357 magnum reloder 7 200 gr Quickload Please

[DrCaveman]

Hello all of you possessing Quickload software. I hope this isn't too beggar of me to ask for pressure calculations on a load I have. If anyone may feel generous, I will be much appreciative and it may also help others.

Cartridge: 357 magnum
Boolit: Lyman 358430, diam:358 weight:200 length:.823"
Powder charge: reloder 7, 18 gr
COAL: 1.84*
Primer: CCI 400 (small rifle)
Barrel & twist: 22", 1:18.75"

This long load chambered in my handi rifle just fine, though I know it would not chamber in any revolver I have seen.

Reloder 7 seemed like a good choice for the long barrel, with low pressures to boot. Seemed in line with what I've been learning about rifle CB shooting lately.

Any thoughts?

[nanuk]

any idea what MV you are getting?

I too have a Handi in 357Mag, and have seem some loads way out there in Maggie brass that matches Maxi specs.

[Nobade]

28,371 psi, 1577 fps.

It still looks like Lil' Gun, 296, or H110 would be better choices. You can't load a full case of either without going over SAAMI spec pressure (though it wouldn't hurt a Handi) but either of those will put you in the mid 1700 fps range with a more complete burn.

In my Handi and Contender I shoot a 215gr. paper patched boolit over a compressed load of Lil' Gun and a rifle primer. It works well and gets those boolits out there very quickly. Kind of makes a 357 into a much bigger gun compared to what it does with normal handgun loads.

-Nobade

[DrCaveman]

Thanks nobade! That's exactly what I was looking for.

I shot these yesterday and they clocked in at 1430 fps average, so that probably means I'm getting a little bit lower pressure than 29k as well. Right where I was hoping it would be.

Groups showed promise, I'll post tonite. Thanks for the tip about lil gun and 110 though, I will have to do a showdown next weekend for groups.

[DrCaveman]

Nobade

How much neck tension are you getting with that load? As in, how much of the boolit is inside the case?

I felt that the length I loaded to, which I had crimped into the bottom of the second lube groove, was about the maximum I could get away with while still launching the boolit somewhat straight.

How's your accuracy with lil gun and rifle primer? I loaded 18.4 gr lil gun last year under this boolit, got 1750 fps but wasn't as happy with accuracy as reloder 7 load.

[9.3X62AL]

Dr. C--

You are on new ground for me with #358430, seating it out that far and using Rx-7. I have shot a whole lot of these castings, though--in 38 Special, 357 Magnum, and Beagled out to fatten them for milsurp 38/200 revolvers. This boolit is one accurate casting, in every revolver I've ever tried it in. The Winchester "book" load for WW-296.......12.4 grains lit by SPM primers......gives 1250 FPS in my BisHawk's 7.5" barrel, and 1125 in my 686 x 4". I have poured a bit more powder into cases for the BH, and extended the seating out to accomodate the powder charge--i.e., prevent compression and get close to 100% loading density. My experience--as far as I've taken it, which isn't far--is that velocity increases in linear proportion to the increase in powder weight. By that I mean that the FPS/grain weight ratio remains constant. Given the strength of the Handi-Rifle platform, I think you may be cheating yourself by use of Rx-7 vs. WW-296/H-110. I have gotten past 1350 FPS in the Bishawk with these 195 grainers, and as often as not the fired brass slides out of chambers via gravity-assist. I stopped at that point because I didn't want to prompt leading, and have a 180 grain gas-check design for getting insane with. :) That IS why we buy Blackhawks, right?

[DrCaveman]

9.3x62

Thanks for the input. I have been re-thinking my powder choices lately, attempting to match the pressure curve more appropriately to my load & gun. This has been prioritized over powder economy/efficiency and max velocity.

Now, I am kind of stumbling through this, since I don't really have all the info.

That being said, I suspect you are on to something with 110. Ill see how much I can jam in there with my long loading. Surely it will go faster than rx7 but I am curious about accuracy.

Guess I should sort/trim my brass for this test. Never done that with 357 before

[DrCaveman]

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well my formatting is a bit messed up while I figure out this new method of attaching pics.

anyway the description is this:

group 1 was from a cold barrel (maybe the single shot doesnt heat up enough to matter) and the high flyer was the first shot. as it turns out the low flyer was the last shot, but that was probably my fault alone.

group 2 felt very solid, and I think shows the potential of the load.

group 3 made me suspect that leading was happening and reducing accuracy but it wasnt, and Im not sure what to blame it on. Maybe I was hurrying or just getting tired.

Coolest thing about this load: cleaning consistent of one solvent-wet patch, followed by one pass of a dry patch, and bore is shiny and smooth.

Just got finished sorting brass, and "trimming". Kind of a joke with 357 because only about 1 out of 6 even had any length removed. Still, it should help consistency and rest assured the primer pockets dropped a lot of filth in every single case... some of which have been reloaded prob 8-15 times with hot loads in many cases. Due to this inspection I culled a bunch of cases with split necks, ill bet a few of them made it into my previous rounds of loading, since I havent culled any split necks in at least 6 months. Prob not the best that this happened, but luckily nothing was hurt.

20 grains of h110 fit quite well below the 358430 seated at 1.84" OAL. Not sure how that will turn out but, ill letcha know.

[Nobade]

Nobade

How much neck tension are you getting with that load? As in, how much of the boolit is inside the case?

I felt that the length I loaded to, which I had crimped into the bottom of the second lube groove, was about the maximum I could get away with while still launching the boolit somewhat straight.

How's your accuracy with lil gun and rifle primer? I loaded 18.4 gr lil gun last year under this boolit, got 1750 fps but wasn't as happy with accuracy as reloder 7 load.

I'd have to look it up to see but it is plenty with the BRP 215. It is extremely accurate, on the order of less than 3 inches at 200M in my Handi rifle, but remember these are paper patched so the rules change somewhat. Boolits are .351" as cast and patched up to .359", so friction and pressures are lower than if I was using them naked. Seating depth is determined by the throat, you need to jam the patch into the rifling but not so hard you can't close the action.

Be careful with that load of 20gr. H110. You are in 357 max territory there, again it won't bother the Handi rifle, but may be a bit hard on the brass.

-Nobade

[9.3X62AL]

FWIW, I think the heaviest I ever went with WW-296 & #358430 was 14.5 grains in the BisHawk. It was STOUT, but exhilarating.

[DrCaveman]

Hmm, well I'll see how it goes. I usually end up shooting a handful of these loads and going back to the loading bench with a new attitude such as: max speed isn't always best. But I do really enjoy a good thump as long as it doesn't hurt my gun...or f course myself.

It's prob a good time to remind any newer readers of this thread that I am shooting this in a 357 handi rifle and SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED SAFE FOR ANY REVOLVER OR LEVER ACTION.

The chamber is very long and I am able to seat these way out and reduce pressures. Additionally the rifle is built on the same receiver that handles 500 S&w loads. So I can get away with what would be borderline suicidal in some firearms.

Well, if I get back to y'all next weekend after shooting, that means I got away with it. Brass failure I can weather, and if that happens I will take pics. Anything worse and I will be highly surprised and disappointed in my gun.

[DrCaveman]

well i got to the woods and tried out some hot 357 loads in my 357 handi rifle. power was quite impressive but the accuracy not so much.

all targets were shot at 50 yds, temp about 55 and sunny. perfect shooting weather.

it seems the reloder 7 load is still my most accurate for the 358430. that group shows me that I could reliably kill a deer and the boolit also shoots close to my sight-in of 2" high at 100 yds. the lil gun and h110 loads were all over the place. I shot all these consecutively, with the H110 going last. Maybe some barrel fouling hurt its accuracy but there is little to no leading in the barrel.

I included the 2400 group to compare to what I consider "typical" accuracy for me and this gun. That load was pushing a 358429 and used 38 special cases. Due to the (reported) greater killing power of the 358429 I think my research is done... just dial in the keith boolit, forget the 358430. Unless maybe I hollow point it or can dial in the reloder 7 load a bit more.

here is chrono data:

boolit: 358430 weight 198
powder: reloder 7, 18.0 gr
lo: 1363
hi: 1403
ave: 1387
sd: 20

powder: lil gun, 18.0 gr
lo: 1910
hi:1920
ave: 1916
sd: 5.3

powder: h110, 20.1 gr
lo: 1943
hi: 1963
ave: 1954
sd: 10.1


boolit: 358429 weight 172
powder: alliant 2400, 12.5 gr
lo: 1512
hi: 1551
ave: 1531
sd: 14.6


So it seems I am getting as much energy from the Keith boolit in 38 cases as the round nose with max charge of Rx7. And better meplat to boot. Although the energy from the Lil gun and H110 loads is super impressive...hell I cant match that with my 30-30... the accuracy sucks and it will take a lot of tweaking to get it to an acceptable level.

Pressure signs were minimal. Primers flattened for all three 358430 loads, but no flowing around the firing pin nor any split case heads. Primers looked the same as they do after most of my "by the book" magnum loads.

Think I am done with H110 for this experiment, but I may try to jam a little more rx7 in there and see what it does. Still not happy with Lil gun's consistency so I think it fell out of the running too. Recoil from each round was pretty well proportional to the velocity, which is to say that the rx7 load was a joy but the h110 & lil gun loads kind of rocked. Of course I had just gotten done testing some studly 45-70 loads so they all seemed a little wimpy.

[Hyphenated]

Interesting thread...thanks for sharing.

[Nobade]

If you learn paper patching you will be able to run those high speed loads with very good accuracy. Essentially the same loads, 200gr. PP over Lil' Gun work beautifully in my Contender, Handi, and Browning '92. Unpatched loads are universally awful in all those guns.

-Nobade

[DrCaveman]

I took a little dabble into paper patching, it seems I need to read up a lot more before I am willing to load the rounds. Paper was unrolling after drying, tearing when pushed through the sizer, and generally not looking good. I'll study a bit and post some questions, I gave up on it just now because I am testing several other variables and it'd be foolish to include that as another.

Anyway I tried a stout load of 2400 behind my long loaded 358430 in 357 mag and got damn good results. Better than rx7, better than h110. I will not give specs til I chrono, but I put a cloverleaf at 50 yds and when I adjusted the POA for where I seemed to be hitting, I knocked out the bullseye with the next three. Was shooting with pop, and mom and fiancé were waiting for us to get back for dinner so couldn't take the tests to next level. Next weekend I guess.

Bet I'm getting about 1500 with it but could be more. Also, used small pistol primers instead of the small rifle used in previous rx7 and h110 tests. This has breathed new life into this combo for me, and helped me to develop an even stronger affinity for 2400. Damn that's a good powder. Glad I bought a pound every time it was on sale, I've got several thousand 'rifle' rounds worth.

To boot, I have fallen quite smitten with 12.5 gr 2400 under the 358429 in a 38 spl case. Handguns and rifle both love it. If this is what Elmer shot, no wonder he became the legend he did. Beeswax based lube seems to help a bunch.

[DrCaveman]

I finally got the chrono out to see where the 2400 loads were running. The average was 1460 fps, SD of 19.8 for a 10 shot string.

Here is one of two groups. I measured it at 1.1" edge to edge, leading to a group of .74" or 1.85 MOA.

64413

Also shot a 10 shot group not shown, which measured 1.5" for 2.85 MOA. I figure both of these are pretty close to minute-of-deer vitals as long as this accuracy holds up @ 100 yds. Energy is under 1000 ft lbs at muzzle, so Im not sure if this is OK for 100 yd deer shooting but at least it is pretty darn accurate. More than the faster loads I have tried for this cartridge/boolit combo.

Nobade, would you be so kind as to see what the pressure would be if I were to drop 13 or even 14 gr 2400 behind this boolit, seated at OAL of 1.75" & 2.0" respectively?

Once again THESE ARE NOT FOR 357 HANDGUNS NOR LEVER ACTION RIFLES to whoever may be reading. This is past book max, and the cartridges are loaded super long in a long chambered 357 mag Handi Rifle. Even with long loading the pressures are high so I would recommend against trying it unless you work up slowly.

[Nobade]

OK, seated to 1.750" I get 13.0gr. giving 36,000 psi and 14 gr. giving 44,375 psi.

Seated to 2.000" I get 13gr. giving 22,000 psi and 14gr. giving 26,250 psi.

At 2.00" there is only .085" of boolit left in the case so those are going to be pretty fragile. Using rifle primers none of those loads are going to be dangerous in a Handi rifle as long as you don't start getting pierced primers but the short seated 14 gr. load is really getting up there and your cases probably won't last long.

And as DrCaveman said before, please don't anybody use loads like this in any guns that aren't as strong as a Handi rifle! These are not even remotely normal 357 magnum loads!

-Nobade

[nanuk]

a 200gr boolit plunking along at 1900fps....

isn't that 303 Savage territory?

[9.3X62AL]

a 200gr boolit plunking along at 1900fps....

isn't that 303 Savage territory?

Certainly within its toll-free dialing area! :)