38 spl in a leveraction

[jballs918]

Hello gentleman,

it it has been some time since I have posted and I need a bit of help. I was wondering what bullet shape would be the best for a 38 spl levergun and a revolver. I have a ruger sp101 and I'm looking to get the levergun so a have a set that I can interchange. The casing will be a 38 as this is what I have about 4k of them. Please any help would be great on this subject. Thank you.

[northmn]

The most sure bullet for function in the rifle is a round nose. Depends on what rifle you are getting and so forth. My Rossi laods about any 38 special just fine but I prefer to use 357 brass even for low powered loads so as not to possibly mess up the chamber. Depends on your use of the rifle. Mine rides on a 4 wheeler and tractor and sees some use for varmints and small game. Do a lot of plinking with it.

DP

[Outpost75]

Any of the flattened roundnosed Cowboy bullets will work well. You want a meplat at least 1/2 of bullet diameter, to be safe in the tube magazine with soft, pistol primers. A larger meplat 0.7 of the bullet diameter is better for game shooting.

[fecmech]

As others have said the cowboy RNFP's like the Lee 125 and 158 gr versions work very well. The .38 spl and a little lever gun is like eating popcorn, you don't stop till you run out of ammo. I load mine in ziploc bags of 100 rds and usually take a couple bags to the range when I go.

[FergusonTO35]

Lee 358-125-RF and 358-158-RF both work great in my Marlin 1894. Both .38 and .357 brass both work equally well, however I put all of them in .357 cases so that they cannot accidentally be fired in a .38 revolver.

[mozeppa]

+1 for safety ...using flat nose.

you havent lived until youve set off a round (or 2 or three or all )in the mag tube....can be deadly.

[Jeff Michel]

358477 would be a good one to try.

[bob208]

for .38 spl cases in a .357 leaver gun. I have had good luck with the 358429. seated in the crimp grove it makes up for the short length of the case. I have a Rossi 92. a friend was using that same bullet in a Winchester and some used it in a marlin. if you are using a .38 only rifle like a 73 or 66. that bullet mite be too long.

I have fired and seen fired thousands upon thousands of .38's in a .357 chamber and not once seen a chamber damaged. the worst was the chamber needed a good cleaning.

[jballs918]

Just an update it looks like I'm going to go with a Henry big boy or a marlin 1894c

[FergusonTO35]

Very good choices. I would advise the new steel frame Henry Big Boy, very sweet gun.

[Scharfschuetze]

+1 on the round-nose-flat-point boolit design. Kind of an "oxymoron" it would seem, but they work well in my Marlin Cowboy Model 1894.

Using .357 cases, my favorite is the 180 grain RNFP without a gas check over Lil'gun powder for 1750 fps out of my Marlin. It has good accuracy out though 200 yards and gives no leading when cast of lino type and sized to .359."

[Pumpkinheaver]

My Winchester 94 in .357 likes the Lee RNFP bullet loaded in .38 cases feeds them great. It feeds just about everything I have tried except it will hang up with SWC bullets once in a while.

[ReloaderFred]

The magic Over All Length, OAL, for .38's in the 1894 Marlin is 1.480", which is what I load ours to in .38 cases, using 125 gr. RNFP bullets. When loaded to this OAL, they feed smooth as silk.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[wonderwolf]

The lee 158gr RNFP (AKA 358-158-RF) is hands down my favorite production mold for handgun/rifle in .38 and .357. The bullet cuts nice clean holes in all materials including doors and bowling pins (ask me how I know), good wound channel for a solid bullet and 2x6 bangers can really put out a lot of these in short order. Accuracy has been superb for us. I've been putting 4.2gr of Red dot under them for .38spl loads, note that is a +p load that gives ~1000fps in a 4" barrel iirc.

recently in the custom mold area I've been in love with mihec's 125gr HP, that would work very well in your carbine I imagine, I have run lots of them through my .357 bolt action so far with good results, even have a load worked up that gives me just over 2000 FPS out of my carbine barrel and holds together, recovered bullet was still intact when shot into wet pack. Single shot kills on 2 ground hogs this year as well.

You might be surprised what your lever action will feed depending on how sharp you cycle it, I have noticed jams occur when the action is not cycled with all due speed that a lever action allows. I remember running full wadcutters through my dads .357 lever gun a long time ago.

[Geezer in NH]

My 38 special load of 4.5 grains of Red Dot with the old Lee 150 grn semi-wad cutter was used in my win 92 conversion to 357 mag by Snaps gun shop. It fed sweet and was my go to for bunny's and fox hunting in New England.

The problem it had was with my hand loads for 357 using the Speer 146 grain 1/2 jacket. They bulged the base of the case to he point 1 shot was all to re-load.

I did kill 2 deer with the rifle [not the best for the task] and many snowshoe hares and partridge with it but stupidly sold it for other projects as many of us poorer folks need to do to pay with new ones.

Today I would have stayed with 38 loads for small game. Live and learn.