38 special BP loads?

[Matt85]

so ive got a pile of 38 special brass and my favorit little revolver a S&W snubby. ive been kicken around the idea of shooten some BP cartridges outa the lil gun. im brand new to reloading so this is just a thought, if its a bad one let me know.

has any one here used 38 special BP cartridges? what did you use? (bullet, powder, wad, primer)

thanks
-matt

[Nobade]

Any more I use nothing but black powder in all my 38 spl. loads. Boolits are either the Biglube "Snakebite" or Ideal #358250 (IIRC. It is the original 38 spl. boolit) Tom @ Accurate makes a couple very good designs that are better but I don't have one yet. Powder is FFFg, either Swiss, KIK, or ho'made. Modern cases hold about 19.5 - 20 gr. No wad, any small pistol primer.

This weekend I ran 50 rounds through my S&W 642 and it still ran fine afterward. Powerful, accurate, and great fun. Makes the concealed carry handgun matches more entertaining at the range too.

-Nobade

[Aje]

Hi Matt
I haven't done 38 special but have loaded both the 38 long colt & 357mag with black. I use a Lyman #358665 lubed with SPG a cci small pistol primer & as much fff as I can jam in there allowing for about 1/8" of compression. I don't bother with wads. Great fun really made the little 38lc sing.

Aje

[StrawHat]

One time I used black powder under the 148 grain HBWC bullet in Stage One (12 shots, 25 seconds, 7 yards) of a PPC match. I made sure I was upwind of my fellow competitiors. Once they realized I had not blown up my revolver, they laughed and got back to shooting. funny thing, those that normally shot 120-12x, still got their score even through the smoke! Great group of guys and we always had fun at the matches.

[Baja_Traveler]

I use the Biglube Snakebit and 20gr 3f in my 38 special cases. works great and alot of fun to shoot. For Levergun silhouette matches I moved up to 25gr 3f in .357 for better ram knockdown at 200 yards using the same boolit. I get a good razzing by those shooting directly downwind of me when my smoke blocks their sight picture, so they have to learn to time their shots between mine. In fact, now that I think about it - black powder loads are all that my Rossi 92 has ever seen since new...