Anyone ever try the lee TL356-124-2r mold for the 38SPL?? I did.

[penguinchicken]

I tried this .356 mold for my .38 as some guys said they worked great. The only data I could find was for .358 125gr cast. I used 3.8gr of HP-38. They only flew around 200 FPS??!??!?
Any ideas?? Powder? load?
Tried it through my black hawk 357 and my Rossi 38 and the result was the same.

I can't find anything on here about people using this mold for .38 SPL.

[Nate1778]

I shoot a 125g RFP out of mine with 4.6 grains of HP38. Certainly going a lot faster than 200fps. Are you getting any leading, might be some blow by with that bullet. My GP100 slugs at .358 and you mold which I use in 9mm throws as cast at .358. Bullet may be letting a lot of gas out, but you should see some leading.

[dragonrider]

I am shooting the 356-120TC in my 357 GP-100, so far the result are very promising. Using 8.5 grns of Winchester 540.

[penguinchicken]

no, did not see much leading. Of course most of the trials were through a 2" pipe!
I was only using 3.8, if you are having luck with 4.6 then I will give that a try.
What alloy are you using? I am using 50/50 ww/pb water quenched. I recovered one of the shot boolits and it looked like it had never been fired!


http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?pid=30733428&id=1009326668&fbid=1304887214808

[penguinchicken]

Huh, don't know why that pic did not come up. Is there a size limit?

[penguinchicken]

There we go.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/picture.php?albumid=296&pictureid=2032

[Nate1778]

I am at the same alloy as you, it may not be big enough, have you slugged your barrel? I would slug it and measure a boolit as cast. There are grooves there but from this layman it does not look like it touched the outer wall, I would have thought it would have melted the exterior though, may not in that short of a barrel. I usually size my .38 bullets at .358-.359.

[kyle623]

Yep, looks like your getting blowby, engraving is only slight. open up the mold some.

[Cloudpeak]

I've had good luck with both the Lee 105gr SWC and Lee 124 TL/125 non-TL 2R RN bullets in my S&W 620. Both bullets are sized .357-.3575". I shot 150 rounds of the 105's yesterday and had no leading (using LLA).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v620/WyoBob/Guns/DSCN2127.jpg