Ranchdog .380 boolit report

[fecmech]

I finally went ahead and purchased a mold from Ranchdog for my .380 Keltec and it showed up yesterday. I cleaned the mold and tried casting some indoor range lead bullets but had trouble with fill out no matter how hot I went. Finally added a little tin to the mix and that took care of it. This is THE best lee mold I have used to date. When I open the mold a gentle tap drops all six bullets every time. Range lead bullets drop at .359 and weigh 102 grs. His data shows 3.6 grs of BE for 919 fps so I loaded some at 2.8 and 3.3 grs for trial. Both fed great through my Keltec and a friends Ruger LCP and fired cases look fine. I plan on going up to 3.6 grs for my carry load after I run about 50-100 through the gun for reliability. Love this little Keltec so far. After the initial failure at 23 rds from new I sent it back to Keltec for repair. Since then I have fired over 1000 rds of cast reloads through it without a failure! Amazing little $200 gun! I will have some chrono data in a day or so.
Chrono results:
2.8/BE--680 fps--light plinker
3.3/BE--811 fps-- comfortable practice load
3.4/BE--834 fps--
3.6/BE--892 fps--not fun to shoot, rough on your finger but accurate and reliable

[rintinglen]

Veddy interesting. I may have to spring for one of these.

[scrapcan]

I have wanted both the mould and the p3at. posts like this just edge me further along the path.

[fecmech]

I have wanted both the mould and the p3at. posts like this just edge me further along the path.

The little gun goes everywhere with me, it's gotten so I forget it's even there. I never figured I would shoot it as much as I do. The Keltec (for me) is not fun to shoot with full charge loads (nor is the Ruger LCP) both will bite your trigger finger somewhat. That said, back them down about 100 fps and they are fun and pretty darn accurate. At 7 yds I can hit my 3" swinger almost every time (taking my time of course) and last week at the indoor range I shot a 7 rd clip all in the black of a 50' pistol target from about 35' using a post as a RH barricade. There is starting to be a fair amount of reasonably priced range brass available which is good cause these little suckers disappear quite easily. Here's a picture with the Lee 120 and Ranchdog 100.

[EMC45]

When I had my KelTec P3AT I shot a bunch of those Lee 120gr. bullets. They did well.

[thegreatdane]

Where are yall getting the data for the lee 120? I haven't seen anything for 380 that heavy.

[fecmech]

Where are yall getting the data for the lee 120? I haven't seen anything for 380 that heavy.

There isn't any official data for it that I'm aware of. What I used was data from the 3rd Edition cast handbook for the Lyman 358242 bullet which is 121 grs. According to a drawing of that bullet on Castpics the Lyman data has the same amount of bullet in the case as one would have with the Lee 120 at SAMMI max oal for my Lee 120 TC. Both bullets have pretty much the same bearing surface so my reasoning is pressures should be similar. I'm not a ballistician nor do I play one on TV so you can take that for what it's worth. I have fired about 800 rds of 2.0/BE with the Lee 120 in the Keltec with no problems but now that I have the RD100 I'll use that from now on.

[thegreatdane]

I see. Pioneers of sorts. Very cool. I'll cautiously approach a similar load. I have tons of those boolits on hand.

[Bret4207]

Ya know, I really gotta get that mould. I thought my little NEI 90gr FN was nice, but I really like the nose on the RD waaaay better.

Dang,that's like mould # 394 I gotta buy...