Beautiful day, so I took a vacation day and went to the range....

[Harry O]

Started testing the 38 Special bullets I mentioned a while back. The test gun was a S&W K-38 Masterpiece with a 4X Leupold scope. It was fired from a sandbag rest on top of a heavy bench. The bullets tested were 358429, 357446, and 358477. I fired 5 sets of 5 rounds each at both 25 and 50 yards. The largest bullet-to-bullet center was measured on each one and the 5 sets were averaged. After each set (of 25 rounds), the gun was cleaned and 6 rounds were fired at the berm before continuing testing. All were sized to 0.358", loaded with 6.2gr of HS-6, and used a Winchester standard primer.

Summary: All bullets were accurate. The 358429 was most accurate at 50 yards. The 357446 was most accurate at 25 yards. The differences were not much. The 358477 was least accurate, but again, not by much. I think I will probably be staying with the 358429 for future loads for several different reasons.

Specific results:
50 yards
358429 --- 1.84"
357446 --- 2.26"
358477 --- 2.56"

25 yards
358429 --- 0.95"
357446 --- 0.87"
358477 --- 1.11"

There was absolutely no leading with any load.

[Shiloh]

Couldn't get the day off but I tried. Beat out by the seniority curse. There'll be other days.
I'm going tomorrow at 9:00 AM though. :bigsmyl2:

Shiloh

[btroj]

Which range you shoot at? ENGC or WWGC?

I will be at Eastern tomorrow afternoon. Need to blow off some steam.

[Harry O]

Which range you shoot at? ENGC or WWGC?

I will be at Eastern tomorrow afternoon. Need to blow off some steam.

I used to belong to the ENGC until it was taken over by some survivalists about a year before Y2K. It was surprisingly easy. They just had 20 - 30 of their buddies show up to the January election meeting and voted themselves in. Then, they started kicking long term members out right and left and letting their survivalist buddies in ahead of everyone else. Then they started blowing through the money that was being saved to buy the adjacent farm when it became available (the club had an option to buy). The survivalists felt that it was more important to have a bunker to retreat to when civilization collapsed. I remember one of them talking about the 100 round double-snail magazines he had for his AR-15. He said that he wouldn't have time to switch 30 round magazines when human waves tried to overrun the compound to get their MREs. I let my membership lapse.

Are they still there?

I now belong to the WWGC. It is further away and not as nice as ENGC, but the people are a lot nicer. There are a number of other ex-ENGC members there.

[Ole]

A lousy day of shooting > good day at work.

Looks like you had a good day of shooting, so you're way ahead. :drinks:

[Mk42gunner]

A lousy day of shooting > good day at work.

I was thinking basically the same thing: The wosrt day on the range beats the best day at work.

Although I do remember one day at the range in Nevada, a gentle breeze of about 45 knots was blowing snow directly into my face while running rifle quals. I classified that one as a day at work.

Harry, it sounds like you had a good day at the range.

Robert

[btroj]

I haven't run into many of those characters at Eastern. I tend to not attend meetings, too much petty drama. That is why I no longer shoot NRA highpower.
I was a member at Weeping Water. I actually shoot there often with my FIL, I just hate the longer drive. It is nice at WWGC though on weekday mornings as there is usually nobody else there.

I do find at either club that there are pretty few cast shooters. Most people are amazed that you can even shoot lead bullets..

[44man]

You have to love the K-38! And the K-22.
Range problems abound. There was bunch that wanted to concrete our shooting line and install concrete benches. That would ruin BPCR matches. Thankfully, it was voted out.

[Ben]

Harry O:

That is some good work you've done there !

If one wants to shoot pistols at 200 yards, that is wonderful. However, I limit my shooting to 25 yards with revolvers. If I need to shoot more than 25 yards , I pull out my rifles. Looks like the 446' made a very good showing at the 25 yard mark and that just happens to be the normal limits to my " casual " revolver shooting.

Many have said that the 446' isn't accurate. I've never bought into that theory. I guess your test ( and it certainly sounded like a good , fair, unbiased one ) puts that matter to rest.

I have a good friend in TX that is doing a similar comparison test in a few days. He is testing the 358156 gc Hp against the 357446 hp . Will be interesting to see what he comes up with also.

Ben

I have a 446' that Buckshot hp'd. The mold has the ability to cast with two different hp pins. Giving a nice bullet for 38 Spec. velocities or a nice one for 357 mag. velocities. Here is a photo of bullets from my 446' mold.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/haysb/357446/PICT0008.jpg

[Harry O]

Harry O:

Many have said that the 446' isn't accurate. I've never bought into that theory. I guess your test ( and it certainly sounded like a good , fair, unbiased one ) puts that matter to rest.

I have a good friend in TX that is doing a similar comparison test in a few days. He is testing the 358156 gc Hp against the 357446 hp . Will be interesting to see what he comes up with also.

Ben



Actually, all three of them did respectable. The -477 was a bit worse, but even it was not downright bad. I use the 358156GC for all my .357 Magnum shooting. It does great. I have not gotten a plain base bullet to get anywhere near the accuracy of the -156 anywhere near full power loads. The -156 is just about as good as the ones I listed above when used at .38 Special +P pressures, but it costs more and takes more time. It is not worth it unless I am shooting .357 Magnum pressures.

The reason I did this test is that the locally cast bullets I was using for my .38 Special ran out. The guy used a Saeco mould, I believe. The guy who cast them is no longer with us, so I decided to see which one of the .38 Special moulds I had on hand would work the best.

The -429 is from a practically new 2-cavity mould and casts great. The -446 I have is only a single-cavity mould. It casts great, but is slow. The -477 is a good used 2-cavity mould. However, with the accuracy and the extra weight, along with the 2-cavities, the 429 is the way to go for me.