Newbie with a question

[Captain Capsize]

Greetings gents, this is my first excursion into the underworld of boolit casting and also my first post. I have been lurking and reading past posts for several days. Much more to be learned here, thank-you all for your contributions. I have cast some 30 cal boolits about a year ago and they shoot terrible, like 10 foot spread at 75 yds. So now that I am a little wiser I will try again. I think my boolit bases have been irregular and I had been shooting gc boolits without the gc. I ordered some gc today so I will try again soon.

I have a question, I have recently acquired a .357 lever action Rossi rifle and have read that they are strong enough to handle hot .357 magnums without stressing anything. Does anyone have a recommendation about this? Also can I put gas checks on taper based .357 158 gr. swc boolits? And who would sell those?

Thanks and happy New Year to all.
Captain Capsize

[runfiverun]

you can shoot any magnum you want in the rossi's. as long as it's within the 357's pressure level.
i have about 5-6 different rossi 92's and they all see heavy boolits and top end loads.
my oldest one is from 91 and it is doing very well no stretching no problems.
most of the leverguns don't really like the swc type boolit.
but i have put g/c's on some tapered bases before.
it depends on the length and angle of the taper as to how well they will work.
if they are the long tapered ones from the magma mold i doubt you will get them to stay on.
as the taper is too small for the g/c to crimp to the base.
if they are closer to say a 45* sgort length bevel the g/c will usually do fine and square up the base for you.
gas checks are made by hornady and gator check.
gators can be found here in group buys usually and hornady's are found bout everywhere else.
sportsmans,midway, etc..

[XWrench3]

Just stick to the reloading books, and you will do fine. Purposly trying to load ammo hotter than specified has ruined many a gun, and even some men. Don't be a statistic! Besides, pain sucks!!!!

[kawalekm]

Hello CC
Yes, shooting a gas-check bullet without the gas checks is inherently not a good idea. Adding the GC should give you more accuracy. Also consider the twist rate of your rifle. You're likely to be shooting your cast loads at lower velocity than jacketed, and you bullets might not be spinning fast enough to be stablized. Keep at it.

As for your .357 magnum, my favorate bullet is Lyman's 358477. It's a plain base bullet, so you won't have to buy gas checks for it. I routinely shoot it at about 1800fps in my Marline rifle with good results. When you refer to tapered base bullets, are you refering to bevel base? You do not add a gas check to that bullet. The bevel base is just to simply loading into the cases. Me personally, I prefer plain base bullets that shoot just fine at rifle velocities as long as you choose a good alloy, such as Lyman #2. I make that by adding 1lb of lead-free plumbing solder to 19 lbs of wheelweight alloy.

Good luck,
Michael

[mpmarty]

Gas checks just add another variable to the equasion and I don't use them although I do cast gas check type boolits. I shoot them w/o checks and have no problems. You can, carefully, remove the gas check shoulder from moulds and produce perfectly acceptable flat base boolits also.

[303Guy]

I have loaded up some PB 158's for a friends Rossi at 'not too hot' and was 'suitably' impressed with the accuracy! You might try paper patching those boolits of yours.[smilie=1: Of course it would require sizing and a bit of initial effort but you never know - you might find a great deal of satisfaction that way. But there is a problem. Paper patching can be terribly addictive!:shock: (Have a look at the Paper Patching forum).

[jlchucker]

Xwrench3 has offered you some good advice. Consider it carefully. You still have all of your fingers, both of your eyes, and your gun's in one piece. Hotloading can asking for trouble that you don't want.

[canyon-ghost]

Welcome back to the Underworld! You'll find that your best accuracy with lead is going to be well below factory loads. I run my load tests at 1/10th grain increments until the group tightens up and gets small. That is- my powder loads. They come out well below what the factory off-the-shelf ammo is for pressure. Once you have a good load, you can do 500 rounds, just duplicate it. Most old literature in loads demonstrates that accuracy goes out the window when you approximate the factory loads. And above that, it's just flat crappy. No sense in shooting that fast, makes you look bad too.
Proceed cautiously into the area of handloads and, once again, welcome.

Ron

Here's a site for molds that's good: http://hollowpointmold.com/forsale/