Hodgdon Trail Boss Smokeless Gun Powder

trailboss powder is Available in 9 oz. and 2 lb. containers. Hodgdon Powder offers the largest selection of quality smokeless propellants for any reloading application.

Have there ever been times when anything made you feel a little scared or uneasy? When I sat down at my computer this morning to check for Trail Boss powder under the IMR area on Hodgdon’s website, I had that experience. However, there was no Trail Boss among the options. My concern sprang from the chance that it had been withdrawn. I’ve become so dependent on it

The label on the tiny Trail Boss bottle I keep next to my reloading bench reads “IMR.” I soon exhaled in relief as I turned to my sizable jug that was kept somewhere else. It was marked “Hodgdon,” and sure enough, it is now recognized as a Hodgdon product on the company’s website.

If my ego were bigger, I may believe that certain aspects of the gun world were created specifically for me. One is the sport of competition shooting using a black powder rifle using exclusively lead-alloy bullets. Another is Accurate 5744 from Western Powders, which I believe is the best cast-bullet powder.

firearms shooting Of course, there is also Trail Boss, which was created especially for use with lead-alloy bullets in relatively high-volume, pistol-size casings.

Australian Defense Industries produces Trail Boss in Australia (ADI). It is a single-base powder that was first made available in the US in 2005. Trail Boss, in my perspective, was primarily intended for cowboy action shooters, however its uses now extend farther.

Trail Boss for sale is unique because of its “fluffiness,” but it also burns quickly. In low-pressure/large-volume cartridges, it occupies a significantly larger volume than any other propellant with a comparable burning rate. Specifically, this refers to the original black powder cartridges, such as the.38 Special,.38-40,.44 Special,.44-40, and.45 Colt.

Trail Boss  is ranked 15th out of 128 powders in the table of comparable burn rates at the back of Lyman’s Cast Bullet Handbook, 4th Edition. This puts it around halfway between Winchester 231 at 21st and Hodgdon’s Titegroup at 9. The granules like little donuts.

What does that mean in real-world terms then? I poured two 6.0-grain Trail Boss in stock 2022 charges—a total of 12 grains—from a powder measure into a Winchester.44-40 case. The case was completely full. Filling the same case to the mouth would require charge weights of 25, 30, or more grains for any other powder with a similar burning rate.

Trail boss powder in stock now 2022

It’s not a good idea to double charge any smokeless powder that burns quickly. It’s a motion that could launch the topstrap of a revolver into orbit. Although it is exceedingly doubtful, I won’t claim that someone, somewhere, couldn’t fit two charges of Trail Boss and a bullet inside a case.
But not all cross handloaders enjoy double charging.

I accidentally grabbed a can of Hodgdon Clays instead of Universal in one of my mad dashes to make a deadline. For the latter powder in mine, a moderate charge would be used. Clay was accidentally swapped, and the 45 Colt SAA had two chambers that were enlarged. With Trail Boss’ distinctive appearance, it would be challenging to make such a mistake. Fortunately, the SAA was a third-generation weapon, so For a small fee, Colt Factory was able to replace its cylinder.

Trail boss powder for sale

A friend of mine had a similar issue with a lovely first generation Colt SAA.38-40, with the exception that the cylinder fractured and the escaping gas pulled the topstrap off the revolver. Although it was obviously something else, he believed he was loading Unique powder. Given that Trail Boss is the only propellant he currently uses for his single-action revolvers, it seems likely that he would not confuse it for another propellant.

More recently, I loaded.45 ACP cartridges on a progressive press with auto-indexing using 5.4 grains of HP-38 and lead-alloy bullets. With the auto-index mechanism, it is unlikely that a double charge caused a case head to blow out, shattering the stocks of a 1911A1 from World War II. Did the powder bridge in the measurement and permit a charge that was too light and obviously unsafe and another that was too heavy? I’ll never be aware.

I have a 1917 and a 1918 Colt Model 1911 in my collection. They don’t need to be put through a lot of stress given their age, even though I occasionally enjoy shooting them.

I looked up Trail Boss with 230-grain bullets in.45 Auto on Hodgdon’s loading data website after the stock-destroying incident, and sure enough, it is there 230-grain bullets in .45 Auto. Charges ran from 3.5 grains to 4.5 grains. With a little work I settled on 4.2 grains with Oregon Trail 225-grain RN bullets. The velocity provided by five test rounds was 760 fps, which satisfies my purposes perfectly.

Anyone who has spent a lot of time reloading large quantities of handgun cases is aware that ballistic variance can be caused by smokeless powder orientation in the case at the time of fire. Here is a particularly interesting illustration when taking into account factory ammo for a caliber as tiny as.32-20: Years ago, Hank Williams Jr., a buddy, came to town with a Colt SAA.32-20 revolver and a package of factory loads that contained 100-grain lead bullets.

He handed it to me loaded with three rounds and instructed me to start shooting upward.

At my house, it’s okay to do that, so I did. The muzzle report was the characteristically loud revolver.32-20 explosion. Shot it level, he continued. I did, and the muzzle blast sounded more like a small bore shotgun because it was muffled. Then, it was pointed downward as if I were going to shoot a rattlesnake that was standing a few feet away. The report sounded like crap when I finished it.

A clump of unburned powder was left behind as the bullet came to a rest a few inches within the Colt’s barrel.

I was so shocked—to say I was dumbfounded—that I requested we try it again, this time with a different revolver. Every time we carried on with the process, the exact same thing occurred. Ballistic consistency is another advantage that handloaders gain by using Trail Boss powder for sale, the most “fluffy” pistol powder.

I believe Trail Boss  produces a gentler muzzle blast from handguns than other powders that have comparable velocities in the same handguns, however this final point may be arguable. I can fully confess, though, that depending on barrel lengths, barrel/cylinder gaps, etc., my Trail Boss loads in the majority of cartridges deliver velocities in the 700 to 900 fps range. With other powders, I’ve observed this.

For instance, when compared to H-110 and W-296, 2400 in the.44 Magnum has the same fundamental velocities but less muzzle blast.