What alloy for 38/357 hollow base wadcutters at target velocities?

[aap2]

I recently bought a Mihec 4 cavity mould for 38/357 hollow base wadcutters and was wondering which alloy to use for casting hollow base boolits? I normally use Lyman #2 alloy (90% lead/5%tin/5% antimony) for everything, but I thought that a softer alloy might be better to allow the hollow base to expand. 1:20 tin/lead? I would appreciate any suggestions. I'm not a serious target shooter, I just want to keep my S&W M66 fed..it liked the Hornady swaged HBWC, but I got tired looking for these projectiles since they were always "out of stock". Buying a Mihec mould to cast these boolits was a great decision..thanks

[rintinglen]

I use just about any old alloy for wad cutters, but at normal terget velocities, I think I'd just use range lead with a bit o' tin and call it good. It fill out well and stll be soft enough to shoot well.

[Bigslug]

Can't tell you about hollow-base .38's, but the 9.75 BHN mix of range scrap & COWW from my first smelt is working GREAT in a hollow-base .455 Webley. Thus far, it seems to be my least lead-prone handgun - whether that's just the low velocity, the hollow base sealing better, or both, it gets the job done. Will probably be casting 9-9.5 BHN straight range scrap for it in the future - simply because any future wheel-weighty alloys in the 12+ BHN range will get shifted to the .357/.44 end of the pile. Unless you're doing serious match work, I don't see much point to breaking out the sexy alloys on pokey rounds like this.

While I personally wouldn't be pouring out rifle-worthy 15BHN Lyman #2 for plinking-grade 700fps WC's, I also would try not to overthink the base-obturation issue. I tend to think that if you have pressure to smash a boolit down enough to engrave the rifling and travel the bore, you've got enough pressure to blow a hollow-base into the rifling as well.

[MT Gianni]

My 358359 HB mold and K-38 shoot best with dental lead or as dead soft as possible.

[runfiverun]

soft as possible, 40-1 wouldn't be out of line at 650 fps or so.

[Forrest r]

I use nothing more than plain old range scrap for both of my Mihec hbwc (38 & 44) molds. I tried dead soft/pure lead & found that the range lead did better. I ended up with:

range scrap for lead
tumble lubed
sized to .358
2.7gr of bullseye

Don't try to over-think these, your casting bullets not swaging them. The bases will expand with almost any alloy, I'd be more concerned with mold temp & getting hairline cracks in the hollow base from dropping them too quickly.

[cbrick]

aap2, welcome to CastBoolits,

If you can get WW's separate the stick-on's from the clip-on's and use the stick-on weights with a about 1% tin added. I think your right that shooting Lyman #2 for a round like that would be expensive and not needed. Softer would be both cheaper and a good thing.

Rick

[aap2]

aap2, welcome to CastBoolits,

If you can get WW's separate the stick-on's from the clip-on's and use the stick-on weights with a about 1% tin added. I think your right that shooting Lyman #2 for a round like that would be expensive and not needed. Softer would be both cheaper and a good thing.

Rick

All good advice....I have a stock of pure lead and some 50/50 bar solder which should add enough tin to do the trick. I did cast a few (to try out my new mould) with Lyman #2 alloy and shot them this morning (sized to .358, Carnuba Red lube, WW231) and they shot great. I look forward to casting a bunch more with the lead/tin mix. thanks again to all