Anybody tried loading original black powder cartridges with Trail Boss.
From the little I have read on the internet it would appear to be ok to load up to the base of the bullet with this powder and use in black powder rifles.
regards, Roly.

No, no, a thousand times no.  A caseful of TB will get you pretty exciting peak pressure, but not much excitement in the way of velocity.   Frankly I have found no good use for it.  It's formulated for light loads, and light loads only, but Red Dot and Bullseye do that better and cheaper for me.  Only advantage I see is that it's so bulky that it's pretty much impossible to double charge.  The downside of that being that you don't even get a full pound of it in a normal size canister.   

There's some loading rules-of-thumb on Hodgdon's web site.   

BTW if you're anywhere near me in S.E. Ohio you can have what's left of the one bottle of TB I bought, gratis.   I could use the shelf space.

uscra112 wrote on Sep 10^th, 2013 at 4:20am:


Well, that is a legit advantage--I can't handle Bullseye without worry about a double charge.  Just don't cough or sneeze while there's any uncovered TB in the room--otherwise you'll be sweeping it off the floor.

Works fine for .32 S&W (short) for my grandmother's S&W safety hammerless.

Maybe Nero wants to shoot a life size buffalo at 50'. Well, maybe?   


       Joe.

I use 13gr with a 350 gr Ranch Dog bullet in my Trapdoor and Danish Roller and get excellent results at 200 yards. Very accurate with both rifles. Pretty slow, but goes through the paper and I can use the original sights.

My experiences are in line with what boats suggests.    I don't shoot a lot of smokeless, maybe a few hundred rounds a year, but I've had much better vertical dispersion with sr-4759 at 200 than I've had with trail boss.  Trail Boss can be fun for plinking or introducing new shooters to the .45-70 as you can get rid of most of the recoil.   

Chris.