Hello all. This is my first time poster and newbie to the site. Great place to hang out! I was wondering if anyone has done any work with reduced rifle loads with red dot, blue dot, etc... and jacketed bullets? The idea of coming up with a lost cost/recoil/accurate load for me and my new wife (who is REALLY recoil sensitive) sounds attractive to me. Also is there some formula for determining how much powder to use for any given caliber? IE how do you go about creating load data for powders that are not usually used for rifles? Sorry for the long post and if this question has been beat to death. Well guys, lemme have it! all questions comments/questions/flippant remarks/flames/etc are welcome.


Thank you in advance,
Chauncey

First of all welcome!

If you head to the tool bar just above your first post, the one you used to start this thread and click on "Find," you can type in "reduced loads" and take a look around.

Another forum to use the find function on would be "your favorite loads."

If you let us know what calibers and bullet weights, we can help!

If you are just getting into reloading, do yourself a favor and get a couple reloading books. The first one I recomend is Lymans latest edition. Lots of good info.

I have been reloading for a while now. The primary calibers of intrest are 7.62x54r/.308/.223/7.5 swiss/30-30/.45/70/ and 7.62x39 for now. I'm sure that there will be more to come over the year.

Chauncey

quote:

Originally posted by Chauncey:
I have been reloading for a while now. The primary calibers of intrest are 7.62x54r/.308/.223/7.5 swiss/30-30/.45/70/ and 7.62x39 for now. I'm sure that there will be more to come over the year.

Chauncey

Chauncey, I'd suggest that you get ahold of a Lyman Reloading manual, and also their Handbook of Cast Bullets. I believe those much-reduced loads they show for pistol powders such as you mentioned for use with cast bullets could also be used with jacketed bullets.

In addition, Speer Reloading Manual No. 13 lists reduced loads for most of the cartridges in it with all bullets weights. For example for the .308 Win., they show a starting load for the 150-grain bullet of 21 grains of SR 4759 for a MV of 1632 FPS. I think you could use that same load in both the 7.5 Swiss and the 7.62X54R Russian rounds, which have comparable case capacities. Velocity might vary a little, but the load would be safe, and reduced!!

And, you could use .22 Hornet loads safely in the .223 Rem. They'd give significantly lower velocities in the larger case than in the Hornet. In the Hornet, I use 4 grains of Unique and the Lyman 225415 cast gascheck 45-grain bullet-MV is 1350 FPS, just like a .22 LR round....

Good luck!