Olympus
Member
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2008
- Messages
- 4,212
I bought a ton of this stuff during the last panic when all the other powders were hard to find. There's very little load data available, but the burn rate is consistent with Bullseye. My brother used a lot of it in 9mm for some target loads, but I've never tried it. I decided to work up some loads tonight for some VERY soft 44 magnum loads for my new Marlin 1984. I found that using 5.0 grains of the BA10 is almost safe to shoot without hearing protection. My first round while wearing hearing protection I was almost like I had a squib. I unloaded the gun and looked down the barrel just to make sure. Then I tried the next round without hearing protection. It's loader than a 22LR but not by much! It's wonderful! I'm guessing around 800fps from a rifle. It's going to be tons of fun to shoot and using plated or coated bullets will be VERY economical.
I know there will be people that don't understand why someone would load down the 44 magnum and why not just buy a smaller caliber gun. Well I like the ability to use the heavy loads for hunting and the soft loads for target shooting at my home range, where neighbors are within hearing distance. I like getting more trigger time behind the gun rather than a little trigger time spread out over a bunch of different guns. I like being able to introduce new shooters to this rifle since it's short, light, handy and will no recoil like a 22 magnum. It slings a heavy slug at a slow speed and that makes a nice clang on my steel targets. Brass life will be a lot longer and I doubt I have do any trimming.
Either way, I'm excited that I've found a way to utilize this uncommon powder and it appears to be a safe, clean, and economical powder for this particular application.
I know there will be people that don't understand why someone would load down the 44 magnum and why not just buy a smaller caliber gun. Well I like the ability to use the heavy loads for hunting and the soft loads for target shooting at my home range, where neighbors are within hearing distance. I like getting more trigger time behind the gun rather than a little trigger time spread out over a bunch of different guns. I like being able to introduce new shooters to this rifle since it's short, light, handy and will no recoil like a 22 magnum. It slings a heavy slug at a slow speed and that makes a nice clang on my steel targets. Brass life will be a lot longer and I doubt I have do any trimming.
Either way, I'm excited that I've found a way to utilize this uncommon powder and it appears to be a safe, clean, and economical powder for this particular application.
