Primary Mission: Black bear and moose within short sightlines.
Secondary Mission: Recurring range time to keep the shooter's eye in.
Shooter: Twiggy young teen with a preference for iron sights and enthusiasm for shotguns and classic, low pressure big game cartridges. Plays brass so keeping muzzle blast down to that much better preserve hearing would be a bonus.
Limitations: Prefer to conserve powder in these times. Keep load most capable yet staid enough to avoid beating up a young shoulder. Will be casting and powder coating the bullets at home with a classically soft lead.
Gun: Ruger No. 1 with slightly shortened barrel and stock by a previous owner. Will be getting a custom front sight mounted somehow and a Skinner rear peep.
Contextual Thoughts: Keep velocity easy to save powder. Lead is cheap enough to harvest from the public range backstop so preserving that less important. Make up for "low velocity" with bullet weight of 405 grains.
Load Specifics: Aim for 1,200 to 1,300 feet per second with a 405 grain cast lead boolit. This should give near-to-classic cartridge performance with hige safety margin in receiver strength. Roughly 1,200 to about 1,500 foot pounds muzzle energy. More than flat enough trajectory for the shots to be encountered. Sufficient oomph for swamp donkey while trying to minimize meat loss unlike his uncle who wrecked a good portion of both bear front shoulder with a zippier load from a Guide Gun on one notable occasion.
Possible Secondary Load: Maximum charge of Trail Boss which should give about 1,000fps for roughly 800 foot pounds muzzle energy as a lighter range load and to conserve the hunting powder. Allow the rifle to be a back-up whitetail option if the primary 243 Win. goes down.
Given that components are precious and this cartridge is a voluminous eater, anybody mind reviewing the plan for me? Second set of eyes before committing would be much appreciated. I am open to comments to tweak the plan. I have until mid-summer to get this sorted and kid on the range practicing.