Yep, push a WC bullet faster than 650-700 fps target load and it will remain stable even in a Smith and Wesson. I load a solid base wadcutter in the .357 case, over 10/2400 in my Combat Magnum. It will shot small groups as far as I can hit anything.
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Yep, push a WC bullet faster than 650-700 fps target load and it will remain stable even in a Smith and Wesson. I load a solid base wadcutter in the .357 case, over 10/2400 in my Combat Magnum. It will shot small groups as far as I can hit anything.
Yes we are! We got our AR500 3/8" thick groundhog and bunny wabbit targets and stands from:
Calvin D. Byers
Quality Targets Inc.
305 N. Maple St.
Iola, Illinois 62838
www.qualitytargets.com
Phone: 618-245-6515
Fax: 618-245-2591
$75 each plus shipping on 5/8” round rod frame. Pictures below.
Attachment 223340Attachment 223341Attachment 223342
I have enjoyed the original posted and most of the replies to it,great sight for learning
OK, I read the article and all the following posts and now I have 5 Gallons on .38 brass to sort through. I will sort out the wadcutter brass for further use.
I had gone to my local range (DesertSportsman Rifle & Pistol Club) one late afternoon during the week and whilst dragging all my range stuff from my car to the shooting line I noticed a five gallon bucket with a sign on it. I looked closer and it read "My sight is so bad that I can no longer enjoy shooting and reloading. So I am giving away all my reloading and shooting equipment. These .38's are some of the thousands of empties that I no longer need. Enjoy them all." The plastic pail was heavy but I managed to drag it to my car and tote it home.
I had been neglecting my beloved Smith 586 as I was shooting mostly 9 MM and 45 ACP and some rifle calibers for the last few years. Along came a Model 57 Smith and it was .41 Magnums. So I went back to the .38's. I had a Taurus Model 85 in SS with a snubbie barrel and I practiced until I could group 5 shots inside a 4 inch circle at 40 yds. Then I bought another 586 for my wife. She loved my 6" 586 so I found another for her on the interweb.
It turned out to be a 8 3/4" tubed Smith 586 6 shooter that seemed to have been a safe queen and not fired much at all. The finish is flawless with not a bit of worn bluing anywhere. I am not sure if someone worked over the action or not but this Smith has a buttery smooth double action and a very crisp and has a light single action trigger pull. The wife does not like it because of the long barrel and the weight forwards tires out her hands too much.
She would rather shoot the Ruger BH w/4 5/8 bbl or my beloved 586. I compromised and bought her a Charter Arms Patriot in 327 Fed Mag calibre and it is now her carry gun. She loves the light weight and low recoil. I love the terminal ballistics of those 100 gr HP rounds and the general shootability of that round. I even bought one for myself. A Lipsey's special Ruger BH in ss w 5/5" bbl and an 8 shot cylinder. It is large but very accurate and a blast to shoot.
Now I need to hunker down and cast some HB wadcutters and wring out the long barreled 586. I expect good results.
I have read some of the posts here time to time, but I'm the chorus. I got heavy into Target guns
in early 70s. I had them all. The beating I take from guys that know me is that I got rid of Pythons
and Diamondbacks and some of the Officiers Model Colts and kept the S&Ws. The hacking I think
comes from the prices Colts are bringing. Sure I would like to have them back, to sell now for big
bucks. I will still stick with my S&Ws for shooting purposes. To me the 27 is the Cadillac of 357s.
I have never seen an article titled 75,000 Wad Cutters out of my Python. It ain't going to happen.
I just finished reading this article and all posts to it. It brought back good memories from long ago. I didn't realize that double cannelure brass had thinner walls for wadcutters. I started shooting Bullseye Pistol in 1964 when I turned 21, and got my pistol permit. The first handguns that I bought was a new Python 6" for $125.00, and an S&W K22 Masterpiece 6" used but not abused. As time passed, I got an S&W M52, an Alvan Dinan built M1911 45ACP W/ "DINAN" stamped on the bushing. Years later there was a brief article on him in the American Rifleman.
I joined a Rifle and Pistol club that shot one night a week during the school year at the local Police range in the basement of the High School. Behind the shooting positions were drums of water and crackers, a leftover from the duck and cover days of the 50's.
I used to shoot civilian class in a few of the Police Bullseye matches where Austin Behlert had a table set up and would tune the trigger pull on your revolver between matches for a small fee. Like most people my age, the eyes aren't like they used to be, and most of my mentors have long since made the journey to Heaven's range.
My load for 38 Spcl target shooting has been Lyman 358495 over Bullseye 2.5 Gr. using mixed brass. Like others who have read this article, I am going to go through my pile of brass to sort out the double cannelures.
I want to thank TexasFlyBoy for writing an outstanding article, and all of the other posters for sharing their knowledge to this thread.
-Harold
I have handled and inspected Texas Flyboy's Model 27 and can attest from my own observation that it is all true.
Took the time to read Texasflyboy's post again from June 13, 2012. Nothing like shooting the same sixgun over & over. You learn it better than the back of your hand. And I think 10,000 rounds in one sixgun is a bunch. Thanks for the sharing your experience.
Great Thread!!!! Read the whole thing and learned a lot! Thank you!!!!!
Has Mihec made a copy of H&G 50? Could it be done? Question answered! MP makes a H&G copy in Hollow base or solid base. Does anyone have any experience with this particular MP mold?
That is a good looking round
What makes the wadcutter brass more accurate than any of the other 38 Special brass?
Ripper90
Uniformity of mouth wall thickness not exceeding 0.010", and body wall not becoming tapering thicker until depth approximates the location of bullet base when sesated, for most wadcutters about 0.50" +/-
Use a tubing micrometer to sort, or the easy answer is to just buy Starline which comes that way!
Outpost75 is correct. That said, the wadcutter brass is usually only more accurate when using full wadcutter boolits loaded flush with the mouth of the case. For other boolits, it doesn't seem to make much if any difference since they aren't loaded deep enough in the case to make that thin wall necessary.
I've got quite a bit of .38 brass. I just checked some that I picked up about 6 mo. ago. It is all over the place, plain, nickel plate and double cannelure wad cutter. I also found some that had one cannelure located about ¼" from the mouth. From what I have read on this thread, the cannelure on this brass is too close to the mouth to be "wadcutter" brass. The brass with 2 cannelures has the top cannelure about 7/16" from the mout. I haven't used the tube mic on any of this to confirm measurement(per Outpost75) for it to be wadcutter brass.
I'm not overly concerned about it since at my age, I'm too old to be able to shoot(practice) enough to develope enough skill to be able to discern the difference in accuracy between wadcutter brass and regular brass. I will probably still sort out the wadcutter brass and hold it back for awhile. No sense using it up until(if) my skill level improves to the point I can show consistant improvement.
That's how I felt about it too, right up until I did a test with the wadcutter brass. I found that when using full wadcutters in wadcutter brass as opposed to mixed brass, my group sizes shrunk noticeably.
As in down to three inch groups from nearly four inch groups at the yardage I normally practice. I loaded both batches the same day and shot them the same day just to have a fair test.
I tried the same thing with standard SWC and RN boolits and found no difference to speak of. It did work with the full wadcutters though.
In the FWIW department, 75000 148 grain wadcutters equates to around 1,586 lbs of lead
Having finally outgrown my "more power is better" phase, thanks to a couple of .32 S&W Long I frames, I finally got a couple of real .38 Special target revolvers to practice with. A six inch Colt Officer's Model Match with the high thumb rest stock, and an 8 3/8" S&W K-38, Model 14-4.
The Colt has what is quite possibly the best single action trigger I have ever felt, double action not so much. The S&W may need a little smoothing, but I am going to put a few (hundred, thousand??) rounds down range before I make that decision.
I had been thinking of getting one of Lee's 125 or 158 RF six cavity molds, but after finally reading this thread in its entirety; I think I am going to go with their 148 WC and tumble lube. I will try both Bullseye and 231, hopefully both guns will like the same load. W231 has been my historical favorite powder for generic pistol loads from .38 to .45, so we will see.
Speaking of seeing, I can actually see the sights clearly on both of these guns. That doesn't happen often anymore.
Robert
My second read of this entire thread.
Sometime back, I sorted my brass and have about
200 pieces of wad cutter stuff.
I got a NOE mould, made a batch and powder
coated some.
So far tried some with Unique and Red Dot
with Red Dot the better, and only tested
in a Colt and Ruger snubbie.
Gotta load some more up for the
686 and the 27-2 .............