Trail Boss

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Reeferman

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Bought a couple pounds and thought I'd give it a try. Put it in my LNL powder measure and it makes Unique meter like 231. In fact Unique meters within .1 at the most . I couldn't get it to throw more than two the same . Most were .3 high or low off of 3 grains.
I messed around for 30 minutes or so and gave up.
Anyone else use it and what powder measure?
 
The big "doughnuts" causes the problems with metering. A 0.6 grain range though is kinda high. You're looking at around 100 fps difference in rounds (depending on the cartridge and load). My little cheapie Lee plastic powder measure is usually only +/- 0.1 grain with Trail Boss, although from time to time it does vary by more.
 
I have RCBS powder measures which are essentially the same as Hornady. I run a baffle for most powders. Unique is one of the few that run like crap with a baffle, remembered that the other day. First time i used Unique in a while and it was metering like crap. Looked up and saw the baffle, took it out and it was good to go. I have good luck with Trail Boss using a baffle.
 
I use a Dipper to start, then trickle to get to the charge I wanted. Id does meter pretty rough, sometimes I have success with my RCBS Powder Drop.

If you can make it thru the powder stage, and get the rounds loaded, it is worth the extra effort.

Good Luck
dg
 
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It meters decent in my 10X. +/- .3 Grs or so. Never saw a 3.0 Gr high or low throw. It's hard to hurt anything with Trail Boss. Likes lead, not so much plated or jacketed. I wouldn't use it with those.
 
I use an old Lyman drum type measure. No baffle but I only use the 1 grain and 1/10 grain adjustment parts of the drum (the big part of the drum is all the way shut). I destatic the measure before starting also, giving +/- .1gr. I also learned taping the measure settled the powder, and that wasn't a good thing.
 
Trail Boss is meant for low recoil "cowboy action shooting" and not "precision long range perfection" shooting. As crude as it sounds, +/- 0.3g should be acceptable. In a 38 special, it will be about +/- 50 fps centered around 570 fps. All the rounds will go bang and the bullets will all exit the barrel. If you want to see if you could do better with a dipper, spend a little time throwing 10 charges and weighing them.

Most importantly, go out and shoot some labeled rounds at 2.7g and 3.3g. You might feel a difference in recoil but it might not matter. If it does and it affects your shooting, then you know you'll need to measure more accurately. If not, then you're GTG with the LnL PM.

With my LnL AP, I've been able to meter big flaked powders like 800X with a short fat volume using the rifle insert. It sounds counter intuitive, but it worked for me.
 
If Unique is considered "corn flakes", then TrailBoss is "Cheerios".

I believe I had the best luck with the Lee Perfect measure. The elastomeric wiper in the Lee measures seem to do a decent job with difficult powders.

Trailboss works well for me with plated bullets. I've loaded up a few in 45acp. The interesting thing, though, is that Trailboss works well with large primer 45, but not well with small primer 45. I saw a difference of over 150fps between the two. Strange, because it works well in 38spl with a small primer.
 
TrailBoss throws consistent through my Redding measure, but I haven't tried it in my LnL measure. If I was going to use the LnL measure, I'd use the rifle insert.

Hope this helps.

Fred
 
Bought a couple pounds and thought I'd give it a try. Put it in my LNL powder measure and it makes Unique meter like 231. In fact Unique meters within .1 at the most . I couldn't get it to throw more than two the same . Most were .3 high or low off of 3 grains.
I messed around for 30 minutes or so and gave up.
Anyone else use it and what powder measure?
I set my Hornady up for 3.2 grains of Trailboss just a couple days ago, getting ready to run a box of 158 gr lead bullets for my SASS rifle. I was using the pistol rotor and pistol insert. It took some fussing, but I got the powder drop stable and very repeatable. I only had about three inches high of powder in the hopper and was using the baffle. Another variable is that I had the measure and stop bracket adjusted so that it was expanding when the insert was a bare fraction from hitting the top of the casting. That is important because that is the only position where the rotor cavity and drop tube are in complete alignment inside, leaving no variable amount of powder on a little shelf.
 
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i also had good luck with my Lee Auto Drum although I was using it for a .300 savage rifle light plinking load so I was dumping a bit more powder. I was not too concerned with the +/- .1 or so variance with those loads. I did let the powder drop stay open a little longer than normal to get all of that light powder out which may also help your situation.
 
The OP was troubleshooting use of TB in an LnL AP measure. I too have had good results with other measures but they are not pertinent to getting the LnL AP running. Trailboss is a unique powder, but a LnL AP, setup optimally, is just another volumetric dropper.
 
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I use Trail boss for my Cowboy .45LC rounds. I use a Dillon SDB and it normally meters +/- .1, as stated TB is forgiving in a sense for cowboy loads. It is hard to measure but if you load manually you can be slightly more accurate.If your using TB to make an accurate load then your using the wrong powder, it was not designed for that function.

I have also played around and used it to load 7.62 x 54R Mosin ammo, well it works but dont expect great performance and dont expect a lot of accuracy, it was more like shooting a Mortar round at 100yds, aim a little high and let her go.

LeftyTSGC
 
fill the hopper at least half full,and then give it a few knuckle taps to settle it. I do the same for Unique,in my Lyman 55,and it really helps.
 
I use Trail boss for my Cowboy .45LC rounds. I use a Dillon SDB and it normally meters +/- .1, as stated TB is forgiving in a sense for cowboy loads. It is hard to measure but if you load manually you can be slightly more accurate.If your using TB to make an accurate load then your using the wrong powder, it was not designed for that function.

I have also played around and used it to load 7.62 x 54R Mosin ammo, well it works but dont expect great performance and dont expect a lot of accuracy, it was more like shooting a Mortar round at 100yds, aim a little high and let her go.

LeftyTSGC
Trailboss loads are just as good and accurate as many other powders, certainly Unique, 700x, and other flaky examples. Nothing wrong with +-.1 gr. My Hornady LnL AP appears to be doing better than that, certainly more dead-on per the scale than +-. The Lee turret is as good or better.
 
I love TB, but I don't meter it (old school, single stage loader); instead I've made up a batch of dippers from old cases that are particular it a given powder & caliber. Fun powder, funky smell, easy on the recoil and fairly accurate at short range. Enjoy.
 
I had a little time this morning and thought I would try Trail Boss in a RCBS Uniflow that I haven’t used in a very long time and has a large rotor. Eyeballed the adjuster and got it to 4.0 grains and it would throw 4 grains five in a row then two at 3.9 grains then two at 4.1 grains then another four or five at 4.0 grains then repeat. Also set it for 3.5 grains and wasn’t as consistent but close enough that I would be ok with. Tried as low as 3grains and it didn’t like that at all as the rotor would hang up and not throw close at all.
Didn’t try the LNL as I set it up for a large run of .357 but when done I’m going to try the LNL large rotor as I’m sure not going to throw single 38 Special charges and load them on my SS Rockchucker!!!
Reloaderfred and rsrocket1 I think you’re on to something.
 
One thing I have done with some powders that are hard to measure is to strap an aquarium air pump to the side of the powder hopper. The vibrations helps settle the powder into the measure bar more consistently.
 
I had a little time this morning and thought I would try Trail Boss in a RCBS Uniflow that I haven’t used in a very long time and has a large rotor. Eyeballed the adjuster and got it to 4.0 grains and it would throw 4 grains five in a row then two at 3.9 grains then two at 4.1 grains then another four or five at 4.0 grains then repeat. Also set it for 3.5 grains and wasn’t as consistent but close enough that I would be ok with. Tried as low as 3grains and it didn’t like that at all as the rotor would hang up and not throw close at all.
Didn’t try the LNL as I set it up for a large run of .357 but when done I’m going to try the LNL large rotor as I’m sure not going to throw single 38 Special charges and load them on my SS Rockchucker!!!
Reloaderfred and rsrocket1 I think you’re on to something.
My accuracy with Trailboss on the LnL AP is dependent upon using the small rotor and pistol metering insert. My 3.2 gr is achieved with the metering adjustment backed out quite a lot, providing the necessary volume but fine enough to get it dialed in readily.
 
One thing I have done with some powders that are hard to measure is to strap an aquarium air pump to the side of the powder hopper. The vibrations helps settle the powder into the measure bar more consistently.
I did the same thing with one of my Lee Auto-Disc dispensers, but with a couple of the little cell phone/pager vibrators. That settled down the variances and was easier on both me and the equipment than my former practice of tapping the Auto-Disc frame with a piece of drill rod between throws. :)

I have found that the Lee Auto-Drums do not seem to require such attention.
 
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