Just shot some awesome boolits!

[357shooter]

Thank to theperfessor who sent me some 38 cal 125 FP boolits to try out.

I've had them for awhile but got sidetracked as I upgraded my press (went progressive) and am finally back online. So today I was able to take time to load and shoot them at my local range.

This is my first experience even seeing tumble lubed boolits, and these are sweet shooting and accurate. I don't know what the lead alloy is, but I loaded them over my favorite load of 700x, 2.8 grains and applied a medium crimp (everything in my Taurus 85 ultralite snubby take some crimp, at 17oz).

Wow, very clean, very sweet shooting and to the POA. I could have shot another couple of hundred or more. That's nice in a pocket carry snub nose.

The barrel was just as clean when done as when I started too. Gotta figure out how theperfessor applied the TL (I know, he tumbled them...). I decided to try it myself using some Alox, JPW and mineral spirits, but I may have gotten the mix a little off as there was some dirt in the barrel after shooting mine. It cleaned up pretty easily though.

Thanks to theperfessor for sending me the great boolits!

[theperfessor]

You're very welcome. Glad to hear you had a good time and found a good load. Those are Lee 125 RF bullets cast from a 6 cavity mold..As others have commented they don't look like the pictures in the catalogs, the nose is longer and there is no bevel base. They are not a tumble lube design. It make a nice 9mm bullet as well as .38/.357. (My Hi Power likes .358 cast bullets.)

Actually they aren't tumble lubed, they were run through a .358 die in my Lyman 450 luber/sizer. The lube is some type of commercial Alox (Lyman or RCBS probably) and doesn't need to be heated. Its a little messy sometimes but I've found that if I have a good greasy lube star at the muzzle and size the bullet properly I don't ever get much leading with reasonable loads in anything I shoot (knock on wood). I work with greasy things all the time and don't have a problem wiping things off when needed.

The alloy is WWs with just a little 50/50 bar solder added for fill out - it's hard keeping a Lee 6 cavity hot when casting small bullets. They drop from my mold at .3575 -.3585 but running them through a sizer rounds them out pretty good.

I may try to pick up some 700X the next time I stock up. I usually use Bullseye and 231 in .38, Unique and 2400 in .357, and Blue Dot in 9mm. Also may try some Red Dot, dealer was out the last time I had money in my pocket.

I think this bullet is one of Lee's best current designs and is extremely versatile in several calibers. I'd recommend it with the caveat that Lee's quality is sometimes spotty.

May try to drill a hollowpoint in some to get them down to 105-110 grs and see what happens.

[crabo]

I second the motion that is a great boolit. I've shot a ton of them in 38 special, 38 Super, and 357 mag. One of these days I am going to try them in my 9mm AR.

Should be a good small game boolit.