.357 Henry will it feed the RCBS 38-150-SWC

[10mmShooter]

Like it says, I'm picking up a .357 Henry to go with .44 Henry on Saturday, The .44 will feed swc but you have to giggle the lever, so I have a round-nose FP mold made for it and they cycle like butter.

But question is the .357, I only have the RCBS 38-150-SWC cast bullets for now. I'm hoping the .357 will feed them, better than the .44 does SWC.

Any way I'm looking at the Lyman 358665 as possible bullet to go with. I may just have the guy at Accurate Molds, cut me a nice 4 cavity round nose FP, similar to the .44 mold I have.

Any recommendations on sizing, I'm guessing the .358 will be a good starting point, I've ordered a .359 sizer just to be safe.

[fecmech]

I just won a steel frame Henry at our gun club and did a pound cast of the chamber. The throat(and it is a rifle style throat) was .359 and the groove was .355. This one feeds the 358429 loaded in mag cases at 1.635 oal and taper crimped on the front drive band. Crimped in the crimp groove will not feed from the magazine(too long). It also will feed the Lee TLSWC crimped on the second lube band in mag cases so I think you'd be OK with the RCBS bullet. It will NOT feed the accurate 165E RNFP in mag cases as the ogive appears too fat for the angle the round is presented at. The lee 125 rnfp feeds great in mag cases. After playing with this one for a couple of weeks I think I will send it down the road. I like the top eject of my two Rossi's and their lighter weight, the Henry 20" carbine is just a tich heavier than my 24" Rossi octagon at 7 lbs. The gun appears well made and functions just fine. I don't care for the side eject and weight.

[lightload]

Since groove is .355, what diameter should the boolit be sized to?

[mac266]

I don't have a Henry. I have several Marlins and a Uberti clone of the 1873 Winchester. What I've found is my Marlins cycle SWCs just fine, but the Winchester clone won't do it to save my life. I suppose the only answer is, try it and see. RNFP is the preferred boolit design for leverguns for that very reason.

[Hannibal]

I have a Henry Golden Boy in .357. The only time I have had a feeding problem was when I was 'babying' the lever. Operate the lever like you're surrounded by pit vipers that mean business, and mine feeds everything flawlessly, including the RCBS 38-150 SWC. Mine slugs at .355". I have fed it .356" and it will lead with softer alloys. I've also fed it .358 and never had leading at all, regardless of alloy.

The FN bullets shoot much better in mine. I have tried 180 grain bullets from an LBT mould, but decided that was a bit much. I recently bought the Lyman 358665 and so far it looks like a good choice, though I've not experimented with it much yet.

Also, mine shoots very accurately out to 50 yds with nearly everything, but 50 to 100 yds is like the difference between traveling to the moon and Mars.

Probably many will object. All I can tell you is that's been my experience.

Hope this helps and good luck.

[lightload]

Hannibal, at 100 yards does your Henry shoot one or some bullets accurately?

[Hannibal]

The RFN design shoots the best, SWC the worst. The RFN will group 1 1/2" @ 50, the SWC group 3". At 100 .. . . . . the fliers open things up to 5" or more. So I pulled the scope and just shoot it at 50 yds and under off hand now.

You can look at 'Lever Gun Performance Studies' at gmdr.com and see my results are typical. Sorry, not savvy enough to post a link.

[10mmShooter]

thanks for the info, since I have many thousands of RCBS 38-SWC-150 loaded for my revolvers, I'm hoping it will shoot them well and not lead, they are sized .358 for my 686's. I think I'm going to go ahead and order a new mold from Accurate Molds, a brass 4-cav in this design, it is a twin to the mold I use in my .44 Henry that likes .432 sized bullets.

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[10mmShooter]

just got back from the range, with the my new .357 Henry, put about 150 rounds through in it and over the chronograph. As expected in did not really like my RCBS 38-SWC-150 bullets, they would catch during cycling, now if I worked the lever "brisky" they would cycle. Also as expected the rifle did not like .358 sized bullets, I got some leading in the first 1-2 inches in front of the chamber,(just like my .44 Henry did till I went to .432 sized bullets). I believe with the .357, all I need is to go to .359 and should be fine.

I ran my usual revolver loads of 5.7 grs of HP38/231 in magnum brass, and 7.5 grs of AA#5 in magnum brass.
5.7 grs of HP38 runs 1100 fps from my 686s in the Henry it runs 1250 fps so a gain of +150 fps
7.5 grs of AA#5 runs 1100 fps from my 686s in the Henry it runs at 1340 fps a gain of +235 fps

So cycling, leading and velocity where all as expected. I'm waiting on my new mold to come in from Utah it will drop at .360 and I'll be sizing down to .359 and its a RN-FP so that will fix the leading and cycling.

Also I picked up a stray Sig 220-10mm obviously I could not leave it with out a home :) It functioned flawlessy, with all my 10mm loading in SWC and LRN. My first Sig, I must say its well made and really nice, definitely a step up from my Colt 10mm, and my Smith 1006's.
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[glockky]

10mm shooter I would really like to hear your results when you make it back to the range with some .359 bullets

[emorris]

I got my Henry steel frame 357 a few weeks ago. It cycled the 125 grain fp xtreme bullets in 38 special brass fine. I also cycled but didn't fire some 158 grain swc loaded in 38 special brass. I lucked out and got the NOE 360-180 wfn inventory run mold last week. I havent casted any yet but will do so soon. I also have some Lee 358-158fn casted waiting to be powder coated to try. It's a fun shooter but i havent shot it for groups yet.

[10mmShooter]

My Accurate molds brass mold should be in next week, i probably wont get any cast and loaded and back to range until after Thanksgiving, ill report back then