daizee

OK, Rugermeisters...

I just compared the cylinder throats of my .357 50th Anniversary Blackhawk and my S&W Model-10 .38spl using some unloaded bullets from the bench.

The Model-10 passes a 158gr .357dia Hornady XTP smoothly. It takes a little pressure to get it through - basically it has to be perfectly aligned. The .358 cast bullet is too tight to push through with finger pressure.

The Blackhawk passes the XTP loosely, and the .358 feels like it has about half the wiggle of the XTP, so let's say that if the Model-10 is at .3575, then the Blackhawk feels like .3595.

I don't have a suitable device to actually measure inside diameters accurately.

So Anyway, in the past I'd found that 180gr XTP's shot like a dream in my gun. Makes me wonder if the long bullet helped align things better, given the wiggle?

Should I be loading .359 cast bullets in my gun?? Maybe my bullets have been too small. I would think sufficient pressure would obdurate these enough, but maybe I'd get better results if the initial fit were a little more snug? Higher velocity? When chronying loads in the past I've been disappointed with the velocity numbers. Have I discovered a plausible culprit? It's not like I can get .358 jacketed bullets from just anywhere, and then I wouldn't want to accidentally run them through my Smiths. Is my Blackhawk really optimized for cast bullets?

Inquiring blackhawk shooters want to know!

Cheers,


-Daizee

A Patriot

daizee,

If your main concern is shooting cast bullets, proper bullet fit is arguably the single most important factor when it comes to shooting cast bullets.

Without making accurate throat measurements, you will be chasing your tail. If you have a dial or electronic caliper (all reloaders need at least one set) here's one method you can try: Use a hammer to squash a number lead bullets a bit, in order to make them fatter. Push one through each throat and measure them with the caliper.

Measuring the throats with calipers will not yield accurate results.

Cast bullets should be at least .001" larger than the largest throat. If the throats, indeed, measure .3595", as you think, and you want to shoot cast bullets, now's the time to start casting your own.

Measured with pin gauges, my Blackhawk's throats are .357", and I size the bullets I cast to either .358" or .359", depending on the bullet.

If your cast bullets are hard cast, they are going to require a lot of pressure to obturate enough to provide a good seal and not lead.

Make some accurate measurements of the throats, then report back.

Good luck.

daizee

Unfortunately I don't have pin gauges. My skill with the dial calipers in measuring an ID is suspect. But this is a good idea.

I was thinking that maybe I could put the cylinder on a block of some kind, front-down. Drop a lead bullet down there, and then use a brass (or something) punch to bang it down until it fits the throat nice and snug. Then measure the result. Basically slug the chamber(s) directly.

I've shot BHN 18-20 bullets in the past and they're just a joke.
I've got a pile rated at BHN 12 which is more sensible, maybe I should just size them all in the throat before loading. :-D

I barely have time to reload these days (haven't in months), so casting isn't currently within reach, tho I do have some of the necessary parts and space.

What do you suppose the affect will be on accuracy? I already know that leading and velocity will be affected.

-Daizee

A Patriot

daizee,

You might try a padded vise, too, to fatten the test bullets.

Push the slug completely through the chamber, then measure. I always slug the barrel, too, though others, no doubt, will say it's not necessary. Remember, you want the bullet to fit the throat and the throat to be larger than the groove. If things are the other way around the barrel will lead. Without slugging the barrel, you'll never know.

Proper bullet fit, chamber pressure, BHN and accuracy are all inter-related. If any one of them are not correct leading becomes a reality and accuracy doesn't.

Softer cast bullets generally perform better than hard cast, as you discovered.

Keep at it, be patient, don't get frustrated, and you'll get it right.

TomC

Pin gages are really handy for measuring chamber throats. You can get individual gages or sets. ENCO has sets on sale once in a while. I have picked up three sets which now give me gages from about .050” to .500”. Really nice for us anal retentive types.

An inside mic also works, but they aren’t cheap either. I finally got one of those, too, on sale from ENCO.

daizee

Just thinking about this now...
I have a die set for .357 and also a set for .38spl (both Lee) with the Factory Crip Die. I do keep some reloading records, but haven't tracked which batches I've used the FCD with. I wonder if my rounds are getting squoze down more than is good for my Blackhawk's generous throats. Dang. Back to the drawing board for real!

-Daizee

A Patriot

daizee,

You just may have found you're problem.

My experience with Lee dies and cast bullets is that the seating die down-sizes the bullets to jacketed diameter. Never used their handgun Factory Crimp Die, though, but understand that its carbide ring does the same thing.

Here's what you need to do: Measure a new lead bullet. Load a dummy round (no primer, no powder) as you normally do. Pull the bullet. Measure the bullet. If it's smalller than before, get rid of the Lee dies and replace them with another brand.

Also, if you use a seating/crimp die, seat in one step and crimp in another. Doing both steps at the same time has a tendency to create bits of lead shavings that will end up in the barrel.

The bottom line: You don't want the seating or crimp die to down-size the bullet and you don't want to seat and crimp in the same step. Both are causes for leading.

Keep at it...

daizee

Hmm... I'll test this again when I'm home.

When I started reloading I had only the .357 dies, and used only the combination seat/crimp. Then I got the .38spl deluxe set with the factory crimp included, and started using it for both calibers. Ironically, I never use jacketed bullets in .38spl.

I would be ok with running a brush through the seat/crimp die every 10 rounds or so, assuming it isn't otherwise squeezing things too much.

I should load 15 rounds each of combo/crimp, factory crimp, and fattened+combo crimp. Then test all three for accuracy and velocity.

Thanks for the info!


-Daizee

A Patriot

daizee,

Before you do anything, load a dummy round (seat in one step and crimp in another) pull the bullet and measure it. Until you know what size that seated bullet is, any testing could be a waste of primers and powder.

If the pulled bullet is smaller you need different dies. It happened to me with three sets of Lee handgun dies.

daizee

ouch.
carbide... too hard to modify? do you think I could have it opened up by a couple thou?

-Daizee

A Patriot

daizee,

The seater die doesn't have a carbide insert, that's only in the sizing die, so enlarging it, if it is down-sizing the bullet, shouldn't be difficult. I did it, prior to switching to another brand.

daizee

Ok, Thanks A-Patriot.
I know a couple folks who are handy with a metal lathe if it comes to that.
I'd also like to make a sizing "die" which is basically a .359 hold with a brass dowel to knock bullets into size and round.

-Daizee

daizee

dang, it's 43 degrees in the basement.... a little chilly to assemble ammo.

-Daizee

daizee

I've assembled the three following loads to be tested this morning:

Common components:
1) 158gr TVB LRNFP @12BHN, plus Alox
2) R-P .357 brass, same batch, same number of firings, probably
3) 15.8gr Hodgdon Lil'Gun - starting load.
4) Winchester magnum small pistol primers
5) hand-cleaned primer pockets
6) All brass full-length sized during de-priming step

Load #1:
* Factory crimp/sizing die, bullet starts at .358dia as shipped
* Brass at bullet body: .376
* Front driving band ahead of crimp: .358 +/-.005

Load #2:
* No Factory crimp/sizing die - just seat/roll-crimp, bullets starts at .358dia
* brass at bullet body: .376
* front bullet band ahead of crimp: .359 +/-.005 (could be sampling error)

Load #3:
* sized bullets up to chamber diameter using cylinder and punch
* No factory crimp/sizing die, bullet starts at ~.360
* brass at bullet body: .376
* front bullet band ahead of crimp: .359 +/-.005 (could be sampling error)

results to follow

-Daizee

daizee

Results! Sort of...

I shot all three batches this morning. It was about 43 degrees, no wind. Chrony was probably 8ft from the muzzle. 5 rounds from each batch went over the chrony. Between each chrony and accuracy batch I pulled a boresnake once through each chamber and the barrel.

Load #1: 1247fps avg

Load #2: 1291fps avg (there was one hottie at 1330 which opened this up a bit)

Load #3: 1248fps

Except for the one hot load that went over the chrony throwing off #2, they're all right on top of each other. These are the hottest homebrew loads I've chrony'd. I once shot 17gr of Lil'Gun, but didn't chrony them. Those kicked enough to whack my middle finger with the trigger guard. I bet they were clocking ~1400fps, though Lil'Gun burns slowly, and the extra may have mostly been wasted. These were manageable. I'd rather shoot 180's at 1200 than 158's at 1400.

I shot for groups at 25 yards, 10 rounds from each batch, one target per batch. I used a front sandbag over which I rested my wrist right at the heel of my hand. Targets were NRA 50ft slow-fire pistol targets. Sight pictures was a 6-o'clock hold, and the gun has always been sighted in for POA==POI since it's more suited to hunting than bullseye shooting.

I apologize for the blurry pix - I don't have the patience for the media-swapping game any more tongiht. Besides, these convey the necessary information.

#1: 4.125" c-t-c


#2: 5.75" c-t-c


#3: 5.75" c-t-c



The skinniest rounds were the tightest, though I don't think a mere inch - 20%, roughly - out of a handgun at 25yards is indicative of an ammo difference. I basically rate these all the same, I think.

What to conclude??
I suck at shooting this gun...?
These groups probably equal what I could do from a rest with my 6" .38spl at *50* yards.
I feel like the testing hasn't proven anything technical, just that I need to practice more and find a better fit with the gun.

Notes from today:

1) The trigger feels like a million pounds, particularly on the bench. In reality it's 3.4lbs. I just measured it with my Lyman gauge. It has some travel, of course, due to the transfer bar. Maybe I need to smooth some of those sliding surfaces.
2) The rounded edges of the front sight cause sighting problems depending on the light. I've always known this. True target sights have rather sharp rear edges.
3) the grip is a bit narrow/short for my hands, which results in a less than perfect trigger pull/position.


What now? New grips, possibly, as discussed on another thread. I with the front sight blade was interchangeable like on the stainless models and the GP100. I'd put a target blade in there in a second.

Any advice, APatriot?

After contemplating these targets a bit, I took the coaster off my desk and laid it on top and drew some 3.5" circles. Interesting:

* On all targets, I can touch (bullseye scoring...) 70% or more of the holes with a 3.5" circle.
* On targets 1 and 3, a 3.5" circle at POA covers 60 and 70% of the holes (target 2 has three on top of each other exactly at POA, and the rest are a mess)




Cheers,

-Daizee

A Patriot

daizee,

I still suspect that the Lee dies are resizing the cast bullet down to that of a jacketed dimension. Load dummy rounds, pull them and measure them. One using the FCD and one without. Do the same by seating and crimping in one step and then seating and crimping in seperate steps, without the FCD die.

You may be starting off with a .358+"/359+" bullet -- which is what you want -- but it could be getting squeezed smaller -- not good.

Do you have any leading in the barrel, forcing cone, or cylinder throats? If so, exactly where? Leading, and its location, is a useful tell-tale.

I'm not familiar with L'il Gun, but get very good results with Alliant 2400.

Do the dummy rounds experiment and post the results.

Hang in there...

daizee

Hi APatriot,

Interestingly, I experienced virtually no leading. I think the chamber pressure matched the bullet hardness very well, so at least that part of the equation was in balance.
Also I was bore snaking every 5 to 10 rounds, so there wasn't a lot of time for anything to build up.

I used up my 2400 - it was great for moderate loads.
I bought the Lil'Gun to use for fire-breathers since it has a long, low-peak pressure curve. It would be better suited to barrel longer than my 4-5/8". However, the starting loads come in at just about the right pressures for my bullets, in theory.


I wonder if full-length sizing the brass is also confounding the experiment. When doing rifles often the brass is just neck-sized, using the same brass for the same gun to get exact chamber matches, right? (not that I load for rifles yet).

At any rate, I will follow your advice and load/pull a dummy.
I have a hard time with the kinetic puller, and using the collet puller requires pawing through the bin and remembering how to set it up. I need to enforce some better organization on my workspace to make this easier. I've outgrown my tupperware model...

Hm, another simple die test I can try: Fitting fired cases through each of the non-decapping dies and see if they fit or if they get squoze down.

-Daizee

A Patriot

daizee,

A quick story: I was having a leading problem with my cast bullets in a S&W in .44 Special. Pin gauges revealed that the cylinder throats were .432" and the barrel slugged at .430". Changing alloys, casting techniques and powder did nothing to reduce the leading. Finally, a dummy round showed that the Lee seating die was squeezing my .433" bullet down to .429". A quick fix was to use a .45 Long Colt sizing die for depriming, and to enlarge the .44 Special seater die, until I was able to get a set of Lyman dies. Problem solved, though I still have to use the .45 sizing die.

Lesson learned: When dealing with cast bullets, always know cylinder throats and barrel dimensions, and use dummy rounds.

I've not heard of handgun neck-sizing dies.

Another bullet pulling method is to set the cartridge in a shell holder, raise the ram, use a side-cutter to grip the bullet, and slowly lower the ram. The only problem is that the bullet will be damaged.

The kinetic puller and the end-grain of a 2" X 4" work perfectly, and the bullet can be reused.

I think the flaring and seating dies will resize the un-fired brass. Try it, though.

daizee

Ah, using a larger caliber die to de-cap. I'll add that to the bag of tricks.
End-grain on a 2x4, eh? Maybe that's the problem. Too much flex in my swatting platform. I have some 4x4 sections which could be cut down to be perfect anvils. Thanks for the tip! Some tinkering time tonight, hopefully.

-Daizee

booneh

take the collet out of your puller. use the shell holder from your press.works great and you don't have to fiddel with the 3 piece collet.
hope this helps.

booneh

A Patriot

booneh,

Yep, done that but forgot about to mention it. Works great with SWC bullets and auto-loader cartridges as the sharp edges don't get caught on the collet.

daizee

Hard to say, Hard to say.

without resizing a .358 bullet slides into a fired casing smoothly. In the crimp die it goes in easy and shows no shrinkage from outside the case. However on pulling (after seat/crimp) the bullet appears to be a smidge skinnier, but I think this is due to the roll crimp scraping about 0.0005 of the circumference, which will mic at .001 smaller. I don't think that's the fault of the die.

resizing shrinks the diameter of the empty case about .005. Then a bullet won't fit in without a mouth flare and some serious pressure, best done in a die. Surprisingly, that one came out about the same diameter as the bullet from the unsized, yet crimped case (didn't crimp the resized case).

Resizing AND crimping might shrink 'em down a bit - I didn't too that, it's too late to be awake. I suppose I could skip the sizing step and see what happens with a batch loaded that way. I'll try a dozen with a .45 die for decapping. I think there's a .45 colt die in my stash, tho I don't load for it.


-Daizee

daizee

another interesting thing I noted: none of the fired cases were smokey on one side. I figure that means I had pressures high enough to really swell the cases for a good fit. Where "high" is still under 25k psi. A couple were a bit sticky to extract, but only once they were already halfway out. I know the powder/bullet combination should have been reasonable.

-Daizee

A Patriot

daizee,

In your latest test, if the bullet starts out at .358" and after being seated, crimped and pulled it measures .001" less, then it is too small for all practical purposes.

If the cylinder throats are .357" -- and we still aren't sure of their exact sizes -- then the pulled bullet needs to be .358" to provide proper fit.

In what location was the "virtually no leading."

daizee

I said "virtually no leading" because I didn't detect any except for some build-up at the cartridge mouths inside the taper of the cylinder. I don't think it was leady at all, but wouldn't swear to it.

I'll try a batch without resizing and see what happens.
However, I'm not sure what to do about the crimp. Slower powders such as are appropriate for .357 at 1000+fps typically require a decent crimp to build pressure and prevent bullet pull.


-Daizee

A Patriot

daizee,

Roll-crimp into the crimp groove as a seperate step from seating, and only as much as you feel necessary to prevent the bullet from becoming dislodged under recoil. The whole idea is to not shave any lead from the bullet and not overly crimp to the point that it distorts the bullet's shape or size.

The bullet's base is crucial to proper fit and needs to stay at that .358" measurement. The driving bands should be that size, as well, since they help to keep the bullet properly aligned and stabilized within the barrel.

Elmer Keith, arguably, did more to improve and advance cast bullet design, efficiency and performance that anyone else. His designs mandated full-caliber driving bands -- in other words, the same diameter as the base. If he deemed it to be so, so it is.

daizee

APatriot, I haven't had time to futz with this any more yet.
You mentioned to seat and crimp in two separate steps and that had me scratching my head for awhile. I'm using a turret press, and of course if I did a batch single-stage I could make that work. Else I don't have enough dies for it. I was very happy to go to the turret because it siginifcantly reduces the number of times I have to handle the cartridge, but for small batch experimentation, single-stage makes sense.

-Daizee

A Patriot

daizee,
Each press type has it's advantages and disavantages. I have only single-stage presses and live with their mass-production limitations. Seating and crimping in two seperate operations isn't too easily done with a turret press. Hopefully, you'll figure things out.

daizee

"Fortunately" the auto-indexing feature on my turret broke, so I turn it (or not) by hand. I can pretty easily single-stage in the same press without having to swap dies in and out. I actually have a single-stage too, which is what I started on - there just isn't enough space to set up both at once. I've just gotten so used to the turret rhythm that it took a little while for your suggestion to filter through my thick head.

-Daizee

daizee

Brief update:

I loaded 15 rounds of un-resized (.45acp de-capping die) brass with a light roll crimp - just enough to keep the bullets from rattling, barely. I doubt they will produce enough back pressure to burn this powder fully, but we'll see what happens. Haven't been to the range yet.

My usual plain bullets were actually too loose a fit in the un-resized brass. They would fall too deep which was obviously trouble. However, I had about 100 of them Alox-lubed from a few months back, and they had enough friction due to the goop to allow for proper seating/crimping. The non-factory-crimp seating/crimping dies do not appear to size the brass.

Honestly, my chambers are looking humongous. I'm not sure what to do about it if it turns out they're just gapingly oversize.

-Daizee

A Patriot

daizee,

You mentioned Alox. Do you cast your own bullets?

daizee

Hi AP,
No, they're 158gr LRNFP's from Tennessee Valley Bullets.
I was experimenting with lube vs. non-lube early last year before I fully understood the relationship between bullet hardness and chamber pressure. If I was casting my own I'd just size 'em FAT!

Actually to be precise, I was having leading with the VERY hard Oregon Trail bullets at .38spl pressures. So I was adding extra lube. I found that the OT's with no lube shot perfectly clean with 16.5gr of Lil'Gun (a smidge more than the charge being used in this thread). Some helpful folks at handloads.com finally explained the pressure vs. hardness relationship, and then Iowegan filled in the scientific gaps with the actual formula-of-thumb. Now we're down to sizing, obviously. :-)

Actually I DO have half the necessary casting equipment, and even a space to work in, but I barely get time to shoot, let alone load, let alone cast, so the dies are still in Midway's warehouse. And lead is a little hard to come by at reasonable prices out here.

If it turns out my chambers and/or throats are really just too large for decent accuracy without highly specialized loading techniques, what do you think my gunsmithing options are? The cylinder would have to be WAY out of spec for Ruger to fix it, I think. If everything was undersize, a simple reaming would do it, but I'm thinking a new cylinder would be required. I wouldn't mind removing the end-shake and getting a tighter gap in the process... Sounds expensive unless it's warranty work. So many people have found their 50th anniversary models to be really well-fit. Now I'm feeling grumpy, and I bought mine back in 2005 before they were $375! :-(

-Daizee

daizee

Ok, I've got results from the last batch.

The load was the same 15.8gr of Lil'Gun with a full-diameter .358 bullet plus Alox. The cases were un-sized, previously fired from the same gun. Crimp was just enough to keep the bullets from rattling in the brass, and it was only the Alox that kept them from falling inward.

They shot horribly. I even missed the paper, the group was so big. I don't THINK it was me. I shot the 4 leftover rounds of load #2 at a dirt clod poking out of the snow at the 50yd berm and connected several times, offhand bullseye style. I felt confident, then proceeded to put the new loads all over the target backer. In fact, the target was so bad I tore it up and threw it away at the range to spare myself the humiliation of posting a picture to this thread.

Additional observations: the cases were still evenly dirty, suggesting full-chamber seals. The primers were noticeably less flat than the sized and fully-crimped loads. There was no leading. This is consistent with my expectations with this slow powder, and I think this configuration is sub-optimal with Lil'Gun. Also, I think Lil'Gun is most consistent with near 100% load density (reviewing some articles and posts), so it may be that my powder charge is also sub-optimal for this experiment. I think more powder is too much for my current recoil tolerance.

So this experiment has been interesting, but still inconclusive. I'm considering a bullet without an explicit step from the ogive to the full diameter ahead of the crimp. Also, It is time to try a more moderate powder that will give me sufficient pressure for my bullet hardness while only producing about 1000fps. This should be more shootable for me.

The weather is warming up, and it's beautiful out today, which makes me optimistic about this process. The next steps will be:

1) same bullets, Universal powder, with and without factory crimp.

2) different bullets, same as above - Need a low-volume source for the design I want, or to bite the proverbial bullet and buy a Lee mold. (still need a source for lead) Here's the mold I'm considering, tho I suppose any similar design would do: http://www.midwayusa.com/viewProduct...tNumber=172810

3) Some jacketed bullets again?

A Patriot

daizee,

The absence of leading is a positive sign.

1.The lack of accuracy is another matter, and your selection of another powder may be the answer.

2. I cast that bullet out of a two-cavity mould. Using W-296 I get better performance with it than either of my two Lyman moulds. For lead, stop in at the local tire stores. Deals can be reached whereby the store gets rid of their weights and you get future bullets. If not, I understand Rotometals provides an excellent cast bullet alloy.

3. NO! NEVER! Get rid of that thought. Don't give up and revert back to jacketed bullets. You WILL find the solution, however elusive it may seem. I've been where you are. The knowledge you gain from this will be invaluable when it comes to other cast bullet ventures.

daizee

Hahaha, ok, I'll put down the Hornady catalog and step away from the website. :-)

I checked the forcing cone when I cleaned the gun this afternoon. It has a very shallow bevel (I think this is normal on factory Rugers), and it wasn't exactly mirror-smooth. My understanding is that for lead, often forcing cones are re-cut to a deeper angle - where by "deeper" I mean the angle goes deeper into the barrel more, resulting in a smoother transition. My working theory is that a bullet with a smooth curve, shaped like a jacketed bullet, will achieve the same effect as a gentler forcing cone would with shouldered bullets.

I need to move back to the 1000fps range anyway, as I prefer to shoot subsonic pistol loads. Over the last 5 years I've realized that the .45 Colt/ACP is probably my ideal handgun round, and that the magnums don't have much to offer me. However, a 180gr lead flat point from a .357 at 1000fps is a really nice medium too.

Last time in asked around the tire and repairs shops, no wheel weights were available. I traded some other scrap metal for a few wheel weights from the local metal scrapyard, but obviously they're the winners in that transaction.

-Daizee

A Patriot

daizee,

If you were still getting leading, cutting the forcing cone would offer some help. However, you've conquered that mountain. If the bullet was entering the barrel at other than an optimum angle or with not enough diameter, it would skid or bounce around as it travelled down the barrel, leaving a trail of lead.

The mountain on your horizon is accuracy. I don't think cutting the forcing cone will be of use with that.

Wad-cutter and semi-wadcutter bullets, with their 90-degree shoulders and full-caliber drive bands, exit the barrel still retaining those sharp edges and put perfect circles in the target.

I've nothing more to prove by shooting macho loads, though there is still a time and place for them. Shooting slower velocities for accuracy is much more fun, the body doesn't take a beating, and powder goes further.

shoot44

Interesting thread folks. Daizee, just a comment: I would NOT try to load and shoot ammo without sizing the cases enough to hold the bullets in place! As Iowegan has pointed out several times, the crimp is NOT sufficient to hold them in place, and thus you get inconsistent powder burning. The sizing provides the friction that is needed, and when you seat the bullet, you really SPREAD the case a bit, you don't really 'squish' the bullet that much, unless it is VERY soft. It doesn't surprise me that the rounds that were loaded withOUT sizing were very inaccurate!

I use Lee equipment almost exclusively, and love it. I particularly like the Lee "Factory Crimp Die". HOWEVER..... as (again), Iowegan has shown, that die works by doing a slight 'sizing' after the crimping action; to make sure the round will chamber, and that the crimping has not resulted in bulging the case. This is a good thing, but when using it with lead bullets, (which as you know are a bit larger than their jacketed versions), since the case thickness is still constant, that 'post crimping sizing' action can actually squeeze the (lead) bullet down to nearly the size of the jacketed one. Makes sense when you think about it. Particularly when a rather soft lead bullet is used!

So, as Apatriot has suggested, you need to load some dummy rounds (no primer or powder) and on some of them, use the Lee FCD; on others do NOT use it. Then pull them and measure. I will bet you that the ones crimped with the FCD will be smaller when you measure them.

Bottom line: I would bet you that your seating/crimping die is NOT making them smaller, but when you do it using the FCD, that IS. I don't think it has anything to do with who made the die(s), just that the FCD does that last little post-crimp sizing that is causing you the problem.

Good luck!

P.S. You don't really need to actually CRIMP the test bullets in either case. That will just make them harder to 'pull'. Just seat them in a properly sized case. Then in ONE batch, run them through the FCD with the 'crimp' function turned up high enough that it doesn't really do any crimping. You are merely trying to see if the SIZING part of that die is making the bullets smaller.

daizee

New Load:
Bullet: Same 158gr LRNFP, NO additional Alox
Powder: 5.0gr Hodgdon Universal
Primer: standard small pistol (ran out of magnums)
Brass: same .357
Dies: full-length resize, moderate roll crimp, NO FCD.

This is my first batch with Universal.
Over the chrony, the average velocity was 966fps out of my 4-5/8" barrel.
Primers indicated very moderate pressure.
Leading was present at the cylinder mouths and the forcing cone.
Accuracy was as before.

These were much more shootable. Only one set of ears were required, and someone was nice enough to build some steel targets for the range, which made for some additional entertainment.

When plinking at the steel targets it was clear that I was tossing rounds left and down. Classic trigger & flinch indicators. I've already noted issues with trigger reach, and I'm way out of practice. From the rest I was more consistent, but didn't get the results I was looking for. The primers and leading indicate that more pressure is required, so I will boost to 5.5gr of Universal for the next batch (6.2gr is the published max). Universal appears to meter VERY consistently.

-Daizee

A Patriot

daizee,
Ain't this fun?!

PM on the way.

daizee

Ok, True Believers, here's the latest report!

Today was gorgeous.
50rds of the same 158gr bullets, no alox, no FCD, on top of 5.3gr of Universal. Why .3? Because the next and last step on that disc on my Lee Auto Disc powder measure produced 5.3 instead of 5.5.

Results AND pix:

These rounds felt GREAT to shoot. Just the right amount of pop, no unpleasant blast. They frequently fell out of the cylinder while unloading, and the primers looked perfect. Not too round, not too flat.

1025fps average, with a SD of 23 - better than before.

They shot great too, turning in @ 15yds (shorter than before):
* 2.28" from the bench
* 2.5" standing, two-hands
* 4" standing one-hand

Now I really enjoyed shooting this load, and I felt all kinds of confident. Maybe the sun helped too. The only problem was a fair amount of leading in the first 1.5" or so of the barrel. A bit in the cylinder, but not bad. This suggests to me that the bullets are a bit hard for this pressure, but frankly, I loved the load so much, that I don't want to go past 5.5gr, and is another 0.2gr really going to solve the problem? Probably not. For the next batch I will duplicate the same load, except add Alox to the bullets to see if that mitigates the leading problem enough. Or.... maybe I'll get froggy, go to 5.5 w/ alox. I don't know. One variable at a time, says the scientist in me. GET IT RIGHT NOW, says Mr. Impatient.

Thinking about this more, the mild leading in the cylinder suggests that perhaps they are bumping up to the right size, but the chamber mouths are a LOT bigger than the throat, and swaging the bullet down that much without extra lube might be a cause of leading. Hm. More pondering ahead.

And now to today's targets. The horizontal one was shot that way. I realize, of course, that 3 targets from 3 different positions is not statistically significant. However, the difference is so stark from the previous ones that I'm surely on the right track.
Without further ado:

Bench, 2 hands, wrist rested


2 hands, standing


1 hand, standing. I THINK I only shot 5rds at this target (one at the berm), but it's possible I totally tossed the last one.



-Daizee