Made an awesome trade yesterday

[kweidner]

I traded my new model SBH .44 for a Smith model 357PD (41 mag). I love it. Came with 200 rounds of ammo, and an El Paso holster. He couldn't group with it and my SBH has a reputation for being a heck of a shooter. Just a small amount of money to make up the difference.
I know now why he couldn't group with it. A 25oz 41 mag with full house loads is a bit eye opening to say the least. I developed some lower power loads today with Trailboss. Went from wild and scattered in full house to very comfortable and accurate. All groups were around 2" at 25 with the best hovering about 1.7. I am having to learn the gun and sights but it really shows promise.
I have pin gauges and all cylinders are .4095 Nice! No barrel restriction and the bore slugs to .4091 best I can tell as 5 grooves prove hard to measure for me.
I loaded up 50 of that best load today and am going to run them over the chrony and stretch them out a bit tomorrow. I figure around 900fps.
Not many guns I have ever gotten were that dimensionaly correct from the get go. Everything I ran today showed zero leading. All loads were with a 220k sized to .410. I even ran some of my hunting loads for my dan wesson in it. Admittedly I am going to have to work up to that one. Next though will be medium power and Unique.

If you ever get a chance to hold a 357 or 329 pd you should try it. Just make sure if you shoot it not to run fullhouse loads the first cylinder.

This is going to make an awesome companion gun in the woods for me. I don't even know it's there when on my belt. When I am not strictly hand gun hunting, I can wear it. The Dan is a bit heavy as a companion gun.

Sorry pictures always go upside down when uploaded from my IPad!

[Fire_Medic]

Awesome man congrats. Keep us posted on the progress with the loads.

[osteodoc08]

Man o man I've been wanting one of these to add to the collection but are harder to find than hens teeth.

[kweidner]

Yep figured I could always buy another SBH pretty easy. I love the .41 mag. My Dan Wesson 41 did to me like my first cast boolit. I always wanted the 357 but being they don't make it anymore, I figured I would never own one. People that have them might not shoot them much but they generally don't let the go. I will be the one that shoots mine a ton rest assured.

[MtGun44]

Watch the little steel insert just above the back end of the bbl. Powder gases will eventually
cut thru it and then if you don't send it pack to S&W for a new one, start cutting thru the
frame.

Bill

[Groo]

Groo here
I hate you,,, there goes another one!!!!!!!
The 41 just goes with an N frame Soooooo nice....

[Clay M]

The atomic rooster. I'll bet the recoil is rough. Would make a nice gun for hiking of backpacking in. Congratulations on a nice trade.

[kweidner]

Update....Not near as fast as I had hoped. Mid 7,s with trailboss. Accurate though. 24 out of 24 at 75 yards on my 8" steel plate and about 3.5 -4" group. I will keep this load for plinking as it is really nice to shoot. I'm gonna have to wring some more speed out of it for PP and insid 50yd targets of opportunity. I guess Unique is the next order of business. I had some 200 lees from long ago I needed to burn for my brass back. They too were pretty accurate 75% on that plate. I quit with that mold when I had Tom build my 220k. They chronied 1150 in it and weren't bad really. It was unique but I don't remember the charge. I will have to look and see what that load was. In that 220k it might be the ticket. Very tolerable!


On another note I took my Dan along for the ride with the 6" and ran my accuracy load for it through the chrony. 1370fps! Ran six cylinders on that plate at 75 until I got bored with it. The DW with that custom barrel is just stupid accurate.

[MGD]

Awesome, I got a 329 3 years ago. My hunting buddy latched on when shooting it. The lightwieght N-frames are great field guns. If you are looking for a lightwieght boolit for your M357, message me I have the H&G 255 175gr wadcutter mold. Can send you some to try.

[kweidner]

Awesome, I got a 329 3 years ago. My hunting buddy latched on when shooting it. The lightwieght N-frames are great field guns. If you are looking for a lightwieght boolit for your M357, message me I have the H&G 255 175gr wadcutter mold. Can send you some to try.

Thank you much, I am going to try these 220k over unique first. I went back and looked my old load of the 200 Lee was 9.5 grains unique. I loaded 5 loads this morning I will test at lunch from 7.5 grains to 9.5. I also ordered a set of decelerator grips to help with the web sting ln hotter loads. Had a set of hogues that came with the gun but backstrap was still exposed. They just didn't fit well. Stay tuned.

[Garyshome]

Congrads...great deal.

[44man]

Just NOT going to do much until you turn the gun right side up!

[roysha]

Just NOT going to do much until you turn the gun right side up!

Now wait just a minute! Back in the 50s when I was a kid, Dick Tracy (anyone here remember Dick Tracy?)had a series of comic strips where he shot his gun upside down, using his little finger to pull the trigger, if I recall correctly.

Ergo, I think the OP should be able to shoot it upside down too.

[John Allen]

Those PD's are slick I have been wanting one for awhile now. Great Trade.

[MGD]

Go to Smith and Wesson and order the grip that they put on the X-frame(500 or 460). It is not available except through Smith. It will cut down recoil significantly.

[big dale]

I had a Blackhawk with the 4 5/8 inch barrel back in the mid 60's for about a decade. I settled on a load of around 10 grains of Herco for most of my shooting with a 240 grain boolit from a Lee mold. You might want to try using up a pound of Herco with midrange loads just to see if you iike them in your gun. I wish I still had that gun, but you seldom see them anymore. I just love the 41 mag.

Have fun with this stuff.

Big Dale

[kweidner]

Did some range testing with unique today. Started at 7.5 grains and went to 10.5. Too overcast and windy for chrony. Maybe a fluke but when I got to 10gr I had 5 in a 1 inch cluster and one flyer. Go figure. I was on my lunch break and kind of pushing it time wise. Loaded 50 more of those tonight and if the rain will hold off I will try those for consistency tomorrow. They are a little snappy but not really too bad. Would not be good upside down firing with pinky Bet they are over 1000 though. Plenty for a hunting round for that gun. Still haven't found the holy grail of target load. Plenty under 2" but none really that scream load all your personal brass with this yet. I really like that trailboss load. Got a pach decelerator on the way. Hate the v notch rear sight. That will be next. I like a target sight. My best friend owns lgs and thinks he has some. I will tackle that tomorrow. Thanks for the bullseye idea. I reload commercially on the side and have 30# of BE currently in stock. 5gr would be ideal as I could just swap powder dropper off my 45acp dillon when I loaded 41.

[kweidner]

I further refined my trailboss load. Instead of using max on a similar bullet in hodgdon data, I did the advice from their website giving the proper way to find unknown bullet load. With my RP cases, to the base of the boolit I could fit 7.7 grains. Worked all the way up from the 5.5 to the 7.7. At 6.6 grains things started to show promise over the Chrony. At 6.8 I thought something might be wrong with chrony as the speeds were ridiculous close. 7.0 exhibited an extreme spread like the 6.6 grain around 15fps. 6.8 grains only had a 5fps ES! I had to go load 15 more to verify that. Now a 20 shot string and a 5fps ES! A 781 fps ave which is slower than I really wanted but I will take it. It shoots less than 2" at 25 with that v notch I am learning to hate. New blade is on the way gun shop was out. I honestly think that 2" will turn much smaller once I install the proper target sight!