Yep. Better than most of the self-serving articlevertisments the rags are running. You should see if one will pick it up. Could pay for the next 50k?
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"75,000 Wadcutters in a Model 27"
...............Awesome!
I have a 1968 smith 14-2
I pulled out my 148gr RCBS DEWC mould after reading this post.
I have yet to use this one, but after reading the thread, and posts, I got excited to Ty some full wad cutters. I am lacking the wad cutter brass, but have a few pounds of bullseye on hand.
My mold drops boolits right at .3585 with my alloy at 8BHN
Guess ill try just giving them some liquid Alox and 3.5 of t he bull and see how they shoot.
I can get 1.5" groups off a rest @ 25 yards with an RCBS 162gr GC over 3.2gr of titegroup.
Loved this thread. Makes me want to get out in the shop and lose myself for hours at the casting and reloading bench.
Waco
Dale,
I too have a 4 cav, 6 cav and 10 cav H&G #50 and prefer the 4 cav. The 6 cav throws a lot of bullets but gets heavy and blasts through a 10# pot pretty quick. The 10 cav, if I had a big enough pot (and arms) could really supply an army of shooters.
My question for you is about lubing a single groove, what is your reason?
I used to lube all three grooves but found that to "upset" the bullets at 50 yards. According to what I read it seem that lubing all the grooves throws the weight off a bit. I have been lubing only the lower two grooves starting last year and found they group tighter than the three groove lubing.
I just finished casting, sizing and lubing 1,000 38-150-KT that I started shooting in the service revolver matches in 2012. Once I load these I'll cast another 1,000 and be prepped for next years matches, once done with that I will start throwing some #50's to put some practice ammo together for my big gun (PPC) and am willing to give the single lube groove a try.
Thanks.
MKT;
Back in the Seventies, E. H. Harrison of the NRA ran extensive machine rest tests to see what made accurate .38 wadcutters. He discovered that using a good lube, filling more lube grooves actually reduced accuracy. I ran my own limited tests with a Ransom Rest, later, and my findings agreed with his.
When the bullets were first designed most people thought that the more lube the better the bullet. This may have been a hold over from the black powder era. At any rate, using the NRA 50/50 lube, Harrison determined that "less is more". I use Carnauba Red, a very fine lube, and the same reasoning applies.
Many years ago, I, too, was a serious PPC shooter. We had a number of police departments in the area that were extremely good at the sport. In fact, my own hometown police dept. ended up National Champions at the time. The Chief was a Master Class pistol shot and HIGHLY encouraged his officers to shoot. My local club supported the police dept. efforts and ran many of the matches for them so all of their officers that cared to participate could.
Ah-h-h, those were the days...:drinks:
FWIW
Dale53
MKT--I too played with my Ransom in the 70's and shot PPC. Lubing 1 groove was superior to 2 or 3 with the added bonus of a cleaner gun. The other thing I found out was that for the H&G #50 crimped in the groove, accuracy was better using 3.1-3.3 Bullseye (depending on the gun) over the 2.7-2.8 BE load that is quoted everywhere.
Dale & Fecmech, Thanks for the explanation.
I have a Ransom rest, but haven't run the cast WC from it, all of my testing has been by hand at the 50 yard line as a rough gauge. I have built ammo using the Remington HBWC that I can shoot as accurately as factory and figured I could do the same with cast. I haven't shot cast in a match yet though but I have practiced with the cast WC a lot from 25 and in trying to save my issued factory WC.
So far, with three grooves lubed, from the 50, they would hold 9 ring (but shot solidly at the 25). With two grooves lubed they shot tighter, but not quite a 10 ring group. This was using 3.3 gr Bullseye and/or 3.5 gr 231/HP38.
I think this off-season I will run off a batch of 3.3 BE and a batch of 3.5 231 made from two and one groove lube and run them from the Ransom. It is time I get serious about building some 50 yard ammo (heck, I build my own 9mm PPC ammo and have no qualms about shooting MY ammo at the Nationals, I should be able to do the same for the PPC revolver!).
I am using up my supply of Thompson's Blue Angel now and have just laid in a supply of Carnuba Red, so I should be good to go.
Thanks
Great post!
Texasflyboy,
Nicely done.
I shot PPC competitively for many years as a memeber of a law enforcement agency team. Our standard load was either a factory WW .38spl wadcutter, or as some did, a reload that would match the factory wadcutter ballistics and accuracy. I routinely shot about a thousand rounds a week through my heavy barreled K frame S&W. I replaced the lockworks or parts thereof, several times. The barrels seem to shoot well, forever with that particular load but we would see some degradation in the forcing cone area, but only after thousands of rounds. We expected our revolvers to print in the 1 to 1.5 inch mark at 50 yards to be competitive. We shot at the standard B-27 targets from 7, 15, 25 and 50 yards. The top shooters were shooting in the 1480's (150 rounds x10 = 1500 possible) and it often took a 1490+ to win a match.The x and 10 ring gets pretty small at 50 yards so we did a lot of testing to figure out the best factory and handloads for the matches. Being the gunsmith of the bunch, I took it upon myself to built an ammo testing fixture, that consisted of a a fixed barrel on a bolt action rifle, chambered in .38 spl. and mounted to a large block of steel. It was sort of a rail type gun that weighed over 160 lbs. We found that the Winchester was generally the most accurate of the factory fodder and the the Remington 148 grain HBWC bullet over a proper charge of WW231, Unique, or Bullseye was the most accuate handload. The powder didn't seem to matter too much as long as it was consistant and we kept velocites under 750 fps. We generally used Winchester or Federal primers because they seemed to have the softest cup and were more reliable with our very light mainspring guns. We tried many of the loads with cast bullets but found we never got the accuracy the swagged HBWC's gave us. I loaded and shot thousands of rounds in the 70's and did manage to achieve Grandmaster and make the Governor's 20 for a few years. I had an old AMMOLOAD that would load approx 1000 rounds an hour if it didn't break, but it did break often. That game, plus the loading got to be a lot of work, so I eventually gave it up. I went to work for S&W in the early 90's and started shooting that old gun again with the same load. It still shot better than I could.
keep up the good practice and keep focusing on that front sight.
submoa
I bought a bunch of 38 Special Federal Premium Wadcutter loads and have fired a lot of them off. I kept them separate from the squillions of cases I have left over after shooting American Eagle LRN ammo. I'm glad I did now!
I have a 586 I bought in 1986. It was well worn and showed blooms on the cylinders, but was well tuned and a nice serviceable revolver. It was my only centrefire for a long time and when they opened up Lithgow Prison, I got a promotion to there, from Long Bay Prison. We formed a pistol club and it took forever to get the club approved, etc, etc. I was already a member of a pistol club in Sydney, so once a week for about six months, we drove to Sydney and 6-10 guys would queque up taking turns shooting the 586. You have to be a member of a pistol club in Australia to buy a pistol. I counted the boxes of cast bullets I bought off a friend and my casting records and the 586 has seen a similar number of rounds since I purchased it. It had seen plenty before as well.
Since I started shooting big bore single actions in cowboy action shooting, it hasn't seen much use.I must dust it off and put a breeze up the old girl's skirts. I have often been tempted to send it to S&W for a refit, it has one chamber slightly off the mark in the cylinder, but it still shoots like a dream.
The new 4" 686 SS revolvers that are being advertised are tempting, but as far as I'm concerned, a Smith has to be blued. I carried a Model 10 at work for 22+ years. I have a model 64 which is like a new pin and is virtually a SS Model 10, but I'd swap it in a heartbeat for a blued Model 10 in any sort of condition. Our ones at work were a special order 3" heavy barrel. These revolvers were poetry in motion. I saw a Highway Patrolman in use at the range today. These were as cheap as chips (no pun intended) some years ago and nooooooooooo, my mate doesn't want to sell it.
I love my Ruger Single actions in 357, 44Mag, 45Colt/ACP and my Pietta Colt Clones in 44/40, but the Smiths are really something special.
How often does one clean a revolver that gets that volume of ammo through it?
It looks like you guys have a lot of years under your belts to match those round counts. I'm working to catch up. This thread was rather inspirational to me, and I started saving my primer sleeves. In the last year, I think I've made almost 4K 9mm for my own use, and used most of them.
It's also a pretty good way of tracking the cost offset of casting & reloading gear. I know my press payed for itself a long time ago.
I don't have a wheel gun, but a smith revolver is what I've always wanted. The 686+ appeals, but I know it's almost hard to shoot badly with any of the model 66s I've used. I like those better than the old style model 19 we bought for a friend's wedding.
I also think of this thread every time I see an H&G wadcutter mold on ebay. They always go for more money than I have though. I should probably spend some coin on a .357 before I spend close to $300 on a mold to feed it.
Ain't no mould made worth $300.
I'm inclined to agree, but I've seen a few H&G 10 Cav units sell for close to that.
Try one of the Lee 6 cavity molds for wadcutters. I have a H&G 4 cavity wadcutter mold that I bought before they went out of sight but it is much heavier than a Lee 6 cavity. You can buy several Lee's for what you would probably pay for a H&G. If the Lee proves unsatisfactory, get one from Accurate.
Thanks for the tips. I use Lee 6 cavs and have been happy with them. Truthfully, I wouldn't spend much more than the cost of those for anything other than a custom design. On the other hand, an H&G 10 cavity mold would hold it's value and allow for very rapid production. I think $120 could allow you to make a long lasting pile of bullets rapidly, and you could probably resell the mold for more than that price when you have "enough." I am planning to buy a magma caster and automate it some time in the future though. That would render all the fancy molds obsolete.
I don't want to thread jack this though. So more on the original topic. It isn't a classic smith, but I was watching this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbvEMAt44yY
and they mention a couple top level competitors putting more rounds through modern plastic guns in a single year than 75K. That's just staggering.
The venerable H&G #50 and bullseye. A combination thats almost impossible to beat. I don't own an N frame in 36 calibre but I've fired many thousands of that same load in Pythons, Detective Specials, Cobras, Diamondbacks, and K frame S&Ws. Very informative post txflyboy. I'm quite certain I can't match you for round count, but my experiances are very similar to yours.
Sorry, I didn't realise you were talking about a 10 cavity gang mould. A quality mould like that I could see $300's worth.