Linotype for WC's?

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Hmmmmmmmmm............??? I am gathering equipment together to set up my casting operation (again................let this be a lesson to all of you, NEVER SELL ANYTHING!!! Cuz someday you're gonna' wantit back!) and I've been reading the NRA publication Cast Bullets by E. H. Harrison. In an article titled "Making Accurate .38 Handloads", at the bottom of page 54 the author (Harrison) states;

"Only linotype alloy is adequate for best grouping."


Hmmmmmm.......................??? So, wassup wif 'at?? I have read counless threads & responses on this site detailing things like obturation of soft alloys, bullet diameter vs groove diameter and other factors that are necessary to obtain good accuracy - so, now I need linotype to get good groups? Imean, we're talking 850 fps wadcutters here! LINOTYPE??

I'm confused.

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[NVcurmudgeon]

With the utmost respect, as always, for Mr. Harrison, it aint necessarily so. I have shot more cast boolits in WC and SWC pistol target loads than in any other type of firearm, for about forty years. Mostly I have used straight wheelweights, or wheelweights mixed with pure lead. Some on this board have used pure lead for low velocity pistol loads with great accuracy. IMO linotype is about the last lead alloy I would use for target velocity pistol loads because I would expect better obturation with a softer alloy. Save that precious linotype for the highest velocity rifle cast boolit loads. With good fitting boolits and adequate lube I never have leading with any pistol loads, or even rifle loads up to 1800 fps.

[trk]

I am a firm believer of TESTING out what others write. Short of that (one can't test EVERYTHING) I look at what's published - is the information published from emperical tests (this is what we tried under these conditions and those are the results). From that I'll either make my own tests of draw my own PRELIMINARY conclusions.

One can make soft bullets shoot accurately. One can also make hard bullets shoot accurately.

What's important is what loads that YOU work up for YOUR irons - are YOU satisfied with their performance.

[Char-Gar]

About 1983 or so I cast us a mess of 38 WCs from linotype. I loaded them over 3/Bullseye and shot them from my SMith and Wesson K-38.

The result was worse leaded sixgun I have ever had. It took me forever to get that hard alloy out of the cylinder throats and barrels.

I would be the last one to say that the author of the article in question was full of it, but the above is my real life exerience. Take it for what it is worth.

[dubber123]

While I hardly qualify as an expert, I find that you generally have more problems with too hard of an alloy than too soft. There are of course exceptions to every rule, but I bet 99% of all cast bullet shooting can be accomplished well with the lowly wheelweight. At least so far in this game 100% of my casting has been done very satisfactorily with WW's.

[centershot]

Thanks for your replies, guys! When I read Harrison's statement I had to stop and read it again. Furhter on in that article he says that the factory-loaded match wadcutter ammunition is the standard by which our handloads must be judged. OK, the last I knew, the ammo companies were loading swaged lead bullets or jacketed rounds, not cast. Years back, I cast and loaded many of the Lyman 168 gr SWC in 38's & 357's cast from WW's. Good groups and no leading. I just have a hard time accepting that Harrison would write something like that!

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[Lloyd Smale]

I dont buy into the harder alloy is more apt to lead or give worse accuracy. If your bullet is sized properly to your barrel theres no reason lineotype will lead. If your gun has chamber and bore dimentions that will only do good if a bullet has to bump up to the bore then softer might be better. Bottom line is casting with lynotype you will probably get your most consistant bullets and the harder they are the less chance they will deform or strip the rifling. Ive yet to here anyone complain that jacketed bullets are to hard. There alot harder then any cast alloy. If your bullet has to bump up it has deformed and good luck getting it to do the same exact thing every time. I havent tried lineotype wadcutters but i do know that my most accurate 45 acp loads are the lyman 2oo swc cast out of lineotype. I have a pile of loading data on groups shot off the bench with many many different handguns and loads and its a rare occurance that a softer alloy will outshoot a harder one. Now granted most of my handguns are customs and the ones that arent have been made right. I cannot abide a gun that needs bandaids on the loads it gets to make it shoot well.

[Char-Gar]

Loyd... I won't try and convince you of anything, but I will relate some more experience.

1) I too have had great luck with linotype bullets in the 45 ACP round and the 1911 pistol. I used the alloy for years with nothing but good results. I fired in many Bullseye matches with this ammo. I always used factory fresh linotype alloy for consistancy. I bought it direct from the foundry in Houston Texas... Sterling Type Metal was the name of the foundry.

I have also learned that a hard alloy is not needed for top quality results in the 45 ACP/1911 pistol. Hard alloy doesn't hurt, but isn't necessary.

2) I have also had great luck with linotype in sixguns (44 and 357 magnums) with full snort magnum loads. The accuracy was great and there was zero leading.

3) The 38 wad cutters in the above post leaded like the dickens. The pistol (K-38) has a bore of .357 with cylinder throats that run from .3573 to .3576. The linotype wadcutters were sized .358. I also tried some sized .357 with the same bad results.

I am not out to advance or discredit any theory, just report my experience from 46 years of bullet casting for handguns with detailed records kept. In the process I have learned what works and what doesn't work. 38 linotype wadcutters at target velocity out of a 38 Special sixgun doesn't work.

[Larry Gibson]

Hmmmmmmm......someone other than me questions some of the writings of Mr. E.H. Harrison..........Hmmmmmmm....

Larry Gibson

[Lloyd Smale]

like i said charger i cant doubt you because i havent tried it myself. Im not a fan of wad cutter bullets. I could never see there big appeal. They fly like crap past 50 yards and shoot no better at close range then many other bullets. What i have found with them casting them soft is lube is more critical with that design then any other. A GOOD soft lube is needed. Id guess its because they have more bearing surface then compareable weight bulets. I know to that in my testing lube effected accuracy more with a wad cutter then any other design. I did some experimenting once (this was before i made my own lube) with magma hard blue, red roster, tumble lube, javalina, and lbt blue soft. I used the same load of 3 grains of bullseye with each bullet. All shot out of both one of my 15 smiths and my clark ppc gun. Worse accuracy was with the two hard lubes followed closely by tumble lube. Swithching to Javalina cut group size in half and lbt blue did the best but it was close to javalina. Part of the test was recovering bullets and seeing what they looked like. The two hard lubes still had most of there lube still in the groves. I then decided to try some with only one lube grove filled and actually improved the accuacy of the load. The trick was to use just the bottom lube grove. If i went up the bullet and used one of the other two accuracy went south again. All bullets were cast out of the same alloy. A mix of 5050 ww/pure with about 3 percent tin added and none of them leading a bit. Im not a scientist and wont try to decifer these results and no doubt they could have changed completely if i had used two differnt guns
Loyd... I won't try and convince you of anything, but I will relate some more experience.

1) I too have had great luck with linotype bullets in the 45 ACP round and the 1911 pistol. I used the alloy for years with nothing but good results. I fired in many Bullseye matches with this ammo. I always used factory fresh linotype alloy for consistancy. I bought it direct from the foundry in Houston Texas... Sterling Type Metal was the name of the foundry.

I have also learned that a hard alloy is not needed for top quality results in the 45 ACP/1911 pistol. Hard alloy doesn't hurt, but isn't necessary.

2) I have also had great luck with linotype in sixguns (44 and 357 magnums) with full snort magnum loads. The accuracy was great and there was zero leading.

3) The 38 wad cutters in the above post leaded like the dickens. The pistol (K-38) has a bore of .357 with cylinder throats that run from .3573 to .3576. The linotype wadcutters were sized .358. I also tried some sized .357 with the same bad results.

I am not out to advance or discredit any theory, just report my experience from 46 years of bullet casting for handguns with detailed records kept. In the process I have learned what works and what doesn't work. 38 linotype wadcutters at target velocity out of a 38 Special sixgun doesn't work.

[Bass Ackward]

I read an article by Mr Harrison where he was essentially going up .1 of a grain per load. He recorded how one hardness started to open groups and then he went harder and brought accuracy back. Pretty straight forward comparison in his particular gun. Professor gun beats theories every time.

I use lino for 38 Special loads. 358156 sized .358 with 6 gr of Unique with the old Banana lube which is a little +P, but lino none the less. That worked in every Colt or Smith I or my friends had at the time. Sometimes it was the ONLY thing that worked. In my 15-4 it was the accuracy champ.

[Char-Gar]

Loyd... I am not a giant fan of the cast full wadcutter bullet for general field use. The bullet was designed to cut a clean hole in a paper target and it does that to perfection. We cast our own wadcutters for practice, but when it came to the real match, we used factory match ammo. Even the best cast wadcutter could not beat factory ammo.

The cast wadcutter is very sensative to the lube as you mentioned. It is easy to over lube the bullet. I found it best to just fill the bottom goove and let the others go bare.

I have yet to fire my first cast bullet with any kind of lube that required a heater. I have used nothing but what is called "soft lube" for the past 48 years.

You are correct about the accuracy of the wadcutter past 50 yards. They start to tip and tumble.

For pure accuracy in the 38 Special I have never found a cast bullet that will beat the old 155 -160 PBRN, such as 358311.

The swaged HB 38 wadcutter is a different critter. They will beat the cast WC in accuracy, but push one too fast it you are likely to blow the skirt off, leaving an obstruction in the barrel.

The swaged HB wadcutter makes a nice field bullet for small game like rabbits and the like.

The HB wadcutter is a special needs child when it comes to loading, but that is not the subject of this post.

I guess the bottom line is I don't understand the original article in question. It is more academic than real world as top level competitors always used (or did use) factory match ammo when real accuracy counted. Normal care with cast WCs in terms of uniform weight, case length, crimp, primer seating and powder charge produced ammo that was plenty good for practice.

[BruceB]

My wife and I were very active Bullseye shooters for many years, although we now no longer compete. Our "Centerfire" guns were the S&W .38 Special Model 52-1, and the bullet we used is the 35863, a Lyman double-ended wadcutter. The Model 52 REQUIRES an absolutely flush-seated bullet, with nothing protruding outside the casemouth. Still have the guns, and they're going strong.

When I started with these pistols, my easiest-to-obtain alloy was linotype, and we found that the throat area of the 52s leaded very badly even with the target-level loads we used (2.8-3.1 Bullseye, most of the time). I gradually softened the bullet alloy over a period of some years, until I arrived at straight cable-sheathing lead...essentially pure lead for most purposes. Factory-loaded wadcutters are dead soft, but so are most of their non-jacketed swaged bullets.

The softer the bullet, the less it leaded, and the dead-soft ones don't lead the 52s at all. The lube in the early years was the old black Lyman stuff, used in all three grooves. Later on I found that Javelina and similar slickums only needed one groove filled, which I decided would be the rear one. (Even though it's a double-ended design, I dislike the appearance of the sprue mark on loaded rounds.)

We successfully created loads capable of holding ten-round groups in the ten-ring at fifty yards, which measures 3.39" in diameter.

There's a fair bit of experience reflected here, since I have loaded at least 200,000 rounds for these two pistols. For revolvers, I much prefer semi-wadcutters, but some of the .38 wadcutter loads creep into the revolvers on occasion.

[9.3X62AL]

It has been a LONG time since I ran any wadcutters through a 38 Special. Some of Buckshot's dead soft wide-body Lyman #358063's found their way into Starline 38 S&W cases, and they shoot quite well from the S&W M&P Lend-Lease turnback I have, coated with LLA. Zero leading atop 3.0 grains of Bullseye, OAL just like a flush-seated 38 Special wadcutter--1.150".

My thoughts--based on what I see after what I've done--is that dimensional integrity is the lead element (LEED, this time--no pun intended) in the accuracy/lead-free equation, but there is somethng to be said for matching the alloy strength to the pressure impulse driving our castings and the dwell duration character of that impulse as the boolit makes it way down the barrel. I caution that you're reading the ramblings of a social science major here, but even us blind hogs can find an acorn once in a while. I want every advantage I can muster in every load, as long as the gymnastics involved in exploiting those advantages aren't really arduous.

[TAWILDCATT]

I to have a S & W 52-1 and a mod 10 4" with Bomar rib.I use hornady hbwc in the 52 and lyman wad cutters in mod 10. lead is backstop and/or ww.I never cleaned the gun till end of season.I took my share of medals.I once shot silouet(?)up to 100 yds a disaster after 50 yds.no their not made for long range.not with 2.8 of 700X / or bullseye.the guns were intended for 50 yrds max.
and as far as the experts some times they make errors and dont like to admit to it.
the best experts may not be the ones that advertize.I knew and shot beside Don Hamilton and Barry Colt and others.--:coffee:---:Fire:---:coffee:

[MN91311]

To that advice I can only add NEVER THROW ANYTHING AWAY either. Just as soon as you toss it, you will need it within 3 months. No matter how long you have had it just sitting.

[Ken O]

To that advice I can only add NEVER THROW ANYTHING AWAY either. Just as soon as you toss it, you will need it within 3 months. No matter how long you have had it just sitting.

Amen! but.. I keep it and can't find it, so I buy another...then it turns up!