How Hard Do Powder Coated .44 and .357 Light Cowboy Loads Need To Be?

[fredj338]

From my personal experience, you can get away with a lot softer alloy, but I would not go just lead and tin.

Granted, my experience has been primarily with 9mm but there has been a good bit of 38 SPL thrown in. With 38 SPL, loading fairly light target loads, a mix of range scrap + 2% tin thrown in yielded fine results. Accuracy was good and no leading in two revolvers. I've sent samples off of my alloys to be tested for each of the four batches of range scrap I've "smelted/cleaned/reclaimed". It always comes back at just a tad under 1% antimony and the rest lead. It is almost exclusively jacketed pistol ammo.

With 9mm - properly fit, this mix didn't work as well. Increasing the antimony to about 3% ensured that I didn't have a leading problem, but I did find that going a bit harder improved accuracy. I tested this in an HK with polygonal rifling. Have not tested it again in a new pistol with traditional rifling. I've finally settled on an alloy of 92/5/3 - ish as I've found for 9mm, the extra hardness- even with powder coating, helps. I recognize that is heresy to some, but the targets told the tale. Likely not a concern for light 44 SPL loads.

All powder coat has been obtained from Smoke here on the forum.

All bullets were sized using the appropriate Less sizer.

If it was me, I'd g

Even at low vel, 9mm is almost 2x the pressures of CAS revo loads. We are talking pure bunnyfart loads here, like 10J-12K psi. So pure coated lead will work just fine. I used to shoot CAS with 45colt running 200gr @ 700fps. I could get by with near pure lead & conventional soft lubes. I say near because I mixed pure & range scrap 50/50. If fill-out isn't there, add like 1/2% tin.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

From my personal experience, you can get away with a lot softer alloy, but I would not go just lead and tin.

Granted, my experience has been primarily with 9mm but there has been a good bit of 38 SPL thrown in. With 38 SPL, loading fairly light target loads, a mix of range scrap + 2% tin thrown in yielded fine results. Accuracy was good and no leading in two revolvers. I've sent samples off of my alloys to be tested for each of the four batches of range scrap I've "smelted/cleaned/reclaimed". It always comes back at just a tad under 1% antimony and the rest lead. It is almost exclusively jacketed pistol ammo.

With 9mm - properly fit, this mix didn't work as well. Increasing the antimony to about 3% ensured that I didn't have a leading problem, but I did find that going a bit harder improved accuracy. I tested this in an HK with polygonal rifling. Have not tested it again in a new pistol with traditional rifling. I've finally settled on an alloy of 92/5/3 - ish as I've found for 9mm, the extra hardness- even with powder coating, helps. I recognize that is heresy to some, but the targets told the tale. Likely not a concern for light 44 SPL loads.

All powder coat has been obtained from Smoke here on the forum.

All bullets were sized using the appropriate Less sizer.

If it was me, I'd g

Didn't Elmer Keith use a alloy that was just lead and tin for his 44 mag?
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...-s-Elmer-Keith