GROUSE LOADS

[mescalero1]

Malmute,
When you make those .310 round nose, 3.0 grains of Unique;
do you use a filler?
Good looking dog, looks like my Snazzy girl!

[Blaine]

**bump**

[Hobie]

IIRC Bill doesn't use a filler but I'm not for certain. In any case this is a bump!

[Malamute]

I'm just catching up, I had to throw some gas on the fires of a couple other threads,......



I do use a filler, it seems to give much more consistant ignition of the tiny charge in that size case. I use a puff of dacron pillow stuffing, about 1/2 to 3/4" across when not packed. I tamp it down with an unsharpened pencil or whatever I have around at the time. I lube the balls (Hornady) with Lee liquid alox. I dump 25 or 30 balls in a plastic butter tub, then pour a little lube over them, and roll around for a while. I don't know if it's really needed, but they shoot pretty well.

I settled on that charge because my Lee dippers had that as an increment, the next step up was 4.5 grs or so. That was more noise than I wanted, and the 3 gr did OK shooting pine boards, (my test medium available at the time). The lower noise level doesnt spook my one gunfire shy dog.

I thumb seat the ball until the major diameter of the ball is just inside the neck of the lightly flaired case, then very lightly crimp.


Another good grouse load is a 100 to 120 gr cast bullet over 6 1/2 grs Unique. It's very close to the factory 32-20 load, and doesnt tear up small game or grouse much. Makes more noise than the round ball loads tho. I use the filler over those charges also.


There's been much discussion of fillers over the years. I have a hard time figuring out how a very tiny amount of very compressible substance can radically change pressure. It may happen, but I havent had any trouble with this type filler. It's just dense enough to hold the powder back by the primer where it does the most good. I have had trouble with very light loads that didnt have filler, they have occasionally had extremely low power. I once bounced a 45 round ball off a snakes head from a 45-70. That was interesting. Seemed to annoy the snake.

[mescalero1]

Malmute,
Thanks for the response.
How much does that round ball weigh?
I have a .32 mold that throws wadcutters at 85 grains, with deep lube grooves.
Thanks to you, looks like a project in the making; might be able to come up with a good bunny buster.
From all indications Snazzy is going to be gun shy, she might tolerate a low load like that.

[Malamute]

I dont recall what they weigh, I'd guess around 50 grs. Any bullet at low velocity should be pretty quiet. Instead of working UP, like in normal load development, you can work DOWN until you get flaky bullet exit from the barrel, and go up a tad and call it good. I figured when the load would penetrate into 3/4" pine boards OK (without bouncing off), it was enough to kill small game. Seems to have worked OK in practice. The round ball load makes a loud WHOP! when it hits a bunny, and they do a curious jump into the air then fall dead. Grouse generally drop dead from a body hit and there's a clean hole thru them. Doesnt really ruin any meat, just a hole, no bloodshot or blown up meat.

I have an artical from a 1950's NRA loading manual, they worked on ultra-light loads for various rounds. They were using various pistol powders in the 1 1/2 to 4 gr range with Unique, Bullseye and Red Dot mostly I believe.

[mescalero1]

Cool, thanks again

[Bullard4075]

This may be a load where Trail Boss powder could shine.