[walvdon]

After a 15 yr. hiatus I want to start reloading for my J frame model 38-2 Airweight Bodyguard. I have lots of leftover 90 gr lrn. cast bullets from my .380 Lyman mold that I want to use until I relearn the business. They have been Sized & Lubed & measure . 356. I understand that my 38 spl needs .358 cast bullets but I am only shooting at 4 yds & don't care about accuracy at this point. I have tried Bullseye loads from 2.3, 2.5 & 2.7 gr. & all seemed to function from this Non +P gun, however they all leave an unbelievably dirty gun. After much searching on the net of the new powders now available to me I've settled on Trail Boss due to its reputed cleanliness, no chance of double charging & I can get it locally. I have not been able to find any load data for this combination so any & all suggestion & comments are welcome. Please help and Old Timer get back into the GAME.
I have a pretty complete set up, RCBS press, separate primer loader, powder measure, & a beam scale. However I have no chronograph to check results (and none in my near future)
Thanks,
Walvdon

[Remo-99]

Trail Boss in a 38spl (non +P) with 90gr lead,

from the Hodgdon website http://data.hodgdon.com/cartridge_load.asp

3.0gr for 740fps(7.7" barrel) at 7,800psi up to 5.0gr for 904fps(7.7"barrel) at 8,100psi.

Nice and light for a lightweight snubbie with an alloy frame.

Your bullets sized at .356 may or may not cause some leading in a 38spl barrel, at those velocities/pressures, proberly not.

Another clean burning powder with light loadings is H-Clays, but it doesn't have the bulk that TB has.

BTW, welcome to the THR forums Walvdon.

[MikeS.]

Good advice above and another Welcome.

[Walkalong]

Another vote for Clays. It will be very clean and accurate in that application. 700X, Red Dot, American Select are quite clean in that app as well. Of course N310 & N320 will be extremely clean too.

TB burns really clean, but tends, due to low pressures, to soot up the brass quite a bit. If loaded too light, it soots up everything.

With the right charge it should work just fine. It sounds like you want a very light load (90 gr bullet and small charges) so you are going to be dirtier with any powder you use than you would with more bullet weight and pressure.

The Hodgdon Reloading Data Center (http://data.hodgdon.com/main_menu.asp) that Remo-99 linked to is a good source of info.

The IMR Cowboy Data I printed out does not have data for 90 Gr. It lists a start load of 3.0 and a max of 5.3 for Trail Boss and 125 Gr lead bullets. That would certainly be safe with 90 Gr lead bullets.

Welcome to THR