Hodgdon reloading page shows 4.0 of Trailboss giving about 1074fps. That being listed as a max load, a not wanting to wind up with a bullet stuck in the bore, I dropped it to 3.9 and tried five. All went 'bang' appropriately, HUGELY less loud than standard .223, and made nice round holes in the target. I wasn't able to set up the Chrony so don't know what actual velocity was.
I need to do two things: run this over the Chrony, and through a suppressor and see what it winds up as.
6 comments:
This page
http://www.hodgdonreloading.com/data/rifle
does not show subsonic loads. Where did you get that load, please?
I have to ask: What is the point of this? You're decreasing the muzzle energy to such a low level it's going to pretty much useless for defense or hunting anything bigger than very small varmints.
Even if you go up to, say, an 80 grain bullet, at those velocities your talking about...what...a little over 200 lb/ft of energy at the muzzle and that would drop off dramatically at even 100 yards.
So, the only possible purpose I can see is to have a really quiet round for range use or killing the neighbor's cats.
This is for a suppressed AR right?
For about $150 you can by a .22lr conversion kit for your AR and use the same barrel and suppressor. Depending on how much you shoot it, it would pay for itself pretty quickly in ammo savings.
I'm not trying to be critical, and I'm sure working up a load that works for this is fun...but other than the challenge of doing something different, I'm just not getting the point.
They don't specifically list subsonics, which made this harder. I'd found a couple of references to Trailboss being used, so I chose 55-grain bullets and Trailboss powder, clicked 'get data', and there it was.
Curt, that's simple: Because I Can.
Friend brought up the idea, I got curious, so here we are. While it would have small-game utility, it's mostly a 'Let's see how this works' matter.
Here is something I tinkered with back in the 90's.
I shot NRA Highpower Rife for decades. At one point, I decided I wanted to do more than just dry fire during the winter off season. Like shoot indoors.
I was a member of our local R&G club, and we had an indoor 50 ft. range for handguns and .22 rifle. I made arrangements with the .22 rifle shooters to come in on their evening and do my thing "over in the corner" and if they had any objections, I would shut down.
So, I showed up with my gear and my .308 bolt gun. The load I had worked up was 5gr. of Unique powder behind a 100 gr. lead 32-20 bullet. Worked great. Report was more "thump" than "bang". Load a round, then tilt the muzzle up so that the powder is at the back of the case, aim and fire.
I had to buy an expander ball for my loading die to flare the 308 case mouth for lead bullets. Also keep in mind that at this low a pressure, the case does not expand fully. The force of the primer driving the case forward in the chamber can actually set the shoulder back over time.
You just reminded me: few years ago I ran across the terms 'cat sneeze' or 'mouse fart' loads, and did some searching, and ran across some loads like that. I'll have to look them up and repost the information. For .30-30 it was a 100-grain semi-wadcutter for .32 Long over about four grains of Green Dot, low report, no recoil, and shot quite nicely out to about 50 yards as I recall.
Thanks for reminding me.
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