BLTsandwedge
12-11-2009, 07:30 PM
Friday afternoon.....one more report to issue and then home. Rainy this weekend which means range-time.
This past weekend I went looking for .38 Special problems. I shoot tons of 358091, 401638, 429421 and 452389......but I ran out of 358091. Never happened before. Ever. And I didn't have time to fire up the pots and rectify the situation. I did come across a box of 356637 9mm sized to .355 that I made about a hunnert years ago. In the cases they went- on top of 3g of Clays- the same charge I use for the wadcutter. I was positive I'd do nothing more than waste a half-box of perfectly good small pistol primers but I had to shoot someting out of the S&W 14 or face withdrawal issues.
With 3g of Clays the 358091 goes into 3" offhand all day at 25 yards (don't laugh, that's good for me) when put through the S&W 14 6". Wonderful SD on this load. I expected the 9mm rounds to lead the barrel and produce more-or-less 11 foot groups at the 25yd line as they're seriously undersized (.355 as opposed to .358 for the 358091). What I got from the 9mm round was a series of 3.5" offhand groups at 25yds out of the S&W 14- that has a groove diameter of .357 exactly. And zero leading from 50 rounds- Lee stick lube. It should'na done that. I wonder what gives- each gun is different but what, then, is 'seriously undersized?'
This past weekend I went looking for .38 Special problems. I shoot tons of 358091, 401638, 429421 and 452389......but I ran out of 358091. Never happened before. Ever. And I didn't have time to fire up the pots and rectify the situation. I did come across a box of 356637 9mm sized to .355 that I made about a hunnert years ago. In the cases they went- on top of 3g of Clays- the same charge I use for the wadcutter. I was positive I'd do nothing more than waste a half-box of perfectly good small pistol primers but I had to shoot someting out of the S&W 14 or face withdrawal issues.
With 3g of Clays the 358091 goes into 3" offhand all day at 25 yards (don't laugh, that's good for me) when put through the S&W 14 6". Wonderful SD on this load. I expected the 9mm rounds to lead the barrel and produce more-or-less 11 foot groups at the 25yd line as they're seriously undersized (.355 as opposed to .358 for the 358091). What I got from the 9mm round was a series of 3.5" offhand groups at 25yds out of the S&W 14- that has a groove diameter of .357 exactly. And zero leading from 50 rounds- Lee stick lube. It should'na done that. I wonder what gives- each gun is different but what, then, is 'seriously undersized?'