Hi guys
The first thing I should say is:
WARNING THESE LOADS WERE DEVELOPED AND TESTED FOR MY RIFLE ONLY. DO NOT USE THIS INFORMATION IN YOUR OWN RIFLE WITHOUT FOLLOWING SAFE RELOADING PRACTICES.
Now that is over with… I wanted to develop the most accurate cast bullet load for my Marlin 1895 as I could; I wasn’t looking for velocity or fpe, but the best group on paper. I had acquired a Lee 405gr Hollow Base mold for a very good price (it had been gathering dust on a local GS shelf for a while), and after some net research I bought a bottle of Trail Boss , as it seemed to be designed for what I was looking for. I had thought to combine the two to produce a really fine load, but first I have to explain/defend a couple of things I did out side the norm.
Firstly cartridge overall length. Marlin suggests that the safe max COL is 2.550 inches for safe feeding and extraction in there 1895 series. After some measuring I found this to be about 0.050 short of the rifling for this particular bullet. In search of accuracy I wished to bring the bullet closer to the lands, so making up a few dummy rounds I found that MY particular Marlin would feed, load and extract a COL 2.600 with this bullet, so this is what I set seating die to. Suffice to say the 100 rounds I have fired at this length with this bullet have caused me no issue that I am aware of.
Secondly the powder load used. The ADI and Hodgen info lists the loads for the 405 grain lead and Trail Boss min 12 grains and max load 13 grains. BUT Hodgen also has a reloading data sheet for Trail Boss that states that this powder can be used in any calibre, just work out what weight of powder would just touch the base of a loaded bullet and this is your max load; reduce to 70% for a starting load. I tried this in the 45/70 with the Lee bullet and I got a max load of 16.6 grains, not to mention the hollow base of the bullet which holds a measured 0.4 grains of Trail Boss.
I was curious and emailed ADI with this info hoping they could shed light on the difference in the load info. Within a couple of days ADI emailed me back and said that the 45/70 has 3 different loading levels and they only published the load levels for Trail Boss for the Trapdoor/weaker rifles, and that I could work up a load using the other data safely in a Marlin as it was a much stronger action, I would be happy to send a copy of that email if any body wants it.
So with the above mentioned information as a guide I set out to find the ‘sweet spot’ for the powder and bullet combination. The following is the results of the testing. Note just to be extra safe I decided that 16.0 grains of Trail boss was going to be my max load.
Ammo Specs: Lee 405 grain hollow base, molded with air cooled wheel weights, dropped from the mold at .460, shot un-sized. Lubed with a 5 to 1 mix Lee liquid alox and white spirit, tumble lubed in a zip lock plastic bag and left overnight to dry on grease proof paper standing upright.
Trying to be consistent I wanted to make sure the bullets all chambered the same way, not too difficult as the Lee mold is a top pour I was able to see the way sprue cutter marks angled across the top of the bullet, and also could just see the line in the bullet where the mold joined so I could find the same point on all the bullets and indexed the bullets with the left hand ‘star’ on the case base, so each bullet was loaded into the chamber at the same point in its circumference, and just a gentle roll crimp from a standard seating die.
Cases; Starline cases, partial sized only, (just backed the die out 6 turns from the shell holder) and trimmed to length using a Lee trimmer, and Remington No 9 ½ large rifle primers.
5 round groups, shot off the bench from solid rest, all shot at 50 metres through the range ‘loan’ chrony
Standard Marlin 1895 22 inch barrel, (I think it is a 09 model), only 200 rounds through since new, all low velocity lead.
Sights: Williams FFP-336 series rear peep with standard 0.93 aperture and the as issue Marlin front bead sight.
The barrel was patched out after every 5 shot group.
Tail Boss AV ES GS
12.0 984 57 +2.0
12.5 1015 18 0.592
13.0 1054 18 +2.5
13.5 1077 13 +2.5
14.0 1107 11 +3.0
14.5 1150 24 0.742
15.0 1116 17 1.127
15.5 1115 34 +2.0
16.0 1138 57 +4.0
FYI, I had no pressure signs on any primers, no extraction issues and every case would fit back in the chamber unsized with gentle finger pressure. Also leading was not visible at all with any of the loads.
An interesting data set, seems to agree with some other things I have read about Trail Boss on the net i.e. velocity decreases and groups increase past a certain load density.
The 2 stand out loads the 12.5 and the 14.5 looked really good on paper, I hope the pictures upload ok.
My next test session will take those 2 loads out to 100 metres and see how they go, although the 12.5 shot slightly better, my money is on the 14.5 having slightly better ‘legs’ to get there.
My goal with this rifle is a cast bullet at 0.5 inches at 50, 1.5 at 100 and 5.0 at 200; so far I’m getting close to the 50m. A big part of the difficulty at shooting those groups is the front bead sight, at 50m it covered the whole target I was using! My sight picture was when I could not see any of the target, squeeze… seemed to work OK, but I have ordered a Lyman 17A front sight with aperture inserts and a 0.50 disc for the rear sight, I think this will drop my 50m groups under 0.5, and give me the sight picture I need at 100 and 200… hopefully.
An all round fun and interesting day at the range, nothing beats coming home with some home brew good groups.
Regards
Rich
