WW too hard for reduced 38?

[lylejb]

So as not to hijack Vinnyg's thread, i've started my own.

First off, I'm a complete newbe to casting, my first mold, a lee 358-158-rf 6 cav, is in the mail today.

i've been reloading for 20+ years, but it was with jacketed or commercial cast.

I smelted my first bucket of wheel weights 2 days ago, so i have about 75lb of wheel weight muffins to start with, and about 4lb of "pure" from the stick on's

A while back, i was working up a greatly reduced load for 38 special / 357 for the wife and kids to shoot, and was having leading due to inadaquate pressure to obturate (sp?) the commercial "hard cast" bullets 158 swc. I changed powder to trail boss and found 2.5gr was the point the leading stopped. I settled on 2.6gr for the load i would use. i think these are about 600 to 650 fps.

I hope to be able to use straight wheel weights, plus some tin solder if needed.

would straight wheel weight be too hard for this very light load?

would i be better to mix 50/50 wheel weight / pure?

Ideally, i would like to come up with a boolit that could be used for both the kids light load, and used in my normal 38 / light 357 loads.

Thanks

LB

[MT Gianni]

WW work OK with 2.7-3.0 gr Bullseye. I have too much inventory to start with trail Boss right now.

[Treeman]

In my guns WW and Lee Liquid Alox work for everything from mousefart loads up to rip roaring magnums

[snaggdit]

Your "hard cast" bullets are probably harder than WW. Properly sized to YOUR barrel they should be fine. Have you slugged it to know what that size is? When your mold comes, cast a few with that pure you have and slug it. Then cast some with WW and measure to see if you are dropping .001-.002 over groove size. If so, light loads should work as well as full power loads, with lube obviously!

[Bret4207]

Sanggdit told you right- fit comes first every single time. Any alloy- soft or hard- can fail if it doesn't fit the gun. Most guns seem to like a boolit at least .001 over groove diameter or throat diameter. Some odd guns seem to like them a smidge smaller. Find out what your gun wants first and go from there. Your Trailboss load is an example of finding a pressure point at which the boolit and gun fit each other. The simple answer would be the boolit obturates and fits better, the more complex answer is the pressure curve changed and hit a point where the leaading stopped- maybe the boolit obturates, maybe it doesn't.

The more I learn about cast, the less I trust the easy answers.

[2ndAmendmentNut]

Yes WW should be fine for reduced loads or full powered loads. As others have said you need to slug your chambers and cast accordingly. I have used clip on and stick on WW for light 38 Special 148gr WC loads with 2.2gr of Trail Boss, great accuracy, no recoil, and no leading.

Not sure but I believe your mold drops a boolit with a bevel base. Bevel bases are susceptible to leading, so I would cast from the stick on WW. Then again the clip on WW might be just fine, because even my clip on WW boolits were softer then most commercial bullets.

[Hardcast416taylor]

I can`t begin to guess the hundreds of pounds of ww I cast as 148 gr Lyman wadcutters. I also can`t begin to guess how many 8 lb. kegs of HP-38 or Win. 231 or Red Dot powder I used 3.0 or less with. I taught many women and young people with these powder loads with nary a flinch, nor a bit of leading.:castmine:Robert

[lylejb]

Snaggdit was correct in his thought about the commercial cast were harder than wheel weights.

Last night i set up the "homemade" hardness tester, (a steel ball in the loading press and calculate hardness from the indent)

My ingot of "pure" tested BHN 6.7
My WW ingot tested BNH 13
The commecial cast bullet tested BNH 18

All these numbers may be off a point or two, but they do show WW is softer that the commercial cast.

I think it should work out alright.

Thanks for all your responses and help

LB

[Shiloh]

The fellows have already said, and I agree, there is no way WW are too hard for reduce loads. My wadcutter boolits were cast from WW and fired as low as 2.6 gr of Bullseye with fine accuracy. These were sized at .3583

I have read about very soft boolits in a .38. One gentleman who loads for a .38 S&W Mod 36 insisted on soft lead as it would mushroom from the reduced velocities of the snubby, where hard lead wouldn't.

Shiloh