Dan Wesson Leading need advice

[Petrov]

Hiya folks, I am 28 have been shooting for over a decade, reloading about the same amount of time. Never touched lead up until a week ago.
Picked up a very nice Dan Wesson model 15 revolver in 357 mag. Never owned a revolver in my life, have been semi auto guy all my life.
Picked up some mastercast 158grn semi wadcutters from mastercast 18-28 BHN hardness. Loaded them in 38 special cases over 3.5 grains of titgeroup. I had excellent groups with that load but boy did it lead. I literally had a thick cake of load around the forcing cone and in the area where the rifling just starts (not as much as outside the cone though).
After poking around here and doing some searches I realized that I am probably getting gas cutting.
The mastercast bullet is pretty hard and using the formula I found here I need about 27k PSI to make the bullet expand to avoid gas cutting. I can not use the 38 special cases for that.
I have some VV N350 which is a nice single base powder.
I was thinking of using N350 with 357 mag cases to get to around 27k psi or so.
I have the VV loading manual but it does not mention pressure, only velocity.
Any suggestions? I am going in the right direction?

Thanks guys

[462]

From my .357 Magnum experience, those boolits are twice as hard as they need to be.

My advise would be to slug the cylinder throats and both ends of the barrel (discovers any restriction), find some softer boolits that are .001" fatter than the largest throat, and use a slower powder, such as Alliant 2400.

Results vary, but the above works for me.

Last, but not least -- don't get frustrated and give up. With patience and time, it'll all come right.

[MtGun44]

Probably the very common "too small and too hard" situation, like 462 says.

You need to measure your cyl throats (front) with pin gages or drive SOFT lead slugs thru
from the back on a DISMOUNTED cylinder (to avoid damaging the crane) and shoot soft
boolits that are throat diam or +.001 on throat diam.

Yes, the more pressure route might work. But you will not have any pleasant to shoot light
loads then. You can get higher pressure quicker with the faster powders.

The quickest thing you can try is more powder, MIGHT manage to bump up those hard
boolits to big enough, but it may take a fairly hot load. Look at Unique in the middle range
of .357 mag pressures, about half way from starting load to max, probably somewhere around
5 gr or more, but GET DATA FROM A LOADING MANUAL NOT FROM some guy on the web, me
included. Even Titegroup may do it, with enough - but staying within the max in the loading
manuals.

Bill

[missionary5155]

Good morning
Bought my first DW 15-2 in 1978. Follow the above advice about learning the diameters of your cylinder throats. My DW´s shoot a .360 best.
Next turn remove the barrel nut, remove the barrel shroud & your barrel in towards the cylinder till a .0015 feeler guage is snug. Leave it in place. Replace the shroud & barrel nut and put good pressure on the nut (but do not try to break your tool).
These are the basics to do to every DW revolver. DW´s are rifled 18.5 to 1 so push a 170+ bullet fast for best accuracy. 158´s shoot best 1100 fps+.
For even more informative reading searh Dan Wesson here in revolvers.
Mike in Peru

[Petrov]

Thanks Mike. I know this is not the right tool but I used my calipers to measure the throats it was between .357 and .3575. My bullets measure .358 I checked each chamber and had to forcefully push the bullet through each one, used a cleaning rod to push them through.

For light/target loads would a .358 bullet with a BHN rating of 12 or so suffice?
I will load the hardcast 18-20 bhn bullets today in 357 mag as see how they work, will get back to you. Once again thank you very much for all the advice.

[kelbro]

.360 diameter 10-12 BHN is what shoots the best in all of my DW barrels. Model 15-2. One 4" bbl, two 6" bbls and two 8" bbls.

6-7 BHN shoots very well too with low pressure target rounds.

My cylinder has .3575 (slug size) chambers

[MtGun44]

12 BHN of proper diam with good lube on a good design can be driven at full power with
great results. Harder is NOT needed.

Some of my best .357 Mag loads are near max loads of H110/W296.

NOTE THE HARDNESS USED.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/picture.php?albumid=161&pictureid=929

Bill

[Petrov]

Shot same bullets today in 357 magnum. 7.5 grains of n350. Shooting it from a sandbag the accuracy is slightly better. Leading is a whole another story!
As i mentioned before with 38 special loads using titegroup I had lead all over the place. Thick cacke of lead on topstrap and forcing cone area, heck that stuff was thick and almoat came off in flakes when hit with a brush.

New load with n350 and magnum velocities produced no such thing, forcing cone area was clean topstrap was clean. Leading inside the barrel was only present in the first 1.5-2 inches of the barrel, it was this greyish sheen rough looking.