.357 Mag. with Kieth 170 gr. Boolit

[Char-Gar]

There is nothing wrong with 3 to 3.5 inch 50 yard groups.

[NHlever]

For one reason, or another, that boolit the Lyman 358429 either works, or doesn't work for folks, and there doesn't seem to be much in between. The more I read about it, the more I wonder why this is. Up front I have to say that I have many other .358 molds, and haven't used that one, but I sure am curious. The design seems good with lots of bearing surface, and a wide bottom driving band. Elmers designs usually shoot pretty well though in my guns the Thompson designs have always been slightly better. In .357 I like the Lee RF designs pretty well too. Back to the 358429, I wonder if the nose of that boolit is just so long that the front driving band doesn't ever get into the throats of most cylinders before it sticks out the front? It would be interesting to take enough off the front of a few of them so that they could be crimped in the crimp groove in standard .357 mag cases, and see how they shoot. It would give you a larger meplat too.

[Love Life]

There is nothing wrong with 3 to 3.5 inch 50 yard groups.

Unless you are shooting mini animals like the giraff from the Direct TV commercial.

[fecmech]

The 358429 is a very accurate bullet IMO and also plain base bullets can perform very well at magnum velocities. In the groups below the 2 paper plates were shot at 100 yds with 358429 at 1630 FPS in a Rossi lever gun. The one 10 shot group was 2.75" and the other also 2.75" for 9 shots, I wiffed #10! The revolver targets above are 20 shot groups which are a series of four 5 shot groups where I move the paper behind the main target to catch each individual group along with the total. The left target was shot using just 1 bullet from a 4 cav mold and the other was using a mix of all the bullets from the mold. The average 5 shot group size for the groups was 1.91" and these were chrono'd at about 1250 FPS so you don't need to go slow to get accuracy with PB bullets. Elmer designed a pretty good bullet I think!

[Frank]

Lyman 358429:



fecmech: What BH are you using with the boolit?

[fecmech]

I'm guessing you mean BHN?? The revolver groups above were shot with a 50/50 ww/lino bullet. Group averages open up approx 1" with ACWW. The rifle groups were shot with ACWW. The rifles do not seem to need the 50/50 mix as it shoots no better than ACWW in the rifles.

[Frank]

fecmech:

I'm guessing you mean BHN?? The revolver groups above were shot with a 50/50 ww/lino bullet. Group averages open up approx 1" with ACWW. The rifle groups were shot with ACWW. The rifles do not seem to need the 50/50 mix as it shoots no better than ACWW in the rifles.

I see. So you also tried ACWW's. Did you every try WD anything?

[fecmech]

fecmech:
I see. So you also tried ACWW's. Did you every try WD anything?

I tried one brief test with some WDWW bullets and they shot no better than the ACWW. I am not sure why that was but did not pursue it. The 50/50 mix works and I have a fair amount of lino. My high volume shooting is .38 spl for Hunters Pistol and .38 level loads in my rifles. I probably shoot slightly less than 1000 rds per year now of mag level handgun loads.

[TCLouis]

It may just not be that accurate of a gun in the first place. Not all revolvers seem to have the cutting edge accuracy we all expect these days.
I saw were you opened the cylinder throats to .358" what does the barrel slug out to be?
Will it shoot the funny coated bullets any better?

I have found some guns to be very persnickety with the loads they like, some much more than others.

My SRH likes most anything and loves lots of loads. My GP100 is a different story so far.

Oh, how are you "resting the gun for the load developement.

[TCLouis]

Duplicate post information removed by author

[Johnw...ski]

It may just not be that accurate of a gun in the first place. Not all revolvers seem to have the cutting edge accuracy we all expect these days.
I saw were you opened the cylinder throats to .358" what does the barrel slug out to be?
Will it shoot the funny coated bullets any better?

I have found some guns to be very persnickety with the loads they like.

My SRH likes most anything and loves lots of loads. My GP100 is a different story so far

Well I did shoot 125 gr. JHP with WW 296 powder, didn't bother looking up the load since there is only one, these shot great and I didn't have any reason to bench rest them. They were left over rounds from another revolver from way back when and I used the last of them up. Like I mentioned earlier I had some 158 gr.
SWC GC that seemed acccurate and again I had no reason to bench rest them for groups.

As for a rest I am using a rifle rest with a v-bag and resting the barrel in the v.
The groups were so bad with the 170 gr. PB boolits it looked like I didn't know how to shoot or wasn't focusing on the front sight. I am a little more experienced than that and have been simultaneously been working on loads for my BFR 45-70
(see 45-70 Revolver thread) and was getting some really nice groups with that so I am sure the problem wasn't me.

I didn't bother slugging the barrel, I know I should, but the boolits I am using are
.358 dia. and are not going to work well if they get sized down before they reach the barrel.

I believe that the plain base boolits were getting the bases damaged, for whatever reason, and then were not leaving the barrel cleanly. The leading I was seeing was not the classic leading that is really stuck to the barrel. It was more like some lead shards that could be removed with a patch while cleaning.

Anyway I am reasonably happy with the level of accuracy I have acheived (3" to
3-1/2" at 50 yds.) and I can still play with loads if I want to try improving the groups. I'll just take the easy way out and use gas checked boolits. This is not a gun I expect to use a lot anyway. Now, I am having so much fun with the 45-70 revolver, I expect to shoot that one a lot, but thats another story.

John

[leadman]

Alliant says to use standard primers, not magnum with 2400. Yes, it does make a difference in my S&W 27-2.
The barrel dimensions could be less than ideal so should be checked. Also run a tight fitting patch in the bore to check for a barrel restriction where it is screwed into the frame.

I have shot that boolit into gallon milk jugs at 100 yards consistently when plinking. Sold the mold and bought a Saeco 180gr RFN and less hassle and better accurracy.