Gallery Loads: Elk x Grouse

[TomJoad]

So I’ve been reloading for a bit. Mostly focused on fine tuning hunting loads. I backpack hunt in CO and every year it seems like I’m into grouse every other day. I’ve always thought about bringing something to hunt grouse with but never taken the space or weight for even a sling shot, never mind a 22. I’ve slowly realized there is a much easier path. I’ve been researching gallery loads for the last few months and finally pulled a trigger on some supplies. I’m running a 30-06 this season for elk so I started working up a load using a .310 round lead ball on top of an infinitesimal few grains of fast pistol powder. So now I have two loads I’ll be caring for this season, 152 gr Hammer Hunter on top of 61 grains of 4350 AND a 44.6 grain round ball on top of 2 grains of Titegroup. I don’t dial, I use MPBR and have my hammer load 3.5” high at 100 yards. This puts the buckshot gallery load in a 1/2” at 25yrds. 44.6 grains traveling at under 1000fps sounds like a cap gun. This season I’m ready for elk and grouse.

 

[Corvus Corax]

Looks like fun. I’ve used CB longs in a .22lr revolver with some success. I’ve done some reading about using Trailboss for subsonic loads in rifle cartridges, but haven’t tried any yet. Good luck!

 

[TomJoad]

Yeah I couldn’t find Trail boss, that is where I started, and then I started doing more research and several fast pistol powders are not position sensitive and in the old days they published load data for these powders in rifle cartridges. Bullseye is the classic but unique, red dot and Titegroup all work like this. This main danger is double charging but not for a 2gr load, pressure would be fine up to 10gr. If you tried this with a slow burning rifle powder, you’d lose your hand

 

[49ereric]

I use blue dot for reduced loads in .308 win. Not using round balls though but Speer 125 grain tnt.
I load them 1 at a time to avoid double charges.