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Thread: Round Ball loads for .357 revolver?

  1. #41
    Boolit Master Drm50's Avatar
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    I use 375" round balls cast soft and run through sizer, aloxed.

  2. #42
    Boolit Buddy Reverend Recoil's Avatar
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    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

  3. #43
    Boolit Master

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    Quote Originally Posted by Reverend Recoil View Post
    I load 0.454 round balls for my 45 ACP revolver. The 45 Auto Rim seating die put a perfect roll crimp on them.
    what's your powder charge and load?

  4. #44
    Boolit Master
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    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.

  5. #45
    Boolit Master
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    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.

  6. #46
    Boolit Master

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    Quote Originally Posted by johnson1942 View Post
    i have a 38 special and all i usually shoot is resized roundballs bought in the bulk cheap. i got a push through .357 resizer and push .380 round balls through it and load them over blackhorn 209 powderwith a 357 60 thousands thick fiber wad between powder and ball. they are pushed even with the top of the case and roll crimped over the ball slightly. they shoot very very accurate and never lead. cheap to shoot, easy to load and accurate. i use no lube but as suggested it wouldnt hurt to coat in leealox. they, of course are not magnum loads but duplicate the loads of the 1800/s and and are only slightly hotter. the gun is a 1871 1872 open top uberti colt clone 38 special. in the very very near future im going to get a uberti 38 special man with not name handgun. will shoot the same load in it. this thanksgiveing my 14 year old grandson could keep a cylinder full in a playing card at 15 yards off hand. in the center of the card. was like watching wild bill do it, go ahead, a roundball can be lots of fun and very very accurate.

    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.

  7. #47
    Boolit Master trapper9260's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom W. View Post
    Just an aside, but isn't a .357 / .38 special a 36 caliber? .003 ain't that much....
    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

  8. #48
    Boolit Buddy
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    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

  9. #49
    Boolit Master

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    Quote Originally Posted by PerpetualStudent View Post
    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.
    Not enough unique. I had that problem early on working up some pop gun loads for my daughter. After 3 or 4 squibs with 2.8 of unique an older gent at the lgs suggested magnum primers for light loads of unique and haven't had a squib since (knock on wood)
    "In God we trust, in all others, check the manual!"

  10. #50
    Boolit Buddy
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    I used small pistol primers so that might be part of it as well.
    "There are no solutions there are only tradeoffs" ~ Thomas Sowell

  11. #51
    The Brass Man Four-Sixty's Avatar
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    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'

  12. #52
    Boolit Master
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    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.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

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