Thread: Trailboss, 151gr cast hollow points and 300blk

Originally Posted by Cigar

I think I have been as low as 6 grains of TB in my 30-30 with the 151gr casts, so you should be fine.
I’ll check how low I got later.
Subsonic in the 30-30 and one of the 308s is 7.5gr, the other 308 is 8gr, so a long way different to what has been quoted for other projectiles.

I use 7.5gr trailboss and Roberts 151gr in my. 308 too. I was thinking of trying the same load for the 300blk once I purchase the dies. I didn't check case capacity though. A successful recipe would be appreciated if someonr works one out.

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I use AR2205 with the 151gr HP in my 12” blackout. The bunnies, possums, goats and a couple of deer don’t like that combination.
I haven’t tried any other powders because the AR2205 has been very consistent accuracy and temperature wise with all projectiles in my 300 blackout and for the other 300 blackouts I load for.

Yeah I hear 2205 and lil gun are the business.
I'll give a moderate load a shot with trailboss and see what it yields
at least lead bullets will be easy to unstuck

I load a lot of 300 Blackout. Haven't heard of anyone experimenting with Trail Boss, at least not that I noticed.

CFE BLK is a Blackout specific powder optimized for subsonics. So far experimenting with it for supersonics, I would say Lil Gun and IMR 4227 work better. I need to get some heavier weight projectiles and once I do I will work on some subsonic loads with CFE BLK. I just get vibe that it truly is more suited for subsonic 300 Blackout.

One load with Blackout that has worked very well for me and is inexpensive is buying the 150g Hornady FMJ bullets in bulk and using just over 16 grains of Lil Gun. Very accurate out to 100 metres and cheap. That's my general load for plinking.

I just started working with IMR 4227 and have only shot 10 rounds of that so it's early days. I plan on doing more load development with it over the next two months. So far to me it seems to mimic Lil Gun in performance.

Another magnum pistol powder I worked with early on is H110 and I found that to be very inconsistent and unreliable. I'm using that canister of powder up for 357 Magnum.

I tried Trailboss in subs loads for a 44 mag and found it had too great a velocity spread to be useful. Went to another powder and spread was 7 fps with a mean of 1025

iv had nothing but success with it im my 308, its a shame its not more suitable
I opened airtight seal the container to see how much fit in the BLK case so im committed now

All the published load data is geared towards semis. "slow" powders like H110 and 2205 are good to use when you have an action to cycle with a gas port that needs a fair bit of gas volume and pressure. It's what CFE BLK is specifically designed for.

But you don't see sub loads with 150gr pills because they're too light to build up enough gas to cycle whilst also staying below the sound barrier (with any powder), so functioning sub loads start at like 190gr and upwards.

No action no problem though - shoot whatever bullet you like at sub speeds. Just bear in mind that if you use a slow powder (like published data would have you do) all it's doing is creating more pressure at the muzzle meaning more work for your suppressor. Going off-script and using faster powders will create much quieter loads.

You also get a lot of unburnt powder with the slower burn rate ones this causes erratic velocity as no two rounds burn the same this is due to lack of a pressure "spike" at ignition especially noticeable with cast lead bullets. The unburnt powder also causes poor accuracy as the random distribution of unburnt powder in the bore acts as fouling.

I've played around with subsonics, both jacketed and cast, for .303 British, .308 and .375 magnum. I've never had a stuck bullet, but I was scared I was going to get one before I started actually shooting them. I prepared ahead of time by getting a bit of steel rod that would fit down the bore... then I wrapped electricians' tape around it so that it wouldn't damage the inside of the barrel if I had to use it. There is quite a bit of tape on my rod which locates the centre of the rod well in the middle of the bore.

Tapping a stuck lead bullet out of a bore shouldn't be too difficult. I've tapped a lead slug through a bore so I could measure the diameter, and it was easy to do. I guess you just have to make sure that the bullet actually exits the barrel after every shot while you are experimenting.

I used only Trail Boss for the .308 and the .303. Like everything I've shot through the old Chrony I noticed some variations in velocity, but perhaps this might have been partially due to the changing light conditions with the Chrony just recording what it thought it saw. Dunno. Anyway, despite the velocity variations, my finished loads grouped plenty well enough for hunting purposes at practical subsonic hunting ranges.

In the .303, 9 grains of Trail Boss gave me about 950 fps with a 150 grain jacketed bullet. Lead bullets don't seem to need as much powder for the same speed. 7.5 grains of Trail Boss behind a 170 grain cast .308 bullet gave me 1050 fps. And although the larger bore of the .357 isn't a good comparison, 4.2 grains of Trail Boss propel a 158 grain cast bullet out of my .357 barrel at around 945 fps.

I haven't done extensive testing, but at one stage I thought that "Fryxell Lube" on my bullets gave me a few more fps compared to a a more basic lube that I'd been using at the time. Fryxell Lube is a mix of molygraph grease and beeswax. It smells a bit and can be messy.

Does your bullet design and your rifle enable you to perhaps not seat the bullet quite so deep so you can fit a bit more powder in? Just a thought.

I too would be thinking about using AP70N powder. Or maybe even APS350. But 'proper' data for such loads may be hard to find.

A 150 grain cast bullet travelling at 800 fps is still going to penetrate. And they should be relatively quiet. I will be interested to hear how your loads perform. Best wishes from Nelson.

yeah mate i can seat it out if need be the bullets are flat based with a gas check, the load is for a bolt action with plenty of space in the mag, with more available with a little modifuckation

the sub-x load im running at the moment seem very dirty with lumps of powder residue or what ever they use as a packer, trailboss seems cleaner by a large margin in my 308 at least

my last loads a tuned to my ear and id guess around 850fps and they were great but once again in 308.

Originally Posted by PommyMcPomFace

AP70. 2205 won't create enough chamber pressure to obturate.

I ran into this problem in my straight walled cases using trailboss
some shots would have a bit of leakage and be stingy on my eye
not a major but worth mentioning

Originally Posted by Bill999

If I have to buy ill look into that or lil gun if I cant get away with using what I have
at the moment i have 2208 and 2209 on hand
as well as trail boss
I also live in bumfuck nowhere and getting powder is a long slow process

Northern Guns stock a few different ADI powders, PM if you want contact details.