Berry's Plated vs. Lead Cast when using Trail Boss

I haven't tried it with Trail Boss, but I know that Berry's can be substituted for lead in a number of calibers.

I use them in 38Spl, 9mm & 44Spl.
Especially in 38Spl, I use some reduced loads.
My air weight S&W M38 is just too light for comfortable plinking.

I reload a lot of plated and use the high end of lead data upoto the mid range of jacketed.

What caliber are you loading? I assume that it is a 30-30 since 160 grain lead bullet is common for it. If that is what your are loading then trailboss will work with the berrys bullets. Sr4759 is also a good rifle cast bullet powder.

Trail Boss is a fairly new powder (5 or 6 years on the market). When I introduced my friend to reloading, I researched for good powders with which to teach the mechanics of loading. Something forgiving and voluminous. I settled on Trail Boss.

My friend was able to find only jacketed bullets for his 500 S&W and had 400 of them and nothing else. (A shortage at the time)

When I didn't find any load data for jacketed bullets, I contacted the maker. They replied "Trail Boss does not like jacketed bullets". I was disappointed. Not only because we could not load anything but also with the scanty answer.

I emailed back, "How does Trail Boss express this dislike for jacketed bullets."

I got no reply. Twice.

OK, rant against IMR over.

Since then I understand they have softened their anti-lead position, but see they still provide no plated or jacketed bullet recipes on their web site.

However, this document from Hodgdon has some suggestions

http://www.hodgdon.com/PDF/Trail Boss Reduced Loads R&P.pdf

read paragraph one. It mentions "lead or jacketed" bullets (in reference to rifle cartridges) but does not mention jacketed or plated for handgun cartridges, so recommendations from the maker are still not explicit.

However, my friend and I loaded up some mild loads of TB under his 350 Grain jacketed bullets and they flew out of his 4" S&W 500 Mag at 700 fps. We checked very carefully after each round that the bullet DID exit the barrel. Currently, we stay above 800 fps.

Lost Sheep

A couple years ago I called IMR and asked them that same question. They told me that TB would work fine with plated bullets but to use the higher end levels of lead data for the same weight bullet.

Wether it's tmj bullets or plated bullets and wether or not it's TB or W231 I have always had excellent luck with the upper end lead to mid range jacketed recipes, and I reload for .45 acp, & .38 spl. FWIW

I use the 158 gr. Berry's RN plated in 38 Special. In my limited experience the plated bullet provides ca 10% lower veocities over a lead bullet of the same weight. If you use the middle/upper end of the Trail Boss data as a staring point you can work your way to the desired velocity.