter it?

Lee Dipper and a 505 beam scale.

Fred Flintstone Style Low Tech at my place.

Don't own or want a smart phone either.

I'm still running a 505. The complexity of this world is beginning to piss me off.

I hear you. Hundreds of dollars and high tech gadgetry just to meter powder charges and/or save a skinch of time....

Confirmed. Not safe to drop Blue Dot charges through a 22 cal tube. Dippers also are very inconsistent for me. I finally have a plan that seems to be working good. I place the Dillon powder measure die between the Redding Benchrest sizer and seater on my 550. When I size and seat a bullet, I also charge a 45 colt case which has no chance of bridging because of the large diameter. I then dump the 45 colt case into the 223 case with a funnel. If I would forget to dump the 45 colt case, the next charge would fill it to the top making it obvious. Blue Dot simply cannot be blindly trusted to drop through a 22 cal orfice without inspection.

Lymans Cast Bullet Manual is the best resource for reduced loads.