How fast do you push your .38 Special Wadcutters?

Just bought my first .38 Wadcutter mold, a Lyman 358495 4 banger. Should be here today. :)

Read a lot of posts, there seems to be a ton of different loads running from the 750's to 1000+.

I know there's a lot of variables; alloy, 148 vs 160gn, 25 vs 50 yards, targets, tin cans or varmints, etc. Just asking what your favorite/standard wadcutter load chrono's at. If you'd like to list your load, what you use it for and why you picked it, that'd be great too.

I plan on using 50/50 COWW/SOWW with 2% tin, either Clays or Titegroup for targets/plinking to 50yds. Figure 850 fps or so +/- dependent on best accuracy. My Saeco 382 loads chrono at 860 and hope to get the sights close to that POI.

Jim

Article on Castpics 143 g WC with 5.3 Unique 1080 fps http://www.castpics.net/subsite2/ByC...%20Special.pdf

In 38 i keep them in the 800 to 900 f/s range in 2001 when ii was practicing before taking my CPL class i loaded 357 mag cases with wad cutters to around 1000 f/s they were tack drivers at 25 yds accurate at 50 yds and some were around 75 yards started to yaw at 100 yards they could be 6 feet from point of aim. I just set the progressive press to load the Lyman wadcutter with 3.8 grains of Red Dot i have them powder coated instead of lubed last batch were tack drivers loaded with Green Dot.

I load wadcutters over various powders and to different velocities. That's partly due to the fact I have some older powders I'm trying to use up. My approach to loading any cast bullet is to get top accuracy out of the gun I'm loading for. So I'd let your gun tell you what load it prefers.

I've shot wadcutters well past 100 yds and have found them to be reasonably accurate for such use when plinking. I even took some rediculously long shots just to see if I could kick up some water in a distant pond and sure enough I was able to do so once I figured out the elevation.

The last batch of bullets I reloaded was 148 grains wadcutters with a velocity of 682 fps average @ 10' from the muzzle. Excellent plinking load with almost no recoil using my ruger GP100 6". I love this load. :)

Arthritic old guy...shoot a GP100 among other guns and really like Trail Boss powder with a Missouri "cowboy" 125 grain boolit with a 12 hardness....just sort of lopes along...really accurate and very very minor leading if any at all...soft and gentle on the old hands for a day at the range.

Right around 850fps. It's a hollow base design and I have no desire to blow the skirt off.

800-850 of I were gonna load a wadcutter. Same velocity I load my SWC. Easy on me and the gun. Minimal powder. Loads of fun.

It's been a while since I've reposted this.

http://www.grantcunningham.com/blog_...7dbd9-932.html

I too cast my own DEWC, so I don't have any real velocity restrictions.

Factory stuff runs allegedly 770 fps, though When I chronographed some Federals I had it was more like 690 from a 4 inch M-66. I load mine low. I have shot many, many thousands loaded with 2.8 grains of Red Dot, along 2.7 grains of Bullseye, those don't get over 750 fps. I have loaded the 358-432 over 4.0 grains of Red Dot, seated out to crimp in the crimp groove. Those move out over 900 fps

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Originally Posted by bhn22

It's been a while since I've reposted this.

http://www.grantcunningham.com/blog_...7dbd9-932.html

I too cast my own DEWC, so I don't have any real velocity restrictions.

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Some years back, Terry Murback wrote an article on full charge wadcutters in the 38 Special and 357 Magnum. This got me started with the effort. A couple of years back, Terry told me that he always keep coming back to the charge of 3.5/Bulleye for this purpose (38 Special) as it did the best over and over again. I don't think it surprising that Ed Harris came to the same conclusion. I follow suit and do the same.

Thanks for the link, it is a good one.

I use 3.0 grs bullseye in the 38 148gr wadcutters and 3.9 grs bullseye in the 45acp 200gr lwc. They both give excellent results at 25 yds.

2.7 grains of Bullseye under a Lee 148 WC TL out of WW WC gives me 717 fps in a Ruger BH 6", 831 fps in a 24" Rossi, and 746 fps in an 8" Contender. Standard deviation in all 3 guns is 20 fps or less. The Contender is scoped and at 25 yards shoots these into 1 ragged hole. Deadly on any small critters to be sure. I will likely move the next batch up to an even 3 grains of Bullseye.

McGivern shot a full power 38 wadcutter often one that was loaded on the range. I was always curious at what the load was, but was never able to find it. I do have his book...

Not very fast. If I want to shoot something faster I shoot a different bullet or I shoot a 357.

Only fast enough to be super accurate, it's a target load, accuracy not power is what it's about..

I shoot the 3.5 BE/148 DEWC combination for all WC shooting now. I know it's close to sacrilege, but I could use that load for all my .38 Special revolver shooting chores if that was necessary.

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Originally Posted by Wayne Dobbs

I shoot the 3.5 BE/148 DEWC combination for all WC shooting now. I know it's close to sacrilege, but I could use that load for all my .38 Special revolver shooting chores if that was necessary.

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Not a sacrilege at all, just good sense and experience. More that a few "old 38 hands" have come to the same conclusion.

A couple of thought re the 38 Special wadcutter.

The wadcutter came into being not because it was super accurate, but because it cut clean holes in the paper target. A clean hole was needed for good scoring and match winning.

A good RN is fully as accurate is not more so than any wadcutter every made, but makes ragged holes in paper if that matters. On game, it works well for full grown bull frogs, but above that there are better bullet shapes to employ. Bunnies are probably OK, but I would use a WC or SWC.

So, if a fellow does not have the need to punch clean holes in paper, why does he even want a wadcutter? The answer is "meplat", the flat end does as much damage to tissue as can be had in a cast 38 Special bullet. Therefore push it as fast as the standard pressures will allow without pushing the red line and doing something really stupid.

A full snort wadcutter in either the 38 Special case or the 357 Magnum case is very effective on living flesh, but does not carry the maximum accuracy as far as a semi-wadcutter, hence the purpose for the SWC.

Life and pistol shooting is full of compromises, so a fellow needs to know what he want his sixgun and load to do and be governed by that knowledge. There is a place for RN, WC and SWC in sixgun shooting, but those places are different. There may be some overlap in use, but the operative word is "some".

Haven't loaded my own, but factory reloads out of a 4-inch go maybe 720 fps and they make our big jackrabbits fall over at 25-40 yards like you flipped a switch on the Energizer Bunny. FLOP!