148grn Hornady LHBWC loads with Trail Boss

[ryan3465]

Hey all,

Just wondering if anyone here has had any experience with the 148grn LHBWC from Hornady and Trail Boss powder in .38 Spl. The data on Hodgon/IMR website states that the minimum charge of TB is 2.0grn and the max charge is 2.3grn. Has anyone used this combination and if so were you satisfied with the results? I have a choice of powder between HP-38 and Trail Boss so I am just curious. Thanks for any responses!

 

[ArchAngelCD]

Trail Boss is a great powder for Cowboy Action type loads but my favorite powder for 148gr WC bullets in the .38 Special is W231/HP-38. I charge 3.2gr under that bullet and it's a good load in my revolvers. My other favorite is a 158gr LSWC over 4.0gr W231/HP-38.

Also, Trail Boss is intentionally smokey to slightly mimic Black Powder.

 

[ryan3465]

Yeah Trail Boss works great with my LSWC loads, as does HP-38. When i went to pick up another box of LSWC bullets all my local store had were 148 grn HBWC instead, so I went with those seeing as how I was out of bullets. I was just curious if anyone had used TB with the HBWC. I use similar loads to yours ArchAngel and have enjoyed similar results.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

I load mostly 148gr DEWC bullets but I did load up a box of 500 HBWC last year and I did try 100 with Trail Boss. To tell you the truth I saw no difference between the DEWC and HBWC bullets with Trail Boss.

BUT, I did not use Hodgdon's load data, I used their "fill the case to the bottom of the bullet" rule and it worked just fine for me. I did drop back 10% at first just because... Unfortunately I didn't send any over the chrono, sorry.