"Full-Charge" .38 Special Wadcutter Loads

[gnostic]

Titegroup is my go to powder as of late, it's much cleaner burning than Bullseye. Also, the wadcutter has so many grease grooves, that Bullseye and all that grease will make a big mess and lots of smoke in short order...

[SSGOldfart]

Well I'm going to say each to their own opinions. As you can see there is as many who like bullseye as their is that don't.I'm a fan of bullseye I've tried others at times my colt really likes 3.7gr. bullseye Full loads with a 158 gr. hard cast and 3.5gr with the 148 gr. wadcutters. I've only made a little over a million rounds now.

[ackleyman]

I have shot a lot of different 38's.

2.9g of bullseye with a 148 WC was usually the most accurate around 800 fps in a 6" barrels. As I went up in the powder charge, groups were blown.

[StrawHat]

I shot thousands of rounds of PPC ammunition (2.7 BE, 148 DEWC, 38 Special brass). I probably filled a couple of 5 gallon pails with spent primers. All those loads were soft lead.

I also used the hard lead, full charge load in my 36-1. It hit hard and was accurate out to as far as I wanted to shoot the round. As I recall, I used the Lee 6 cavity, 150 DEWC mold cast hard and 3.5 BE.

Kevin

(edit 18 May)

To cut down on the amount of smoke, I only lubed one groove.

Kevin

[RJM52]

I know they are not cast, but has anyone tried the Berry's plated 148s in either the DE or HB design...

https://www.berrysmfg.com/products/p...-pistol/38-357

Bought a box of the HB a few years ago when I happened upon a S&W Model 52 and never ended up loading for it....

[mdi]

Well, to add to the "I use" posts, I use a charge just a hair under max. of W231 under my cast 150 gr. DEWC (BHN approx 12). I lube with my version of "Speed Green" and size to the same diameter as the cylinder throats. They work very well in my 3" 38 for my "house gun" and pretty accurate in my 357 (with Special brass). I like the idea of a full caliber flat nose going relatively fast for heavy tissue damage and not over penetrate my walls out into the neighborhood..

[Adam Helmer]

The Lyman 44th Edition Reloading Manual on page 120 lists 6.8 grains of Unique and a 141 grain .38 Special wadcutter as the accuracy load with a muzzle velocity of 1295 fps. I have shot it a lot in my .38 Specials.

Adam

[tazman]

The Lyman 44th Edition Reloading Manual on page 120 lists 6.8 grains of Unique and a 141 grain .38 Special wadcutter as the accuracy load with a muzzle velocity of 1295 fps. I have shot it a lot in my .38 Specials.

Adam

Yes it does. That said, I think that load is suspect since newer manuals don't suggest anything near that as being a max load.
The Lyman 49th manual lists 5.7grains of Unique as max for a 120 grain boolit.

[FergusonTO35]

Been using 3.2 grains Bullseye under the Lee and Lyman 148 grain wadcutter for years with excellent results. Clocks 712 fps in my snub nose S&W and Charter revolvers and more accurate than I can take advantage of. I seat 'em so the case mouth crimps into the topmost groove like a stubby SWC.

[PBSmith]

I was getting good accuracy with the 3.5 grains Bullseye, then things went to pot when I ran out of Hercules and had to use newer Alliant propellant. Got to run that one again and see if it's me or the powder.

Thanks, all, for your input.

[Outpost75]

I was getting good accuracy with the 3.5 grains Bullseye, then things went to pot when I ran out of Hercules and had to use newer Alliant propellant. Got to run that one again and see if it's me or the powder.

Thanks, all, for your input.

I have shot both side-by-side and noticed no difference. You can get equally good results running the same weight of either TiteGroup, WST or even 452AA if you still have any of that from the 1980s-90s..

[JM7.7x58]

I tested a new load this weekend. I had been looking for a +P load. Not a lot of WC data out there for +P loads. What I came up with was this, a water quenched 148 gr. Lee TL WC (lube: 45/45/10), over 3.5 gr. AA No.2, OAL 1.155".

I made a mistake when I loaded these, I seated them way to deep. This of course increased pressure. This is also a max load of AA No.2 in the Lyman manual with a 150 gr. WC. However the Lyman should be loaded farther out at OAL 1.317".

At this point I started reading a lot. My question was, can .38 special brass take .357 pressures in a .357 revolver? The internet's answer to this seemed to be "yes" or "maybe". I cut some brass in half with a hacksaw. I cut a .38 special, a 9mm, and a .357. I did not see much difference in brass thickness.

I still had no idea what the pressures for this load could be. Then I started looking at 9mm loads in the 2nd Edition Lee Manual. 9mm is of course almost the same diameter as .38 special, but is a much shorter package that runs at much higher pressures. This load in particular caught my eye, 9mm 145 gr. cast ACCUR #2, 3.7gr., 893fps, 24100 CUP, 1.140 OAL. My load and this one are very close. After I saw this load and it's shorter OAL and slightly larger powder charge I decided my load, in my gun, was safe to shoot. The pressure is above +P .38 special, but well below max .357 pressures.

I shot this out of a six inch Ruger Security Six .357 Mag. It shot great. No leading, and pretty accurate.Everything worked out just fine.

JM

[Outpost75]

Well within design limits of a Ruger Six series. They are stout guns.

[Good Cheer]

If the goal is to get higher velocity WC's remember that seating the boolit out is your friend. The proviso there is of course that your chamber throat diameter determines the boolit diameter that you can push into it.

NEI had a gas checked wadcutter design that was hard to beat for moving meat. For 357's I loaded it with 296. Only used 38's and Bullseye for rabbits.

[ddixie884]

The 45th Lyman book also lists that 6.8gr Unique load under the 141gr #358495 WC. I have never loaded it but copyright is 1970.....

[smkummer]

When this discussion comes up, it appears just simple to use a 158 SWC which benefits from not seating so deep to make pressure rise rapidly with a deep seated full wadcutters. The SWC penetrates better, retains higher energy, makes holes in paper almost as well as a full wadcutter, chambers better from a speed loader. Hope I am not raining on anyone’s parade. I stick with 3 grains bullseye with the lee tumble lube solid wadcutter for indoor and practice at close range.

[curioushooter]

My two cents:

Never found any powder better in 357 (for less than maximum power) or 38 special than Unique. Newer Unique is cleaner, too. I have a friend who abandoned Unique decades ago because he claimed it was dirty. I loaded some up recently and showed him it is not...anymore at least.

It doesn't really seem to matter what the bullet weight is as long as it is not a super heavyweight (180 grainer) or flyweight (110 grainer). From 125 grains to through 168 (which is what my 358429 casts up with my alloy). I have simply found no powder as basically accurate or consistent in velocity.

If I want to get maximum velocity I use slower powders like 2400 or AA#9 or Win296 or 300MP in 357. With a revolver of normal barrel length 4-5" these powders produce only 100-200 FPS more velocity and are almost always less accurate for me. With snubbies I am pretty sure there is even less difference but I've never had a 357 snubbie to test.

I have messed around with Tightgroup and Trailboss. I would say that perhaps Tightgroup is slightly better in terms of accuracy with certain loads, but hardly noticeable, not more of a difference than other factors with cast booits for sure. It doesn't get the velocities that Unique can either. This was when I was interested in wadcutters. I don't really have any interest in them anymore. Trailboss has a serious lack of data and only what I call mouse fart loads seem to be listed. I also don't like Tightgroup because it is extremely hazardous with large capacity cases...especially narrow ones like 38/357. A double charge of Tightgroup is not necessarily visible and will blow apart a revolver. Unique and Trailboss don't have this problem because of their bulkiness.

[Walks]

I used to load the Lyman #358495 WC over 3.5grs of Bullseye. WC weighed 145grs when cast of my every day alloy of 50/50 COWW/#2.

I had a practice back in my younger years of cycling my .357Mag & .44Mag down thru various pressure loadings.

I would buy Mag brass and load it hot 4 times. Or Ammo and load it hot 3 times.
Then I would step my loads down in pressure.
Regarding .357Mag only.
I would then load 170gr SWC's over a medium charge of Unique for 3 loads. A great accurate load for punching Paper or rolling Bunny's.

Then down to that WC load of 3.5grs of Bullseye. Accurate for anything.

And I used it in my NM Blackhawk for "Woods Walking" in the mid to late 1970's.
Killed a lot of Rattlers in the Hills east of Los Angeles over the years. And not a few Cottontails.

And those things about Unique being dirty, that changed in the 1990's. Hercules or maybe Alliant cleaned up all the their old powders. They are much cleaner now.

And that thing about .357Mag brass being no heavier then .38Spl.
Back in the late 1970's I read somewhere that .38Spl +P cases were as heavy as .357Mag brass. So My Dad and I sectioned a .38Spl case, a .38Spl +P and a .357Mag case.
There was a difference, the .357Mag and .38Spl +P had the same case head and wall thickness. The std .38Spl was a bit thinner.
All this brass came from freshly purchased ammo and was shot up at the time. If it's different now, I can't say but it was different 40yrs ago.

[tazman]

When this discussion comes up, it appears just simple to use a 158 SWC which benefits from not seating so deep to make pressure rise rapidly with a deep seated full wadcutters. The SWC penetrates better, retains higher energy, makes holes in paper almost as well as a full wadcutter, chambers better from a speed loader. Hope I am not raining on anyone’s parade. I stick with 3 grains bullseye with the lee tumble lube solid wadcutter for indoor and practice at close range.

If the 358432 wadcutter was not available, I would agree with you completely. I realize it is a special case for a wadcutter but it is available and it works really well, particularly at full power.

[curioushooter]

I've sectioned several brands of 357 mag brass and 38 special brass as well as two brands of 357 Max.

Needless to say I was completely unsurprised by any of it. Both Starline and Remington 357 max brass is thicker than any 357 mag. And in the case of the Starline will take a small rifle primer. All the 357 Mag brass was thicker than the 38 special.

The same is true of 38-55, 30-30, and 375 Winchester, too.