Boss Difference
When we develop our non-toxic copper-plated BOSS loads, a good deal of behind-the-scenes work goes into making the best shell in the game.
We don't have a massive ballistics lab with white-coat scientists and a full complement of lab donkeys to do the grunt work. Every shell is built for a specific purpose — to deliver devastatingly lethal payloads at a price that won't break the bank. Pretty simple. Here are the steps that it takes to develop a new load.
Powder selection (shape of the pressure curve vs. velocity and resulting pattern uniformity), then a velocity test at 70F, then a pressure test at 70F, then 30-yard pattern testing, then 40-yard pattern testing, then 50-yard pattern testing, then velocity testing at 0F, then pressure testing at 0F, then 30 yards frozen pattern testing, then 40 yards frozen pattern testing, then 50 yards frozen pattern testing, then we fine tune and dial it in. Did you get all that?
Once we are relatively satisfied with what we have, we will fine-tune the load to make the final adjustments, repeat the tests, lock the formulation in and send it to production. Then, we begin to obsess over the hot/cold data to narrow the gap between the temperature extremes that yield the most consistent performance. In the world of shotshells, it is safe to assume that velocities and pressures drop when the weather gets cold and the combination of primer choice, powder, powder charge, wad selection, payload, crimp style, and finishing technique all play critical roles in the cold weather performance.
In this stage, we will take the load, start reducing the powder charge by .1gr, and re-run all previous tests. We will continue to back down the powder charge .1gr at a time until we establish a trend; most of the time, the data falls onto a graph that makes a straight line. Less powder equals less velocity and pressure. We also re-test by adding powder .1gr at a time - and this is where it gets cool. We see velocities increase in a near-linear fashion and then they will begin to flatten but the pressures will continue to rise. We look for the point at which adding powder no longer adds velocity, and if the pressures are acceptable — we then continue to repeat this process with frozen shells.
Heavy powder charges can get tricky in cold weather because the more powder you have, the harder it is to light. Anyone ever had a dud in cold weather…
At BOSS, our favorite part of the shell construction comes next — the crimp. We prefer the tried and true 6-petal fold crimp (more petals = tighter patterns and higher pressures. While the crimp depth affects the pressures across all temperatures, we believe the true benefit of crimp depth and taper is that they provide the most benefit in cold temperatures. The deeper crimps and larger tapers take more time to open, resulting in higher pressure. Higher pressures in cold weather allow for clean burning performance that won't shut gas autos down during late-season hunts. The crazy part is that most of our customers will go an entire season without cleaning their guns when they use shoot BOSS.