What hardness for .38-55 hollow points?

[mcooper]

Hello all, I got a great hollow point mold from NOE for my .38-55.


I’ll be loading from 1600-1800fps and was wondering what what alloy I should use in hopes of getting expansion from 50-150 yards so about 1600-1300 feet per second.

[hockeynick39]

What alloy(s) do you have now? Have you slugged the bore/ chamber and have a sizer for correct groove obturation?

[Outpost75]

At the velocity are talking about, and GC bullet COWW will expand, but will also probably blow the nose off.

[Jeff Michel]

I shoot the same bullet. 50% PB, 50% COWW.

[Chill Wills]

That may be a lot of velocity for that HP nose to both expand and not shed its nose too.

Some experimenting is in order to know for sure what will happen. Of course, testing gets us out shooting which is always good for both tuning up a hunting load and just plain tuning up the rifleman.

If you have access to un-mixed soft lead and tin, I would try some small batches starting at 20-1 lead-tin. You can go to 15-1 or 10-1 and each will be stronger.
There are other ways, more complicated ways to get there, but that one is the shortest route to a good game load. If you had to back off on velocity just a little to make things work and shoot more to know the "hold for the load" at your likely hunting distances, you can (again) shoot more and solve that problem too.

Now, the question of what to shoot into to test the HP bullets to resemble the type of game you are after.
I've done a lot of catching bullets and will let that subject pass in this reply.

Have fun.

[John Boy]

I’ll be loading from 1600-1800fps and was wondering what what alloy I should use in hopes of getting expansion from 50-150 yards so about 1600-1300 feet per second.

m cooper - Why Ask? The answer is on the bullet print out you posted - Lower Left Hand Corner!
2000 fps or higher - Use Linotype

[mcooper]

m cooper - Why Ask? The answer is on the bullet print out you posted - Lower Left Hand Corner!
2000 fps or higher - Use Linotype

I figure that’s just the alloy that gets them the quoted weight.

My bore is .379 and I have a lee resizer that will get me to .380. I have wheel weight lead now. Looks like Tim/pb combos or 50/50 lead/coww will be a starting point. I’ll shoot into water to test my loads, it will show about what expansion I can expect.

[largom]

I figure that’s just the alloy that gets them the quoted weight.

My bore is .379 and I have a lee resizer that will get me to .380. I have wheel weight lead now. Looks like Tim/pb combos or 50/50 lead/coww will be a starting point. I’ll shoot into water to test my loads, it will show about what expansion I can expect.

Add about 2 % tin to the 50/50 and go from there.
Larry