230 grain .357 bullets in my 6 inch GP100 for shooting bowling pins

[erich03]

Greetings all. So I have been reloading for a couple years now, and along with my semi weekly trips to the range, I have been shooting at our local bowling pin shoot.

I have been experimenting with 230 grain wadcutter bullets from badman bullets, pretty much the same as penn bullets thunderhead.

I have been getting pretty decent performance using 5 grains of AA#5. I know another guy who has had good luck he says using 7.2 - 7.4 of Blue Dot.

Anyone else having any success with these weight bullets?

[45-70 Chevroner]

A 230 gr boolits is quite heavy for a 357. The heaviest that I have ever shot in the 357 was a 200 gr RN Lyman. I don't even remember a load for a bullet that heavy.

[M-Tecs]

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/load-needed-230-gr-357-38-sp.289149/

[RedHawk357Mag]

Highest bullet I got data for is a 200 grn RN 358432. With the 200 I am getting some unstable impacts at 20 yards. I have some pictures in a separate thread started by me. Might want to have a look.

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[country gent]

I used 200 grn in 357 for my wife. They carried the pins good and were accurate. If your gun shoots the 230 grn well it should do very well. I believe they were loaded to around 850 fps.

[mattw]

I have spent time with the Lyman 358627 at 215 grains. Great swc.

[megasupermagnum]

I would think Bluedot would be ideal. I've only gone as heavy as 215 grain, and both Bluedot and H110 work great.

[lar45]

I can put it into Quickload, but I'll need the bullet length and the loaded length.

[lar45]

I looked at NOE and they have a 228gn SWC that is .945"
My GP-100 shows a max length of 1.661", so I put 1.650" into Quickload.

AA#5 5gns shows 883fps @ 21.7kpsi
AA#5 6.2gns shows 1032fps @ 34.5kpsi

BlueDot 7.2gns shows 997fps @ 26.8kpsi
BlueDot 8.0gns shows 1093fps @ 35kpsi

H-110 11gns shows 1082fps @ 29.5kpsi 103% load density

this is not load data, just a computer simulation...
You'll have to check your velocity, if your velocity is higher than predicted then the pressure is probably higher also.
Running very heavy bullets in a small case takes up most of the case volume, so seating variations can make a big difference in pressures. If your bullet is longer than the one I used, then you'll have to reduce the powder charge, if you seat it deeper than what I have listed, then you'll have to reduce the powder charge...

[r6487]

230 thunderhead with 5.1 Unique stays below sonic crack, about to try Ideal 358318 (245 grain RN). see this post for heavier 357 loads.


http://castboolits.gunloads.com/archive/index.php/t-236689.html

[fredj338]

You just don't need that much weight to move a pin off the table imo. Bullet shape is more important than weight. So a full 160gr WC probably works just as well. I have great results using a 205gr lwnfp in my 45acp. It smacks the pins really hard.