Many months ago I picked up 9oz of Trail Boss to have a play with. Until this summer I had done very little with it and was curious. General consensus appears to be that TB is a little too pricey and does not produce accuracy on par with other powders with similar burn rates.
To test I have chosen my Husqvarna .30/30 bolt rifle in which I can chamber very snuggly a .312 bullet and this combination has produced very good accuracy in the past. The rifle is equipped with open iron sights only and I shot at 50m/55y.
Bullet tested is the NOE copy of the Lyman 311008. My mould is .314 (bought for my .32-20) and have 5 cavities; 2 x GC, 2 x PB, 1 x GCHP. To begin testing I started with the GC version as I had a heap of them cast and no particular use for them. GC is a homemade Freechex III in .012 copper. RP cases and primers (9 1/2). Bullet sized to .312 in 40/1 alloy and seated to just engage the rifling.
Loads shot thus far; 6, 7, 8 and 9gr of Trail Boss. 6gr was subsonic. All others cracked. Not as yet run over the chrony. Best accuracy to date appears to be 8gr with an estimated 1400fps (TBC).
Shot today a full 15 round group. No major pauses and the barrel was barely warm afterwards. Other than a couple on the peripheral the group is minute of wabbit but not as good as I have achieved with other shotgun type powders.
More to come. Next up is the PB version of the bullet.
Cheers from New Zealand