.38 .357 Bullet Hardness?

[y5e06]

I recently ordered a batch of .358 SWC boolits to use in loading my .38 and .357mag. I had planned to keep things simple and load same boolits for both. However, as I become more educated on BHN & pressures I'm concerned that what I bought might be too hard for the lower .38 pressures. I would like to avoid leading and poor accuracy issues.
is 18 BHN SWC's too hard to use in typical. .38 loads?
I should have ordered a batch at 12 BHN too, but didn't.....
I had planned to run these at various .38 and .357 loads using Bullseye.

thanks

[XBT]

Morgan, I am far from expert on this stuff, but after many years of casting I have found that the only way to find out for sure is to test some and see how they shoot.

I normally cast low velocity pistol boolits softer than that but in years past I’ve used whatever alloy I could get from hard to soft and most all of it worked well.

Keep in mind that boolit sizing is probably as important as hardness and larger is usually better than smaller.

[runfiverun]

if they fit your gun they will probably be some of the best shooting boolits you ever had. if not,
some copper chore boy, wrapped around an old brush will clean it out.

[Shiloh]

Mine aren't that hard, I use range lead and other soft scrap for pistol boolits. Velocities are of the target variety.
I think that you will be fine. As stated above, proper boolit fit will mitigate a lot of problems.

Shiloh