I use 375" round balls cast soft and run through sizer, aloxed.
I use 375" round balls cast soft and run through sizer, aloxed.
I load 0.454 round balls for my 45 ACP revolver. The 45 Auto Rim seating die put a perfect roll crimp on them.
DRB #2276 President's Hundred 2021
I have been shooting .360 round lead balls through my revolvers and a single shot rifle for over 30 years. I heat treat the balls and tumble lube them with Johnson Paste Wax (JPW). I use Red Dot powder and seat the ball directly on top of the powder. 4 grains is a good starting load. No ignition problems and uniform velocities.
My efforts in this direction were with a soft lead .445 round ball in the .44 mag with a card wad and lube cookie over 8gr of Trail Boss. Accuracy was good - even better when cast of wheel weights. They swage down to throat diameter very nicely and have a good wedding band of engagement. Fairly snappy with 8gr. My inclination in .357 would be to use a .375 round ball, card wad, lube cookie over some TB, but I'm not sure how much. I'd start at 4gr and see how they act. I press them into unsized cases just enough to stay. I have no collet crimp for either and ball size prevents running them far enough into the seater die to crimp them. Another idea is to use .40 cal RB's sized in a .358 Lee push-through and seated like any boolit.
I can recall one of two naturally accurate guns and wonderful first time shooting outings. The first was a .32 Walter pp. I didn't try hard but it was a very small group without trying. You know one of those times at the range when someone wants you to enjoy their toy.
The other time that stunned me was shooting roundballs out of a Ruger old army. My buddies gun and my first time seeing it. 20 yards or so and all well in a playing card like you say. No shot it better than my 1911 that I owned a while.
I had seen that it is call a 36cal also a 38 cal and 35cal., As for seating the ball all the way down to the powder ,can you try put a card over the powder better yet 2 cards over the powder and then seat the ball like a single one. You will get the powder to work the way I think it needs to.I have not done anything yet with a round ball. but was reading this post and was thinking of the use of card over the powder that is press in.
Life Member of NRA,NTA,DAV ,ITA. Also member of FTA,CBA
Well, since I've updated it before I will again. I got squibs and the gun is off at the smith.
I had used the lee loader and I wanted to see if a crimp on a single 360 roundball would get ignition. So it was neck sized, 2.5 grains of Unique. And I set the roundball so the equator was just past the top of the case. Crimped it. And tried it.
First two rounds exited, hit about 6 inches low again. Wasn't getting complete combustion. I concentrated on sight picture and fired the last 3. I didn't notice the squib. So I think I stacked 3 of them. I tried to remove the squib with section of dowel and a mallet. Lost a piece of dowel in the barrel. Switched to brass cleaning rod and didn't do better. So it's off at the smith. I'm hoping I didn't destroy my barrel.
I'm at least done with a single roundball and unique. It's worked well with 2 roundballs and unique so I'll stick to that until I've got my actual press set up and am casting and lubing proper bullets. This might be the poster child of "penny wise and pound foolish". And I had thought I was being so careful.
"There are no solutions there are only tradeoffs" ~ Thomas Sowell
"In God we trust, in all others, check the manual!"
I used small pistol primers so that might be part of it as well.
"There are no solutions there are only tradeoffs" ~ Thomas Sowell
I've stuck a few boolits playing with the light loads as well. I just spray some kroil down the bore and let it sit with the barrel tipped up over night. I use a threaded rod wrapped with electrical tape and beat the boolit out the next day. I'm more concerned with holding the gun while doing this, than harming the barrel.
"...journalism may be the greatest plague we face today - as the world becomes more and more complicated and our minds are trained for more and more simplification"
Nassim Taleb
'Fooled by Randomness'
back in the day a lot of cops carried a double barreled derringer as a backup last ditch gun. a friend an I made up made up 3 ball loads in .357 cases. we used .375 round balls run the a .358 sizer. they went over big. I don't know if any were ever used in anger.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |