Trail Boss in .38 S&W

[tinkerpearce]

I wanted to try Trail Boss in my .38 S&W and surprise! There's no published load data. Trail Boss says 'Fill the case to the bottom of the seated bullet. This is your max load. Start at 70% of that load and work up from there." Um... OK then... I worked up a load and thought I would share it since there's no published data.

I wound up with a .361" 150gr. LSWC over 2.7gr. of Trail Boss with a CCI500 primer. This load has a good pop to it and is quite accurate. I have no hesitation about recommending this for good quality solid-frame revolvers, Webley and Enfield top-breaks and while my S&W .38 Safety Hammerless seems to do OK with it I am a little concerned about accelerated wear.  I'm going to back it off to 2.4gr. and see how I feel about that. I would not recommend this load for lower-quality top-breaks; I would back off to 2.0 grains for those.

As usual use this data at your own risk and only use it in guns in good, safe condition.

[magnumwheelman]

As long as you're giving away dirty little secrets... I have a load I use for any shootable gun, that uses a Forefathers Casting .360 soft lead round ball, at 71 grains... over 1.5 grains of Trail Boss... this has proven safe in any gun that times ok, and is considered safe to shoot... my regular target load uses a 100 grain Hunters Supply .359 cast bullet over 2.5 grains of Trail Boss... I also have a self defense load that uses that Hunters Supply LFP, with a little more power... it's proven safe to shoot, but I have no doubt that it would loosen up most old guns with extended use... a word of caution for those shooting these guns... pitted barrels can greatly increase pressures..
I recommend soft lead round balls in those guns to start with... and any forien guns be thoroughly checked out before even thinking about firing them