abqcaster
01-13-2013, 11:44 PM
I had been reading up on loading cast in .357 Sig. Not much of it was encouraging. There seems to be a lot of fear of setback, and of leading due to the high velocity. Many people just don't seem to or want to deal with the short neck of the case or where the case head spaces.
I recently got a good deal on a used .357 Sig barrel from Storm Lake, for a Glock 23. I had been intrigued by the caliber since it had been developed, but never got a chance to work with it. Patrick Sweeney had a lot of good things to say about the caliber, but dismissed the idea of using lead projectiles. That sounded like a challenge to me. So, I read up more and ordered what I needed to produce my first batch.
It seemed rather providential. I had gotten the barrel at a very low price, and then the same shop had several dirt cheap lots of range brass in .357 Sig. I had some COWW lead from The Captain, and I sweetened it with 50/50 solder from Idaho_Elk_Huntr. Bless them and their great deals! I got a reasonable facsimile of Lyman #2 according to the LASC information. I cast using the Lee .356-102-RN mold, and water dropped. I don't know the BHN other than "really hard." It's around nosed mold so I wasn't concerned about expansion or brittleness.I was worried about the tiny lube groove though.
I pan lubed them with modified NRA lube: 2:2:1 Alox:Beeswax:microcrystaline wax +about 1% carnauba. The microcrystaline wax raises the melting temp for use out here in the desert. Sized them to .356 with a lee push-through sizer.
I used R-P headstamped range brass: Cleaned with dawn dish soap and citric acid. Polished with walnut + a tbsp of mineral spirits. Polished again with corn cob and turtle wax. Sized with a lee .40S&W carbide sizing/de-priming die, and "de-glocked" (not really necessary) with a lee bulge buster. Cleaned the primer pockets (wanted to be really rigorous for the first time) and trimmed with a Lee length gauge. LEE gauges let you cut to about halfway between max and min case length. Dummy loads I made were just a hair proud in the "plunk test" without trimming. I then, neck sized with a lee .357 Sig steel sizing die and installed Remington SP primers with a lee safety prime on the neck sizing down stroke.
I expanded the neck the smallest amount I could to get a bullet to seat without shaving. Charged in the same operation with 8.4gn of Acc#5 (I'm NOT any kind of ballistician follow this at YOUR peril), gleaned from the LEE reloading manual's 115gn lead data. Finally seated the bullet to 1.145" OAL because a) the bullet itself is very short, and b) it's a round nose so I had some forgiveness in the barrel that you don't get with a flat nose. At this OAL the cartridge fit in a .40S&W magazine comfortably and I was able to run them out without a jam using my thumb. Also at this OAL, I was sure that the lube groove was still in the case neck and not exposed to any powder (barely). I crimped using the same seating die to a snug enough taper crimp to pass a reasonable thumb test and pass the "plunk test" in my new-to-me barrel. I had made several dummy loads prior to the finished rounds to get to this point and manually cycled them a few times, and never saw any setback.
At the range:
It was really, really cold day and I was sick of using numb fingers to load up my magazines. So, I only tested 10 of the 20 rounds I made. I fired them all with only 1 FTF. I kept them all on the same 12"X18" half-stump I had on a platform. The target stump was at 7 yds. One of the outermost shots even managed to turn the stump about 80 degrees. I removed the barrel and saw absolutely no leading.
I think the FTF was a result of using a .40 mag instead of .357 Sig mag. The Sig mag has a different follower and keeps the cartridge tip pointed right, if there's any drag on it. There's not enough support from the .40 S&W follower for that. I could use a shorter OAL, but that starts to put my lube groove too far into the case. And like I said, I only got one FTF.
At this point I'm going to get some dedicated mags and play with the powder charge to perfect the load. I'm also going to try using PB-GCs made with Pat's die to up the velocity, and start using Acc#9 as has been greatly recommended. I didn't start with ACC#9 because the minimum charge would create too high a velocity, from my experience, for naked lead even if it was water dropped.
Thanks for all the knowledge here to help me get this far. I'll keep you all posted on my progress.
I recently got a good deal on a used .357 Sig barrel from Storm Lake, for a Glock 23. I had been intrigued by the caliber since it had been developed, but never got a chance to work with it. Patrick Sweeney had a lot of good things to say about the caliber, but dismissed the idea of using lead projectiles. That sounded like a challenge to me. So, I read up more and ordered what I needed to produce my first batch.
It seemed rather providential. I had gotten the barrel at a very low price, and then the same shop had several dirt cheap lots of range brass in .357 Sig. I had some COWW lead from The Captain, and I sweetened it with 50/50 solder from Idaho_Elk_Huntr. Bless them and their great deals! I got a reasonable facsimile of Lyman #2 according to the LASC information. I cast using the Lee .356-102-RN mold, and water dropped. I don't know the BHN other than "really hard." It's around nosed mold so I wasn't concerned about expansion or brittleness.I was worried about the tiny lube groove though.
I pan lubed them with modified NRA lube: 2:2:1 Alox:Beeswax:microcrystaline wax +about 1% carnauba. The microcrystaline wax raises the melting temp for use out here in the desert. Sized them to .356 with a lee push-through sizer.
I used R-P headstamped range brass: Cleaned with dawn dish soap and citric acid. Polished with walnut + a tbsp of mineral spirits. Polished again with corn cob and turtle wax. Sized with a lee .40S&W carbide sizing/de-priming die, and "de-glocked" (not really necessary) with a lee bulge buster. Cleaned the primer pockets (wanted to be really rigorous for the first time) and trimmed with a Lee length gauge. LEE gauges let you cut to about halfway between max and min case length. Dummy loads I made were just a hair proud in the "plunk test" without trimming. I then, neck sized with a lee .357 Sig steel sizing die and installed Remington SP primers with a lee safety prime on the neck sizing down stroke.
I expanded the neck the smallest amount I could to get a bullet to seat without shaving. Charged in the same operation with 8.4gn of Acc#5 (I'm NOT any kind of ballistician follow this at YOUR peril), gleaned from the LEE reloading manual's 115gn lead data. Finally seated the bullet to 1.145" OAL because a) the bullet itself is very short, and b) it's a round nose so I had some forgiveness in the barrel that you don't get with a flat nose. At this OAL the cartridge fit in a .40S&W magazine comfortably and I was able to run them out without a jam using my thumb. Also at this OAL, I was sure that the lube groove was still in the case neck and not exposed to any powder (barely). I crimped using the same seating die to a snug enough taper crimp to pass a reasonable thumb test and pass the "plunk test" in my new-to-me barrel. I had made several dummy loads prior to the finished rounds to get to this point and manually cycled them a few times, and never saw any setback.
At the range:
It was really, really cold day and I was sick of using numb fingers to load up my magazines. So, I only tested 10 of the 20 rounds I made. I fired them all with only 1 FTF. I kept them all on the same 12"X18" half-stump I had on a platform. The target stump was at 7 yds. One of the outermost shots even managed to turn the stump about 80 degrees. I removed the barrel and saw absolutely no leading.
I think the FTF was a result of using a .40 mag instead of .357 Sig mag. The Sig mag has a different follower and keeps the cartridge tip pointed right, if there's any drag on it. There's not enough support from the .40 S&W follower for that. I could use a shorter OAL, but that starts to put my lube groove too far into the case. And like I said, I only got one FTF.
At this point I'm going to get some dedicated mags and play with the powder charge to perfect the load. I'm also going to try using PB-GCs made with Pat's die to up the velocity, and start using Acc#9 as has been greatly recommended. I didn't start with ACC#9 because the minimum charge would create too high a velocity, from my experience, for naked lead even if it was water dropped.
Thanks for all the knowledge here to help me get this far. I'll keep you all posted on my progress.