My wife has never actually gotten to shoot a real rifle for fun before, and the only long guns she has shot were an M14 and 12 ga shotgun(she worked in a corrections facility), which were way too much for her to handle.

So, I wanted to put together a fun light recoiling plinker for her. Bonus points if it's inexpensive. I have a scoped Ruger No. 1 in .300 H&H, so deciding which rifle to load for was an easy choice.

I settled on Hornady's 150 grain FMJ bullets, and Trail Boss. Using IMR's formula, I found that my max charge was 24.5 grains, and my starting charge was 17.2 grains. I'm using Remington 9 1/2M primers, and Remington brass, trimmed to 2.840". I loaded 15 rounds with the starting charge of 17.2 grains, and seated the bullets to 3.500" OAL, which is a few thousands off the lands for this rifle.

I took the rifle and the ammo to the local indoor range, and tried them at 30 yards. The recoil was very very mild, almost like shooting an AR15. The report wasn't like a typical rifle shot, sounding much like a cork on a champagne bottle popping. I don't think this load was even supersonic.

The rifle was zeroed at 200 yards with a full power 180 grain load, but at 30 yards, was shooting about 6 inches low. I should have expected that. I think .40 S&W has better ballistics than this load does.

The cases were barely warm when ejected, and it seemed like no matter how fast I shot the gun, the barrel didn't heat up like it normally would.

Here are the results:



10 rounds. The flier wasn't mine. A local class III collector shot that one, and let me shoot his full auto BAR in exchange. I could probably shoot it better. The bench there wasn't really practical for rifle shooting.



This was the second group I shot. This is five rounds. Again, the best I could shoot.

As easy shooting as this rifle is, I probably should have picked up a box of 110 grain bullets to try.

Surely you aren't attempting to work up non-cataloged loads without the use of a chrnongraph?

I surely am.

I've played withe trailboss a bit in several rifles. It's fun. What I can tell you is you can load to the bottom up where the bullet sits in the case and not have trouble. Just don't compress it. If you want you can then back down 30% and work up to find a load in between...or you can just stay there with close to 100% fill.
What I have found when crossreferencing my results in 308,'06,300win, 300wby is that it seems to have a burn rate really close to AA#7 pistol powder. (except of course you get a full case) This I have found by using Quicklod to find a "like" forcecast.
I don't load lead bullets but found that bullets without alot of shank (friction) work best. The 110 v max in the 308 calibers is perfect.
It would be my prediction from my experience and crossreferencing quick load is that you are running about 1675fps in a 26" barrel at about 15k pressure.
I've found it's fun, clean burning, and turns a big game rifle into 22 mag performance....just with alot bigger bullet.