Advice needed on 38 wadcutters

[carlv]

I have several semi-autos that shoot .38 Special wadcutters with
bullets seated flush with the case mouth :
S&W Model 52 (.354 bore)
Clark 1911 (.353 bore)
SIG P240 (.354 bore)
Colt Midrange (.3575 bore)
I'm struggling to find a bullet that shoots accurately in the .353/.354 guns.
Groups with commercial .357/.358 bullets (swaged and cast, plain base and hollow base) have been unimpressive.

1. An old article from Gil Hebard claimed that .356 bullets work best.
Indeed, H&G made several wadcutter designs in .356 specifically for these guns.
What diameter are folks sizing wadcutters for use in semi-autos ?
Is it practical to size .358 bullets down to .355 or .356, or should I
look for a .356 mold ?

2. An old E.H Harrison article regarding wadcutter accuracy in revolvers
claimed that linotype shot better than softer alloys.
However most factory wadcutter ammo is loaded with relatively soft bullets.
Any advice on what alloys work best in this application ?

[rintinglen]

In the late 70's I had a Colt wadcutter gun. I ran cramer 16H through it (a 358-495 copy). It worked just fine with plain old wheel weights. I suspect that a late production Lyman mold in 358-495 would cast small enough to allow sizing to the 356 range. Lyman molds have a reputation for casting small these days, and they have only recently discontinued the old 358-495, so you ought to be able to turn one up pretty easily.
I am surprised to hear that you were not getting good accuracy with factory swaged HB WC's.
An acquaintence uses only Remington HBWC bullets in his 52 and that is the most accurate centerfire pistol I have ever fired.

[.357]

I am a fan of lino or even *gasp* some zinc mixed in to my alloy for semi autos for feeding purposes, for revolvers i like them soft. If i can find it (meaning if i haven't lost it) i will give you a single cavity Lyman mold i have that casts .355 should be perfect for you. let me do some digging it was no good to me since my .357s all measure .357 on up. I'll get back to you.

And welcome
.357

[zxcvbob]

Lee's TL358-148-WC is incredibly accurate, and I suspect you could size it down to .356 without much trouble. I've been shooting them as-cast from pure lead with just a little range scrap mixed in in a revolver. I'm getting a little leading so I may have to goto a harder alloy, but the leading is not building up so maybe I shouldn't mess with an otherwise good thing...

[justingrosche]

I am also a fan of these little soup can Boolits. I cast a bit harder than range pickup lead, but not much. Every bit as good IMO as the Lyman 358495 and probably better.
I only use in wheel guns though, I dont have a 52 or any thing like that.

[cajun shooter]

You have some excellent guns with which to shoot Bullseye style. The S&W 52 was the King at one time. If you shoot as much as the posting seems to indicate why not have a mold made to your specs? Accurate Molds will custom cut you a three cavity mold for $119 to your door. I have three of them for my 44-40 guns and they are the best. His turn around time was just one week and he is great to work with.

[Echo]

You guys are inspiring me to get to work on my Clark .38. I have several WC molds - will make a report...

[zxcvbob]

I am a fan of lino or even *gasp* some zinc mixed in to my alloy for semi autos for feeding purposes... [snip]
.357

You mix zinc into your lead? ==(8-O On purpose?

I assume it's a powerful hardener, but didn't know the result was castable. I have about 5 pounds of zinc-contaminated lead. Too much to throw out, and not enough to try to purify with sulfur. I've thought about casting round balls (where the high surface tension would be a good thing) with it for my ball mill , but was afraid the zinc might poison my casting furnace.

[oso]

I've not had an accuracy problem with many varieties of wadcutters in my S&W 52, with the right load. It seemed to me that a soft boolit in a tight bore was advantageous.You may want to consider other variables: What's your load data? What is your alloy? How is your barrel condition?

[sagamore-one]

I have an H&G 527 in .356 that I need to alloy - UP - to get .358 for my revolvers. I got this mould from a guy who shot 38 special auto pistol exclusively. He claimed the .356 was indeed the ideal size for his auto guns. If you wish , I could cast up some in relatively soft alloy and send them to you, sized or unsized, to try out.
The 527 is the same as the 50 , but without a crimp groove.

[JIMinPHX]

The soft alloys are for low pressure powder charges. A rough rule of thumb that some go by is that PSI/1440=BNH.

There are plenty of good 148ish grain WC designs out there. Since you have a fair variety of groove diameters to work with, I would choose a design with conventional deep lube grooves rather than a tumble lube design. The grooves in a TL design start to disappear pretty quickly when you size them down much more than a thousandth or two.

[carlv]

Thanks for the great feedback. Here's a bit more background info (at the risk of being long-winded) :

Gil Hebard tested 4 new SW Mdl 52s in a machine rest, and demonstrated they
were capable of 2.5 inch 10-round groups at 50 yards with good factory ammo.
That is the level of accuracy I'm trying to achieve in these semi-autos.

I often test with a SW Mdl 10 revolver (turned into a PPC gun by Bill Wilson).
Using a Hornady 148 gr swaged HBWC and Bullseye or Accurate #2, I get 10 rnd groups under 1 inch at 20 yds. 5-6 rnd groups average around .6-.7 inch.
148 DEWCs cast by a friend (mold unknown) produce similar groups.
While there is almost certainly room for improvement, these group sizes are at least in the same ballpark as what Hebard achieved in the SW52.
The same loads in various SW 52s produce groups as much as 2x larger. :-(

The guns are all in good shape. It's hard to 'shoot out' a wadcutter barrel, and the chambers and crowns have not been damaged.

I'm a bit pessimistic about using swaged HBWCs. These bullets are long (~ .63 inch compared to .57 inch for a non HB bullet) and when seated flush with the case mouth, the 'skirt' of these soft bullets tends to get pushed inward by the internal taper of the case. I'm not convinced the skirts are always expanding outward in the semi-autos, whereas they have a better chance of expanding when passing thru the forcing cone of a revolver. I've tried fiddling around with an extra-deep expander plug to try to keep the skirt from being pushed in as well as to avoid bullet shaving. So far the results are not significantly better.

I'm not a caster but I'm thinking of starting, if for no other reason to sort out accuracy issues in these and a few other obsolete-caliber guns I own.
Most current production wadcutter molds (Lee, Lyman, RCBS, Saeco) are .358 and bevel based. The .356 H&G molds that were used for these guns (#50, #219, #244, #248, #251, #259) are increasingly hard to find in good condition, and prices have skyrocketed.

A fellow shooter on this forum (crabo) had the same advice as cajun shooter; get a custom mold from Accurate Molds. A sketch of what I had in mind is attached.
More or less a DEWC, but with one end 'plain based' and the other end gently beveled. Bullet can be loaded flat end down for a pretty base. Case mouth can be gently crimped over the bevel if desired. Alternatively, bullet can be loaded with the bevel down if shaving is an issue. Only two lube grooves, since literature (E. H. Harrison) suggests that more is unnecessary.

Since I'm a complete newbie to the world of casting, I'd welcome any advice.
I've got a big ol' bucket of ignorance on this subject, and could use some help
from experienced folks.

Please pardon the length of this screed.

[beagle]

For years, I shot a Lyman 358495 in my Colt Midrange Match seated flush. It did shoot well for me at .356". Sure wish I'd kept it./beagle

[Dave C.]

Carlv: I shoot a Clark LHS. I Use the Lee TLWC sized .358" loaded backwards to give me a nose poured boolit. With 2.8 grains of B.E. it will shoot X-Ring at 50 yards. I lube, size and lube useing LLA. Alloy = 2/6/92.

Dave C.

[cajun shooter]

Let me add one more thing. I was a police firearms instructor and worked full time at it. I have shot Bullseye, and PPC matches with hundreds of other cops. Almost every one of them including me used the Speer 148 HBWC in front of 2.7 Bullseye, 230,231. I have shot these matches with National Champions who fired a score of 1500 on the PPC matches. That is a perfect score. At 50 yds these shooters will shoot out the 10 and x ring area. I do have some trouble with your statement that these bullets don't work. I have seen these loads perform in any gun they were used in. In fact when we had revolvers as issue I loaded the same round and charge by the thousands on a Camdex for our in service training round. Even with a issue S&W 64 or 65 I can shoot all 10's from 25. You might want to see if you have other problems.

[Ohio Rusty]

My most recent loading was a 148 gr. button nosed wadcutter, crimped at the crimp line on top of 2.3 grains of Trail Boss. JPW/Beeswax lube, Shooting about 660 to 670 fps from a Ruger SA 4 5/8's barrel. inch size groups.
Ohio Rusty ><>

[zxcvbob]

Are you guys shooting these one inch groups 2-handed or from a rest or what? ==(8-O

I shoot in a NRA Bullseye league -- I think the course we use is called National Match. Shooting one-handed with iron sights (and 51 y.o eyes) I'm pretty happy with a 3 inch group on slow and timed fire, and 4 or 5 inches (concentrated in the middle 2 inches) on rapid fire. On a really good night I can do better than that, but not a lot better, and that's probably more luck than skill. We won't talk about a really bad night...

I'm not the top scorer by any means, but I'm in the top 10% and I've got my Expert qualification with a .22 and Sharpshooter Bar 9 with a .38 revolver (police trade-in S&W Model 15) I know I'll never make Distinguished Expert.

Lets just say I'm not sure whether to be skeptical or impressed -- probably a little of both.

[carlv]

cajun shooter,
I would not dispute that the HBWC can shoot small groups. In fact, .357/.358 swaged HBWC bullets from a couple of different sources seem to shoot great for me out of a decent revolver. I can't seem to get the same bullet to work well in most of the semi-autos. I've tried different makes of brass, every commercial 38 Spl wadcutter bullet I could get my hands on, different dimension size dies, different dimension expander plugs, no/light/heavy/taper/roll crimps. Still can't get the semi-autos to shoot as well as the revolvers. Very frustrating. The only rock I have not turned over is shooting smaller diameter bullets. Hence my appeal to the collective wisdom of Cast Boolits for ideas.

zxcvbob,
You're skepticism is appropriate - I get small groups by cheating :-)
For testing ammo, I'm generally using a Ransom Rest.
I'm a few years younger than you, but my eyes are pretty much useless beyond 15 yards, even with corrective lenses.
I'll never be a great shooter; just striving to be consistently adequate these days.

[HeavyMetal]

I can appreciate your "hunt" for the right boolit.

Finally found a 52 I could afford a few years ago and have been on the same hunt, on and off, since I got it. If 357 finds his undersized mold jump on it if for no other reason than to try it out.

As for your boolit design I like it and, you are correct, much testing by past authors has pretty much convinced me that most wad cutter molds have way to much lube capacity.

I recently got in on the group buy for a hollow based wadcutter mold made by Miha. As always these things wind up being designed by committee and some of the things I really wanted, like a single lube groove, got lost in the schuffle but things I just hated, like 'button" nose's and multiple lube groove got dropped and we wound up with a fairly decent design.

I have the mold, and because I wanted to add a dot sight to my 52, I have cast but not sized or lubed my first batch of these.

I plan to simply lube the center groove load and shoot. They come out of the mold at .358 so a two pass trip through the Star will reduce them gently to .356 if I decide thats the direction I need to go. Lots of work ahead.

Your observation on HBWC length is also well thought out and I kick myself for not thinking of it myself while we were discussing Miha's mold. If I see this as a problem I can remove some base area from my castings and see if that improves anything. As I said lots to do with this mold design.

I will make a suggestion: take a look at the Redding Saeco catalog. In the cast / mold section you will find a 38 wadcutter that might get your interest.

This is mold number 348 this is a 148 grain DEWC with a single lube groove located in the center of the boolit.

Not a HB design it might be easy to size this one into a .356 as well. This mold was designed with revolvers in mind, as shown by the dual crimp grooves, but looks like production, both in casting and sizing, was a major concept when it was designed.

My experience with Lee mold in Tumble lube designs is they tend to be large. Sizng a TL boolits generally gives me a smooth lead cylinder!

Hope my input helps let us know how it works out.

[PacMan]

Heavy is that the 348 or is it the 053 Saceo WC?

[HeavyMetal]

dwight:

The Saeco / Redding 053 is a 148 grain wadcutter but has the dispised button nose.

It is a single lube groove boolit and, if your shooting a revolver, should be a heck of a good boolit. However were I going to design a boolit for wheel gun work I would defer to the teachings of the Great Elmer and have at least a .110 long full diameter driving band in front of that crimp groove!

I was refering to the Saeco 348 as this was designed with the Colt and S&W auto loaders in mind. Once again not, in my opinion, a great design as the auto pistols have no need of a crimp groove. A single lube groove and the BB on both ends is all that is required.

Once again a production mold maker almost got it right twice in a row!

Be that as it maybe these are both better than the 358395. I have an original single cavity 358395 HBWC mold in my hot little hand as I write this and I realise this mold was thought of way before 38 special auto pistols came into being.

It is a workable mold design but not one I would pay money for! The one I have was a gift from the BIL who got it in a bunch of casting stuff from his uncle's estate.

In the near future I plan to cast a bunch with this mold and compare them to both Lyman DEWC mold #35863 Lyman mold #35887 and my custom 148 grain Mihec Cramer style HBWC mold.

I really do like the look of the Saeco 348 and would have liked to have done that design minus the crimp grooves with the HBWC. set up for the same length this would be a tad lighter, maybe 135 grains but would have been very much the ideal 38 auto pistol boolit.

This is, of course, purely conjecture on my part and I may find that HBWC's are not the hot ticket everyone seems to claim they are.

Only time, and shooting, will show me whats right.