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beagle
01-10-2008, 12:13 AM
Fellers, I'm having fun now. A shooting acquaintence picked up a Marlin Ballard in .38 Long Colt. Sunday, they tried to shoot it thinking .38 Specials would work. Not!!!!!

Anyway, I got called in and researched my books.

Now, there's three ways to load a .38 Long Colt. According to Handloader, it can be loaded in .38 Special cases. Nonte says to trim to 1.000". Other sources say .888".

Depending on the vintage, it takes either a heeled bullet, a HB bullet or MIke Venturino used the 150 grain version of the 358430 in a SA Army.

Now, this rifle measures .374" and since loading heeled bullets is a PITA, we're going to attempt to go the HB route and I have a 35870 Ideal we'll try and use. That means, that HB is going to have to expand at least .016".

Will this give us any accuracy? I have my doubts. But, we'll see. The next idea will be to swage a .358" heel on a Lyman 37583 and see if that works.

Anyone with a success story on the .38 Long Colt in the Marlin Ballard please PM me./beagle

lathesmith
01-10-2008, 12:54 AM
I've seen those cartridge conversion cylinders for 36 caliber, and the problem is similar to yours. These conversions either require a heel-based bullet, which I have never seen a practical way to make, or a lot of guys use HBWC's, expecting them to "expand" around .015". I really have my doubts about this; from the reports I have seen, this works mediocre in those revolvers at best. I think most guys who use this conversion consider it really successful if the bullet isn't tumbling at 15 yards or so. Good luck....but I don't think that HBWC is the answer you are looking for. I wish I could tell you what is!
lathesmith

exblaster
01-10-2008, 08:39 AM
Beagle try breach seating. A lot of the bench rest single shot crowd say it is the most accurate.
Exblaster

beagle
01-10-2008, 10:43 AM
Breech seating is a possibiliy too if he really wants to shoot it.

I guess the drawback to heeled bullets is the lack of away to crimp it depending on friction seating.

Yeah, I have my doubts about the HB option also. That's a lot of expansion and using that base as a sabot and letting a .358" bullet ride in a .374 barrel just don't seem conducive to any kind of accuracy. But, having that HB mould on hand makes that the most viable option to try at this point.

This can't be BR accuracy as we're talking about 750FPS here.

But, it's his rifle and I'm just in it for the chase./beagle

Boz330
01-10-2008, 10:59 AM
NEI has a 375 heeled bullet that weighs in at 171gr.

Bob

Bent Ramrod
01-10-2008, 11:13 PM
Beagle,

I don't have a Ballard in that caliber but I do have a .380 Rook rifle that essentially duplicates the round, both in cartridge size and bore diameter. Never found the hollow base mould for the cast boolit and probably just as well, because the heeled boolit cast in an old .38 LOL Ideal tool is surprisingly accurate and shoots right to the sights at 50 yards.

Another option which the guy who sold me the rifle said worked for him was to use .38 Spl ammunition loaded flush with swaged hollow base wadcutters. I got a box of them and was surprised that a) they fit in the chamber perfectly and b)the accuracy was pretty decent, although not as good as the heeled boolit. I later found a mould that casts hollow base wadcutters, but even with a replacement hollow base pin that is deeper than the original, the accuracy was inferior to the swaged HBWC's.

StrawHat
01-10-2008, 11:23 PM
Fellers, I'm having fun now.

Now, this rifle measures .374" and since loading heeled bullets is a PITA,...

/beagle

I believe some of the fellows on this sight load the 41 Colt, so they may be able to help you with reloading tips.

I would think that the heeled bullet (think of it as a long gas check shank) would need some sort of collet die to squeeze the case around it. Does Lee make something like this?

Sorry I can't be more help on this but I do wish you luck.

I had a Ballard in 32 Long, which I had lined and rechambered for the 22 WCF.

I do not recommend going that exact route!

moodyholler
01-11-2008, 07:58 AM
I shot swaged HBWC's out of my 38l ballard with excellent results. I also bought the NEI heeled bullet mold 140 grains, and shot BP with super results also. Did have to open up the shank on the mold a little. I also shot 38 special cases at standard length in mine. FWIW, moodyholler

Boz330
01-11-2008, 10:04 AM
I use a shortened 32-20 Lee factory crimp die to crimp the heeled boolit in the .310 Cadet I shoot, and it works great. If they make one for the 38Spl I would think that would work.

Bob

jim4065
02-15-2008, 10:35 AM
I use a shortened 32-20 Lee factory crimp die to crimp the heeled boolit in the .310 Cadet I shoot, and it works great. If they make one for the 38Spl I would think that would work.

Bob

Interesting. Did you grind off the bottom and then hone a radius or what? Lee says they won't make a Factory Crimp for the 310 because it's too short. :(

mroliver77
02-16-2008, 06:06 PM
http://www.leverguns.com/480/crimp.htm

Check out this Jim Taylor article on his 480 achilles. He came up with a crimp method that looks darn good.
J

xtimberman
02-21-2008, 12:53 AM
Will a .38 Special case chamber in the Ballard? I've had quite a few Ballards with undersized chambers and oversize bores! Also, have you measured chamber length.

I no longer have it, but I had an old Marlin Ballard CF that was stamped simply with a "38" on the bottom flat in front of the fore end wood. I think that the Extractor had a "38" stamped on it too. I eventually made a chamber casting and found that the proper cartridge was ".38 Ballard Extra Long".

There was no brass available, so I tried to use .357 brass which was too short and had a base diameter that was too large. I solved the base diameter problem by swaging .357 cases slightly in a 9mm Luger carbide sizer die!

The bore slugged out at ~.360", so I loaded soft lead 158 gr. RNs meant for .38 Special over BP and BP with small amounts of SR 4759 with good results. The soft lead would bump up to fill the bore. The .357 case was too short, so I seated the bullets way out.

When the .357 Max was introduced, I got a supply of the cases and swaged those down at the base and used them. They were just about the correct length.

xtm

xtimberman
02-21-2008, 01:24 AM
beagle,

Sent you a PM about this .38 Ballard.

xtm