And along comes 358429 himself. That's awesome! Are these from an old Lyman mold? Also did you add the hollow point pins after the fact? If so, who did the modification. I've got a couple of molds I'd like to convert to hollow point molds.Originally Posted by 358429
My favorite bullets in 357 magnum and 38 special.
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What could possibly go wrong?
These are mp molds from Europe.
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This is a diagram showing the hollow point bullet I use.
Due to the length of the bullet it is designed for using in 38 Special brass.
It maximizes internal volume so you can use a heavier powder charge of a slower powder. I have been experimenting with this bullet and 38 and 357 brass in a Ruger 77 / 357 with IMR 4227, and some other powders.
In 38 brass it's something like 1.55 over all length of the loaded cartridge, I don't remember exactly I'll check later.
Sometimes I like to load these in 357 with Winchester 296... those ones I trim the
magnum brass short, to 1.23 inches, for an overall length of 1.6, which fits the cylinder of my J frame and I believe
maximizes the horsepower of a 20 ounce revolver.
If you're trying to use regular 357 brass with no special trimming, and if you don't have thousands of 38 brass feeling sad in a bucket cuz they don't have powder and bullets, I would recommend not using this bullet.
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I need this in my life. It looks like it would be absolutely nasty in some ballistics gel!
I have more 38 special brass than I would use in a lifetime. Somehow I can't stop from still buying more. I can't explain it.
What gun powders is do you have stocked in your powder cabinet?
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If you had, for example an 8 pound jug pistol or shotgun powder ( burn rates between bullseye/tightgroup and 4227/2400) that was sad because it wasn't loaded into thousands of 38 Special cartridges...
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Not much, I need more but the problem I had before, when powder was a buyable option, was I hadn't really zoned in on what powder I needed. So I was essentially overrun with options and didn't know what to choose.
What powders have you tried and how did you feel about them?
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Titegroup, Unique, 231, and lately 296
It has been a long time ago but I did some loads of 38 Special in Titegroup and 231. I believe I liked 231 the most and what stood out to me with Titegroup was it burned very clean but it left the gun very very HOT! Unique is such a classic and mostly is my go to. I don't have enough knowledge to make accurate loads (yet) with handgun cartridges.
If you are gonna powder coat you don't have to worry about hardness of your alloy. For me, ww+1% tin works just fine, and no gas checks needed.
It's all chicken, even the beak!
That's the truth. I'm casting these right now out of monkey metal, and I'm going to powder coat, Eastwood ultra gloss clear, size 358, and then load them up anyway I like.
I like to load this with 3 grains of Red Dot or 10 grains 4227 in 38 Special. The ones that I use with 296 I add some more tin to it, I'm not even sure if I need that, I just do that cuz it makes me feel good.
I think I'm going to have to prove that one way or the other in the next week or two...
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It's interesting that the op decided on swc bullets for the 38spl/357/44mag on the advice of 1 person on another website.
Nothing wrong with keith style swc's but they can be a little touchy if they don't get a good fit/alignment in the cylinders. Along with the tend to be oal sensitive when used in lever actions. It's common to have issues with swc's in the lever actions when trying to use 38spl/44spl's loaded with swc's in the lever actions.
While worrying about if the oal of a load will fit in a revolver is the 1st thing that should be checked. The more importent part of the equation is the fit in the leade's of the cylinders.
[IMG][/IMG]
As you can see the top reload sits back from the set/leade in the cylinder, there is a gap there. The bottom reload has the shoulder of the bullet out further (longer oal) so it is aligned to the cylinder. The top bullet has to jump to get into alignment in the cylinder, the bottom bullet is already aligned. This is huge for accuracy, makes finding accurate loads easier.
This is why the longer/larger drive band is important. It gets the bullets shoulder out into the leade of the cylinder which is better for accuracy.
When looking at lyman molds you want to find ones that have the equal drive bands/large front drive band like this example.
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I'm glad it's a U-mold (undersized) because I pc my cast pistol/revolver bullets, saves me the trouble of sizing them twice.
Haven't tested a lot of different swc's but I have used these in the 38spl's & 357's
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Their pretty much the classic keith swc's from lyman, cramer & h&G molds. I also use the mp-503's in the 44cal's, the mp-503's have that equal/long front drive band thing going on.
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I like to use the lyman 429422, a hb version of the 429421 bullet in the snubnosed 44psl's. The top left load.
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Made my owh hb pin for that 44cal hb mold, makes the bullet lighter
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Along with having not only the hp nose expand, the base will compress/expand also because of the thin walls of the hp pin design.
[IMG][/IMG]
Anyway this is why you want the longer front drive bands/equal drive bands. The bullets with the longer bands tend to be more accurate, easier to find accurate loads with. And tend to have higher velocities for the same loads (seals the cylinders better/ faster).
Before you start dumping $$$ into a bunch of swc molds you really should take a hard look at rn, fn & wfn bullet designs also. Myself I prefer the fn style bullets (640 series) over the wfn bullet designs. The fn's tend to feed better in the lever actions along with it's extremely easy to find accurate loads with them.
This mp 640 series 35cal fn is worth looking at.
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The mold casts a large round hp along with a penta point hp both weigh +/- 158gr and a 170gr solid nosed fn bullet. That bullet has 2 crimp grooves & I like to load that 640 bullet long/crimped in the bottom crimp groove when loading them in the 38spl's. It's that get the bullet out into the leade of the cylinder thing. Typical 6-shot groups @ 50ft/blammo ammo with the mp-640 series bullet in the 38spl cases.
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Another fn bullet that I like to use is an old cramer "hunter" bullet, it's a 158gr hp bullet also with an extremely small hp. The hunter bullet is the bullet in the center of the bottom row
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Was doing a little testing with a cramer #26 keith style swc, the hunter fn and the 640 fn @ 25yds in 357 cases.
[IMG][/IMG]
Those are 6-shot groups & 25yds, all 4 of them are 1 1/4" or less measured outside to outside. Took the 5.5gr & 6.0gr bullseye loads using the hunter fn and the 640fn out to the 50yd line. All 4 6-shot groups @ 50yds were 2 3/16" or less measured outside to outside.
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Nothing more than blammo ammo/dirt clod killers playing around with a s&w 686 competitor.
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Had that 7x scope mounted on it bench resting doing those test targets looking for plinking ammo that will do 1100fps+ with a 158gr bullet.
That s&W 686 is actually a pretty good range revolver. Slapped a scope on it to do a little load testing. Got board with that & in less then 1 minute the scope was off and a mini-reflex was on and I was banging on steel @ the 25yd line. Before I left I did pop the reflex off and run the irons for awhile.
You might want to start another thread asking what works in revolver & lever guns along with what bullet designs have consistently been more accurate/easier to find accurate loads with.
Playing around with a 10" bbl'd contender with a burris fastfire III on it @ the 100yd line using a mp 640 bullet designed for the 44cal's. The mp mold casts a 270gr fn or a 245gr round or pents point hp. The bullet on the right is the bullet I was using in the contender.
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Target doesn't look like much, was playing around trying to move the poi with the fastfireIII on the top 3 targets. Whe I was getting close I shot the bottom targets starting with the left target. I realized the dot was too big/bright and turned it down 1 click and shot the bottom right target.
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It's only a 3 shot group @ 100yds but after shooting that I was able to clearly see what my poi was and gave the burris a couple clicks and started banging on steel @ 100yds. That final 3-shot test group @ 100yds with that 44cal mp 640 fn bullet.
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Those hollow points look great.
I've gotten an absolute ton of criticism for going with SWC molds over others. YES I am aware that they will not feed reliably in a lever action. YES I am aware that there are better options out there.
A little note about myself: I am a very nostalgic person. I think better times are behind us, not in front of us, and obviously I love history. I am currently reading up on Elmer Keith and also some of Sketter's editorial writings. So I am going down this road following in the steps of these giants. If for anything, to say I did it. The other stuff will come later. I'm in absolutely no hurry with the politicians we have in office.
Of course it is out of stock too. And you mean the .360 version? Not the 35 cal.This mp 640 series 35cal fn is worth looking at.
[IMG]
The mold casts a large round hp along with a penta point hp both weigh +/- 158gr and a 170gr solid nosed fn bullet. That bullet has 2 crimp grooves & I like to load that 640 bullet long/crimped in the bottom crimp groove when loading them in the 38spl's. It's that get the bullet out into the leade of the cylinder thing. Typical 6-shot groups @ 50ft/blammo ammo with the mp-640 series bullet in the 38spl cases.
I love ol' Elmer's work but I'm not concerned about his square xtra volume lube grooves. We now have much better lubes than he did and I believe they more than make up any real difference.Well I just got this mold for $60. Just realized it has the round lube groove and not the square. Dang
I was getting it more for the historical significance (debatable I guess) than anything. I won't be using lube anyways so I couldn't care less either if it was square, round, or star shaped.
Fire up the melting pot, and pour yourself a hot one!
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