Buckshot
04-21-2006, 07:40 AM
...............The venue this past Tueday was the 'usual'. Among the Burrito Invitational cognoscenti that means centerfire rifle, offhand cast lead. My main interest that Tuesday was the little nickle plated Iver Johnson 5 shot tip up revolver in 38 S&W. I searched all over and couldn't find any data labeled suitable for the "Old, unsafe, suicide specials" :-)
I really don't catagorize the IJ as being in that catagory. Yet it wasn't a S&W Victory model either. I did NOT want to hurt it, or myself. But neither did I want to load 50 rounds of stuff that would end up with slugs perhaps stuck in the barrel. The Lyman Cast Boolit man-u-el data for the 38 S&W said that "This data is suitable only in solid frame handguns".
I had read somewhere that the current manufacturers of 38 S&W ammo (at least here in the US of A, keep pressures below 14K-psi just FOR the old break tops. Now the Lyman book showed pressures for most their loads and these ranged from 8.4 K-psi to maybe 12K-psi. If the statement re the 14K pressure was true, then ALL the Lyman data shown should be safe.
Yet who to trust, and again why risk damage to it or me? I had 2 boolits to load for the IJ. Both were swaged to .363". One, the Lyman 35863 cast of pure lead dropped from the 4 cav mould at that diameter. It's trip into the swage die was to have a hollow base swaged in. The other slug was the Lee 358-158 RF that had been cast of WW alloy. It was lube-sized .359 then went into the swage die base first to have one honker of a HP swaged in :-)
The beginning load data for a 141gr slug was 1.7grs of Bullseye. I substituted W231 for the Bullseye and loaded the 1.7gr charge under both boolit wieghts and alloys. Both slugs got a moderate roll crimp. I'd also spent time Monday loading 150 rounds for the S&W Victory model. These were some of the same slugs made up for the IJ, plus some Lyman 358430's cast of pure lead. Fifty of these were as cast and TL'ed and 50 were swaged to .363" with a hollow base, and a hollow point. They became rather longish wadcutter looking deals.
Just to keep from using up all this computers' ink, the Iver Johnson did not like the harder cast 158gr Lees at all. It sprayed them about the target paper with wild abandon (25 yards). I'd thought sized to .363" they'd have done much better, but oh well. The pure lead 35863's with a HB did much better. I won't task your incredulity by suggesting the ole Iver Johnsom breaktop is a target pistol, by any means.
However, the accuracy it displayed was much better then a person might expect. I should add here that the sights were a major hindrence in trying to shoot and things might have been better had they been filed completley off! The rear sight is on the locking latch itself and is merely a 'U' shaped trough, whose up raised sides are paper thin. The front sight in sideview is a nicely sized sugerloaf. However, turn the pistol to actually USE the front sight and it almost disappears totally. Heck, I wouldn't have suspected they could machine steel that thin back in those days. Now I know where the idea for injector razor blades came from.
Suffice to say, I about wrecked my eyes for the day trying to focus on the dang things. I carry sight black in my range box, but it would have been folly to try and use it here as the edges facing me were so thin I don't think there was any surface the spray could have stuck on. The best group of 5 rounds I deliberately shot for group was 2 -1/4" and discounting one shot would have been a tidy 1.5". Most the rest shot ran 3" or a bit more. Okay for this pistol and these horrific sights. It does have a bit of side spitting. There is NO forcing cone at all. That afternoon at home I took a taper reamer and put a tiny vestigal cone in the breech end. We'll have to see if that helped or if I've totally wrecked it. I did fire a round of the 358430 over Deputy Al's chronograph for a blistering 431 fps. That'd raise quite a welt if you got hit with it!
For the rifle shoot I used a M38 Swede. The ammo was 30 rounds of a test I'd loaded testing the 6 cavity group buy 135gr 6.5 Kurtz and the 172gr Oldfeller cruise missle. I didn't have any other ammo to shoot. I don't know what I was thinking when I loaded this test ammo for the M38 when all previous testing had been done in the longer barreled M96. Since they really weren't much good for testing, they needed to go.
This ammo had been loaded 5 rnds of each in 1.0gr increasing powder charges. So that means I had 15 rounds of each slug over 36.0, 37.0, and 38.0grs of WC872. The course of fire is 10 rounds at 50 yards. I'd used 4 of the 135gr slugs at 36.0grs of WC872 as sighters. HA! Two radicly different boolit weights and 3 powder charges to shoot an offhand match with, right!
Happily I won! Not that I did so well, just that the others did more poorly then usual. I managed a 88-1X. Four of those shots fired were 10's. Then a couple 9's and I think three 8's and a 6. I forget which load and boolit I had Deputy Al fire through his chrongraph, but it was going 1787 fps.
Next week we're shooting muzzle loaders. Means I don't have to reload anything yet! Maybe I can get them to shoot 22's again, or maybe pistols after that?
.................Buckshot
I really don't catagorize the IJ as being in that catagory. Yet it wasn't a S&W Victory model either. I did NOT want to hurt it, or myself. But neither did I want to load 50 rounds of stuff that would end up with slugs perhaps stuck in the barrel. The Lyman Cast Boolit man-u-el data for the 38 S&W said that "This data is suitable only in solid frame handguns".
I had read somewhere that the current manufacturers of 38 S&W ammo (at least here in the US of A, keep pressures below 14K-psi just FOR the old break tops. Now the Lyman book showed pressures for most their loads and these ranged from 8.4 K-psi to maybe 12K-psi. If the statement re the 14K pressure was true, then ALL the Lyman data shown should be safe.
Yet who to trust, and again why risk damage to it or me? I had 2 boolits to load for the IJ. Both were swaged to .363". One, the Lyman 35863 cast of pure lead dropped from the 4 cav mould at that diameter. It's trip into the swage die was to have a hollow base swaged in. The other slug was the Lee 358-158 RF that had been cast of WW alloy. It was lube-sized .359 then went into the swage die base first to have one honker of a HP swaged in :-)
The beginning load data for a 141gr slug was 1.7grs of Bullseye. I substituted W231 for the Bullseye and loaded the 1.7gr charge under both boolit wieghts and alloys. Both slugs got a moderate roll crimp. I'd also spent time Monday loading 150 rounds for the S&W Victory model. These were some of the same slugs made up for the IJ, plus some Lyman 358430's cast of pure lead. Fifty of these were as cast and TL'ed and 50 were swaged to .363" with a hollow base, and a hollow point. They became rather longish wadcutter looking deals.
Just to keep from using up all this computers' ink, the Iver Johnson did not like the harder cast 158gr Lees at all. It sprayed them about the target paper with wild abandon (25 yards). I'd thought sized to .363" they'd have done much better, but oh well. The pure lead 35863's with a HB did much better. I won't task your incredulity by suggesting the ole Iver Johnsom breaktop is a target pistol, by any means.
However, the accuracy it displayed was much better then a person might expect. I should add here that the sights were a major hindrence in trying to shoot and things might have been better had they been filed completley off! The rear sight is on the locking latch itself and is merely a 'U' shaped trough, whose up raised sides are paper thin. The front sight in sideview is a nicely sized sugerloaf. However, turn the pistol to actually USE the front sight and it almost disappears totally. Heck, I wouldn't have suspected they could machine steel that thin back in those days. Now I know where the idea for injector razor blades came from.
Suffice to say, I about wrecked my eyes for the day trying to focus on the dang things. I carry sight black in my range box, but it would have been folly to try and use it here as the edges facing me were so thin I don't think there was any surface the spray could have stuck on. The best group of 5 rounds I deliberately shot for group was 2 -1/4" and discounting one shot would have been a tidy 1.5". Most the rest shot ran 3" or a bit more. Okay for this pistol and these horrific sights. It does have a bit of side spitting. There is NO forcing cone at all. That afternoon at home I took a taper reamer and put a tiny vestigal cone in the breech end. We'll have to see if that helped or if I've totally wrecked it. I did fire a round of the 358430 over Deputy Al's chronograph for a blistering 431 fps. That'd raise quite a welt if you got hit with it!
For the rifle shoot I used a M38 Swede. The ammo was 30 rounds of a test I'd loaded testing the 6 cavity group buy 135gr 6.5 Kurtz and the 172gr Oldfeller cruise missle. I didn't have any other ammo to shoot. I don't know what I was thinking when I loaded this test ammo for the M38 when all previous testing had been done in the longer barreled M96. Since they really weren't much good for testing, they needed to go.
This ammo had been loaded 5 rnds of each in 1.0gr increasing powder charges. So that means I had 15 rounds of each slug over 36.0, 37.0, and 38.0grs of WC872. The course of fire is 10 rounds at 50 yards. I'd used 4 of the 135gr slugs at 36.0grs of WC872 as sighters. HA! Two radicly different boolit weights and 3 powder charges to shoot an offhand match with, right!
Happily I won! Not that I did so well, just that the others did more poorly then usual. I managed a 88-1X. Four of those shots fired were 10's. Then a couple 9's and I think three 8's and a 6. I forget which load and boolit I had Deputy Al fire through his chrongraph, but it was going 1787 fps.
Next week we're shooting muzzle loaders. Means I don't have to reload anything yet! Maybe I can get them to shoot 22's again, or maybe pistols after that?
.................Buckshot