Reduced/youth load advice

[Carson12]

My son wants to try something bigger than his 22, and the next gun up is my 270 Win. I can't afford to purchase another rifle right now, so I'd like to have him try some reduced loads.

I went to Hodgdon's site and found their suggestion for youth loads using H4895 (can reduce max load by 60% and work up) - I've heard there are other powders that could be used, but it seems like Hodgdon has tested their H4895 pretty thoroughly in this regard, so I'll try it first. I've got a full box of 100gr Hdy SP too. I think they ended up at 36gr which gave around 2600 f/s.

http://www.hodgdon.com/PDF/Youth%20Loads.pdf

I had a few questions:

1. My reloading manual (Speer #10) suggests a gr of pillow stuffing as filler on reduced loads, but I don't think Hodgdon recommends using filler with any of their powders. Any thoughts?

2. Some people suggest using magnum primers with reduced loads. Every heard of this?

3. Any suggestions as to other powders that work well, for the next attempt?

4. I've heard about ringing the chamber with reduced loads, which has got me a bit nervous. Anything I need to be watch out for as I'm doing this?

Thanks

[gitrdun]

A good reduced load always is 10gr. of Unique with most bullets and that should work well for you. Another good load is to go with 75% of cartridge capacity with Trailboss, much cleaner burning than Unique. Your son will enjoy that and then you can work him up to his comfort level with low charges such as IMR4350 or Varget.

[silver lab]

Have you looked into IMR Trailboss? A friend told me about it it worked great in his 30-06. Iam gonna try it in my 7mm saum for my son as well. Good luck!

[foothillsman]

LEE 2nd edition has an great section in that manual dedicated to reduced loads, the best i've seen in a manual. As all the powders above are great powders to start with. Powders such as IMR 4198 and IMR SR4759 and 2400(data is a bit harder to obtain) are great for mid range loads. Reduced loads using H 4895 or IMR 4895 can still be a bit stiff for a youngster.

The fillers are used to keep the powders held in place so that the powder doesn't shift and so keep accuracy acceptable. Ringing is possible, however it does not necessarily occur. It is best kept away from that until you really know what you're doing.

Slower powder such as 4895 can be a problem if you load it down too much. S.E.E. (extreme pressure spike which can result in the destruction of the rifle) can occur. 4895 can be loaded down to 60% of max load, not reduced 60% of max. It's a big difference.

[MAC]

Trailboss is absolutely the way to go with young shooters.
My 10 year old was begging to start shooting a deer rifle, his concern was he would not be practiced enough when he could hunt. He is fairly small in stature. We bought a youth model in 7mm-08. I was worried about reduced loads being to stiff for him and scaring him off shooting. I found the trail boss and loaded a bunch with some 130 speer bullets. I took the first shot and was very surprised at the low recoil.
He can shoot all day comfortably and loves it. He has started to shoot some low velocity hunting loads, 2500 fps and is very comfortable. I believe shooting the trailboss first gave him the confidence to move up in recoil when he felt ready. The hogdon data site has the loading info for the trailboss.
In a .270 it would be equal or less than a 243. The recoil charts indicated the 7-08 was at about 1/2 the recoil of a full load .243

[tony d]

TRAIL BOSS IS DEFINATELY THE ROUTE WOULD GO i LOAD MY KIDS THIS IN A 7X57 WORKS GREAT i'VE TRIED THE BLUE DOT ROUTE BUT TRAIL BOSS IS WAY EASIER TO DEAL WITH & IS MORE CONSISTENTTRY IT i'M ALMOST POSITIVE YOU'LL LIKE IT
CHEERS TONY

[Carson12]

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll definitely try Trailboss once I've finished working through the H4895 (have loaded about 50 rounds to try).

[junkdude]

I've tried trail boss with 160gr cast bullets in a 308 and it worked fine. Very little recoil, like a big .22 and very cheap to shoot. I had trailboss behind a 450cast bullet in the 45-70 and the recoil was a bit less than a 410 shotgun.

13.5gr RedDot works well for a 160gr cast bullet in both 30-06 and 308. You don't have to worry about filler as the powder is fairly fluffy and fills a 308 case about 1/2 full. I just used regular primers and it worked fine, although when I check a few shots measuring chamber pressure and there was a slight ignition delay, so next batch will have magnum primers and uniformed pockets to get better ignition. An accidental double charge is very noticeable when you look into the case as it's filled up to the neck. Recoil a wee bit more than the trailboss, but a child could easily shoot them all day long and feel like they were shooting a big gun. I think the velocity was in the 1700's and not too bad accuracy. Cost should be approx 1/2 that of shooting trail boss.

[TangoKilo]

I currently shoot blue dot for my reduced loads and it is outstanding. Once I use up my current supply of bluedot, I will be trying the Trail boss. Lots of good loading data for it on the IMR website!!

[junkdude]

Originally Posted by junkdude

13.5gr RedDot works well.....

I made a mistake and checked my records (bad memory or bad sector, not sure which), it was 13gr of RedDot Not 13.5. You can Google this and it's called "The Load" by Ed Harris

[Cappy]

Another vote for Trailboss. I just had my 10 year old out shooting a 6.5x55 with 100gr and 120gr bullets with absolutely no problem. Recoil felt less than a .223, definately less muzzle blast, which can be equally as troublesome as recoil. The 100gr loads managed to hover around the 2MOA mark too.