The small game/ plinking loads thread

[Malamute]

Round ball loads would be perfectly acceptable to me.

I like them to be pretty mild, about like a 22 so it didnt scare my gunshy dogs in the past and I didnt have to worry about ear protection for occasional shots of opportunity on varmints or snakes.

[awp_101]

This seems to be somewhat appropriate to the theme of this thread: Revisiting the “Game Getter”

(Yep, there's a .44-40 I'm eyeballing and a search for loading info turned up that site)

[fatdog]

bumping this old one simply because retirement has come and next week I finally have time to work up a good mild recreational load for .357 magnum

my goal is something between 800 and 1000 fps in the magnum cases (which I have many thousands of) instead of .38 special cases, will serve to banish all the carbon rings from those revolvers

my plan is to use plated or poly coated 158's in those .357 magnum cases

on hand powders include Universal, Titegroup, and my last 5 lbs of Trailboss, I have lots of N350 but it does not appear to be well suited to this

I am mostly going to use Remington non-magnum primers for now simply because I have so many thousands left over from my CAS days (and I almost shudder thinking of how little I paid for them 10-12 years ago...)

but open to hearing anybody's suggestions as I will hopefully run out of these powders at some point and need to buy more of some type

[awp_101]

This seems to be somewhat appropriate to the theme of this thread: Revisiting the “Game Getter”

(Yep, there's a .44-40 I'm eyeballing and a search for loading info turned up that site)

Looks like that link is now DOA but I found a direct link to the article by @Outpost75: Revisiting the “Game Getter”

[awp_101]

bumping this old one simply because retirement has come and next week I finally have time to work up a good mild recreational load for .357 magnum

my goal is something between 800 and 1000 fps in the magnum cases (which I have many thousands of) instead of .38 special cases, will serve to banish all the carbon rings from those revolvers

my plan is to use plated or poly coated 158's in those .357 magnum cases

Following because I'm considering the same thing for similar reasons. Well, except for the retirement part. Congrats you lucky dog!

[revchuck38]

@fatdog - Of the choices you list, I'd go with Titegroup and plated bullets. TG is about the right burn rate, but it burns really hot. I stopped using it back when I was actively competing in IDPA SSR with the original 125 power factor, and the cylinder just got way too hot during practice sessions. I think it would burn some of the coating of coated bullets off, producing smoke. Universal would be my second choice based on burn rate. It's been years since I used Universal.

I've got most of a five-gallon bucket of .357 Mag brass, so I'm following this with interest.

[fatdog]

@fatdog go with Titegroup and plated bullets. .

Thanks for tipping me off on that, of my 158's at least 3K are Berry's so I can do that and probably consume all that Titegroup with them, I used it and N350 in the past for .40 major with Berrys and that worked very well.

I found the Universal on sale from a supplier I trusted over a decade ago and it is in the one lb jars, marked $9.99, so I guess I figured I would find a use for it at that price, now I might have.

I mourn the passing of Trailboss because that sure filled cases up well and yielded low SD's. By weight it mostly burned like Bullseye. It was so fluffy most of us locally actually set up it up with the rifle powder measure on our Dillons instead of the pistol measure to get more consistent throws.

[revchuck38]

I found the Universal on sale from a supplier I trusted over a decade ago and it is in the one lb jars, marked $9.99, so I guess I figured I would find a use for it at that price, now I might have.

If it were me, I'd get a bunch of coated LSWCs and use enough Universal to push them to about 900-950 fps.

[gringop]

I mourn the passing of Trailboss because that sure filled cases up well and yielded low SD's. By weight it mostly burned like Bullseye. It was so fluffy most of us locally actually set up it up with the rifle powder measure on our Dillons instead of the pistol measure to get more consistent throws.

Does any have any definitive info on if Trailboss is not going to be produced any more? I see it OOS at all the normal suppliers, the only places that show it in stock are the scammers that only accept Venmo and the like for payment.

I've got one full and one partial 2lb jug and it's the bees knees for powder puff 45-70 and other loads.

Is SASS so out of favor these days that the market is not there for it? Will Karl Kasarda's Dead Eye division in Brutality matches resurrect it?

But enough of the BS joking around. Does really anyone have the inside skinny on Trailboss?

Gringop

[awp_101]

Does any have any definitive info on if Trailboss is not going to be produced any more? I see it OOS at all the normal suppliers, the only places that show it in stock are the scammers that only accept Venmo and the like for payment.

I've got one full and one partial 2lb jug and it's the bees knees for powder puff 45-70 and other loads.

Is SASS so out of favor these days that the market is not there for it? Will Karl Kasarda's Dead Eye division in Brutality matches resurrect it?

But enough of the BS joking around. Does really anyone have the inside skinny on Trailboss?

Gringop

The last time I read up on it, the story was Trail Boss is/was made by ADI (I think) in Australia. Due to some kind of environmental legislation they were having to reformulate the recipe and it just wasn’t going well. There were various statements of “we’re continuing to work on a new formulation” but that’s been a couple of years ago.

I don’t know if they just haven’t been able to make it work, if there’s been continuing supply chain issues or if they’ve simply decided it’s not worth the effort but haven’t told anyone yet.