Reduced loads

[dave-t.]

I've tried some reduced loads out of my .257 Roberts with Red Dot and Sierra's 90grn hpbt. I ran 8grn, 9grn, 10grn, & 11grns, with the best accuracy with the 9 & 10 gn loads so far, I only tested at 50yrds. Speeds should be in the 1600-1700fps range.

I'm just trying to find qiet loads for plinking at my home range just like I do with my .22lr. They are not as quiet as I was hoping, but I will load up the rest of the bag of brass and plink away.

In practical terms, I've ended up with some 25-20winchester rounds for my 257Roberts. I've only sent 20 of these down range, so I'm looking forward to playing with these light loads for a while to get some more trigger time with my deer rifle without sending full power/full report loads down the pipe.

I may do some penetration/expansion tests just to see what I'm dealing with, and to make sure my backstop is up to snuff. They shouldn't be expanding much if at all at the slower speeds.

[GF.]

Mind that that failure to expand doesn't morph into a successful ricochet!

[dave-t.]

That is a concern for me. Right now I'm mainly shooting into a large piece of elm crotchwood (with a few pieces behind it of elm and osage) that I couldn't split for firewood. Nothing has penetrated the first chunk, which is as large a piece as I could roll into place by myself, and there are similar sized chuncks behind that one.

[carlsca]

Check out this years Hodgedon reloading manual, there is a good article in it about using trail boss for reduced load rifle loads. It was designed for cowboy action shooting, it's big draw is that it has a high volume so you can use a reduced load but still fill a pistol case solving many issues with reduced loads. They were using it in some pretty high power rifles and having pretty good success with it. I was pretty impressed by the info and you can apparently use it in most rifle cases.

[dave-t.]

There are a ton of powders capable of producing reduced loads. I was pretty shocked that there were as many options available as there are.

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

These are for 30 cal

http://www.reloadingroom.com/index_files/Universal%2030.htm

but still in keeping with your reduced load experiments. I've loaded some of these, primarily to shoot with cast bullets in an early number 03 Springfield that I have. They are really a lot of fun. Low noise, no recoil, and accurate.

Alan