Trail Boss in Milsurp rifles

[Drydock]

Found the original article I thought lost when the original website expired.


http://web.archive.org/web/20090303144143/http://surplusrifle.com/articles2008/trailbosskiss/index.asp

[River City John]

Drydock,

     I hope I'm reading that article correctly. Since Trail Boss is considered a smokeless powder you can leave air gaps in loading?
Or should I treat it like BP and leave NO gap between powder and bullet base?

(Bought some and I think I'll play with a load for the Departmental Muster Long Range in the Vetterli. Article sounds like it will have less of a battering effect on my shoulder . . . )

RCJ

[G.W. Strong]

Leave all the air you want with TrailBoss.

[Drydock]

As the article says, 9 grains will work in anything from the .30-30 to the .30-06.  I'm not sure what the internal volume of your round is, but IMR gives a general volume guidline on their website.

[pony express]

You might try XMP5744 powder for your Vetterli, that powder was made for that kind of use. Trailboss works really well for reduced loads in "modern" bottleneck rounds, but I don't know how well it might work, or at what pressure, in a big bore, slightly bottleneck one.

A lighter bullet may help with the recoil, but since you have to keep the same OAL, it might require trimming cases to a longer length. Then you could use less BP and some kind of filler.

[River City John]

Thanks all.

Considering it's only two weekends away and I'm booked for this coming weekend, I may not have time to tinker and just might load what I used at the NCOWS National because it is a known.

RCJ

p.s. Too bad I didn't lose that thirty pounds like I wanted, either.

[Niederlander]

Me too!

[Drydock]

More Data.


http://imrpowder.com/PDF/Trail-Boss-data.pdf