Tim;
My standard target load for many tens of thousands of rounds has been 1 oz of #7.5 at 1235 fps. I recently set out to load an "economy" practice load using Gun Club hulls which I can pick up free by the hundreds.
I settled on 7/8 oz of #8.5 with the Claybuster clone of the Win 12L gray wad and 16.8 grains of Red Dot. It runs 1225 fps out of my gun with a std dev of about 10......pretty good consistency.
The Alliant data says 16.5 grains with a R209 would deliver 1200 fps @ 8,000 psi.........my bushing happens to drop 16.8 and I'm happy.
As a practice load, it's a winning result........slightly higher pellet count at the same velocity, with lower recoil and cheaper than my 1 oz load. In practice, I shoot about 3 boxes of the 24gm 8.5 for every box of 28gm 7.5.
There are many combos to chose from if you use the W12L wad and a fast powder.
