Reduced cast rifle load w lil'gun?

[Tortuga12]

Given the fun of trying to find ANY kind of pistol powder, when I saw a bunch of jugs of Lil'Gun at my local Bass Pro, I decided to pick some up. Figure I could reload .357 if nothing else!

I've been using Bullseye and cast .30-30 boolits in my K31 for short range, low-recoil plinking (a la C.E. Harris/Mattern), and it's a load of fun.

In a perfect world, I'd like to pick up a bottle of 2400 for the "universal" reduced rifle load described in the Harris article (16 gr. under a 150 gr. boolit), however, finding some is pretty much impossible these days.

So, given that, has anyone tried, or read of, reduced cast loads for rifles using Lil' Gun? I'm almost out of Bullseye, out of HP-38, and my .38's need food too!!

Thanks in advance!

 

[alientrainwreck]

I use lil gun for my 30 carbine loads with great results, 4.8gns, 110gn bullet, 2100fps with no preasure sign what so ever. I have never tried the loadings that you speak of but lil gun and 2400 are very similar but lilgun reacts different, very low preasures with lilgun with the same velocity as 2400 in my carbine.. I prefer lilgun... it may work..

 

[Walkalong]

I would be leery of using Lil' Gun for reduced rifle loads in medium and large cases. I have not tried it though.

 

[buck460XVR]

I would be leery of using Lil' Gun for reduced rifle loads in medium and large cases.

Me too. I have tried it in reduced loads for .460 S&W and .357 without much success, but those loads were not powder puff loads with lead, but more middle of the road using jacketed bullets. It seemed the more I reduced the load, the funkier Lil' Gun got and the more the variance I got(similar for me as 2400). Heavy bullets pushed hard is where it seemed to work well and I found other, better alternatives for reduced loads. Wasn't long after that the problems with Lil' Gun and premature forcing forcing cone erosion came out and I quit using it altogether in my revolvers, altho the last of it I had, worked well in the handgun caliber carbines.

In these days of scarce powder, when one finds a powder on the shelf they are not familiar with, they should wonder why it's still there while others are all gone. My experience has been that it is because the powder has small parameters, and is not good for a variety of loads, like the other powders you are looking for. It certainly is not a replacement fr HP-38/W231 in .38 special.

In the last 6 years there have been many of these, "Finally found some powder. Got 2 jugs of XXX powder, but came home and found no load recipes for it in the platforms I shoot. What the heck can I do with it?"

 

[Tortuga12]

Well, I can use it for my .357 lever action if nothing else.