Indoor Range .38 powder Suggestions

[Shiloh]

I have been shooting .38 Special loads at an indoor range with the time honored load of 2.8 grains of Bullseye. This is with the Lyman 35891 wad-cutter boolit. This is load has fine accuracy.

The problem that I is that Bullseye stinks up the range really bad with the volumes of smoke. I use the Larsen BAC lube with these boolits. I could use some suggestions on powder that produce less acrid and pungent smoke. What about WW231??

Shiloh

[1Shirt]

Try the Larson Red Lube, I get no smoke out of it with any cast blt.
1Shirt!

[mroliver77]

I shoot a lot of Clays in the .38. Not near as stinky as Bulls Eye and darn accurate for me. Harder to lite than BE though.
J

[wheelgunner]

You'll find 3.1 of W/W 231 will very closely approximate the 2.8 of Bullseye in both FPS and accuracy without the smoke. When I was competing in PPC I shot literally 100's of 1000's of the 231 load, it's a winner!

[RayinNH]

Shiloh, are you sure it's the powder and not the lube? My guess is, the lube is the culprit. Shoot a few jacketed with the Bullseye to compare...Ray

[Shiloh]

Shiloh, are you sure it's the powder and not the lube? My guess is, the lube is the culprit. Shoot a few jacketed with the Bullseye to compare...Ray

I don't know for sure. It could be. I just don't notice it when I shoot outside. Here's my problem, I don't have any jacketed bullets for the 38/357!! I may have some somewhere, it's just that I haven't shot jacketed bullets in either the 1911 or 38 in years, since I started casting.

Are you familiar with Larsen's BAC Lube?? It is a little smoky. That may be the culprit.

Shiloh

[Pavomesa]

231 is pretty clean burning powder. All of the Hercules powders are very smoky. Most were designed a LONG time ago and not very far removed from black powder days.

But bullet lube is often a bigger source of smoke than the powder. I suspect the lube is more your culprit. Again, probably the older lubes are more smoky as they were formulated before all the indoor ranges and no one cared about a little puff of smoke.

[RayinNH]

Shiloh, I'm not familiar with Larsen's BAC, but I do use his 2500+ lube. It's a bit smoky but I only use it outside. Our club requires jacketed or plated indoors because of lead concerns. I don't shoot much indoors because of the 10 cents plus per bullet, it's gets spendy real quick. Send me a PM with your address and I'll send you a few plated bullets to try...Ray

[georgeld]

I use 3.5gr Red Dot with Lee's Alox.

Some smoke, but, good fan's suck it up in our pistol range.
it's the politics of the board that's bad there!

[DonH]

Shiloh, are you sure it's the powder and not the lube? My guess is, the lube is the culprit. Shoot a few jacketed with the Bullseye to compare...Ray

For 25 years or so I used Bullseye for all my pistol target shooting, both indoors and out. So much was said and written about 231 that I gave it a try at one time. Performance wise it was no better than Bullseye so I did not switch. What DID cause me to switch to 231 was that finally, due to breathing problems, I could no longer take the acrid fumes from burning Bullseye powder at the indoor range. This had nothing to do with lube as all I changed was the powder and a noticeable difference was immediately noted.

I observed no increase in accuracy with 231 over my B'eye load ( before vision problems I was good enough to know) but did not need to mess with two loads so started to use 231 across the board.

[GrizzLeeBear]

I've been using Trail Boss for my bullseye loads in 357 cases. I like how it fills the case a little more than half full. I was using 3.6 gr. under a 150 SWC, but I just got one of the Lee 358-105-SWC 6 cavity molds. Tried 3.6 gr. and 3.9 gr. Both shoot 1/2" or less 5 shot groups and 50 feet. Since I am going to try this load for Field Pistol silhouettes also, I'm going to use the 3.9 gr. load to keep the speed up a little (about 950 fps im guessing from IMR's data). Recoil with this little 105 grainer is very light. You might try some Trail Boss in your 38.
Also, since this mold drops the bullets right at .358, I just tumble lubed them with LLA. It does seem to smoke a little less than the BAC I use in my lube sizer.

[38 Super Auto]

...but I just got one of the Lee 358-105-SWC 6 cavity molds.

This is one of my favorite molds. I shoot 3gr Red Dot for Plinkers and 14gr Blue Dot for a little more thump (and muzzle blast) in 357mag

[AlaskaMike]

Excess lube on the bullet bases makes a lot of smoke in my loads, regardless of powder. Might be something to check. I just have a rag next to the sizer and wipe every bullet base after I size it.

Mike

[Morgan Astorbilt]

Shiloh, I'm not familiar with Larsen's BAC, but I do use his 2500+ lube. It's a bit smoky but I only use it outside. Our club requires jacketed or plated indoors because of lead concerns. I don't shoot much indoors because of the 10 cents plus per bullet, it's gets spendy real quick. Send me a PM with your address and I'll send you a few plated bullets to try...Ray

Ray, You might want to have whomever is in charge of your range, contact DuPont, regarding the source of airborne lead in indoor ranges. About forty years ago, when I was a member of the NYPD, our range officers were given blood tests which revealed that some of them were suffering from high levels of lead. At that time, The NYPD purchased all their ammunition from DuPont (Remington and Peters). With almost forty thousand members, cycling (qualifying), three times a year, this added up to quite a bit of ammo. In response, DuPont produced an experimental Teflon coated bullet, for us to test, in the hope of eliminating any vaporization of the lead as the bullet traveled down the barrel. Tests proved there was no difference in airborne lead, and it was determined that it was coming from the lead styphnate in the primer compound.
In the meantime as is our practice, our ballistics lab. tested these bullets against various materials, including bullet resistant polycarbonates(Lexan), and Teflon vests. The bullets easily penetrated these materials, and as usually happened, someone called the Daily News city desk, and mentioned this. The Daily News promptly ran with a front page story, tagging them with the name "Cop Killer Bullets". And the rest is history. It should be mentioned that at this time, Teflon bullets weren't even in production, let alone available to the general public.
Just a bit of trivia.

Morgan

[timdco]

I've never used bullseye but I have noticed that Unique is a very clean powder in my .45 ACP and .357 quite a bit cleaner than red dot. I would stay away from hp-38 it's about the smokiest powder i've tried so far.

[lathesmith]

Alliant changed their powder formulations around 8 years ago and cleaned things up quite a bit. I went back to using new-formula Red Dot, and it IS much less smoky and less sooty than the older stuff. They were supposed to have done this across the board to all their older powder lines-ie, Bullseye, Unique, Herco, et al, so if you have older lots of powder you might consider trying newer stuff.
Morgan, how 'bout those Federal Nyclads? I was digging around in the garage here awhile back and found a couple hundred unloaded 158 grainers from 'way back. Rumor had it back then that they would defeat the kevlar stuff. I always wondered about it. The only reason I got these bullets was because they were cheap, and I always kinda thought the kevlar thing was just so much gun show hot air.
lathesmith

[Morgan Astorbilt]

No, Lathesmith, the Nyclads don't aid calibers, that wouldn't otherwise, in defeating Kevlar. These aren't "bullet proof vests" only bullet resistant, able to defeat most pistol calibers. Emergency Service units, carried "Real" bullet proof vests on their trucks, the kind with interlocking steel plates, that look like they came off an automotive timing chain. They weighed about forty pounds.

DuPont coated the 158gr. .38spl. bullets with Teflon for its friction and heat resistant qualities, to allow them to withstand the heat from both powder combustion and barrel friction. We were never offered them for tactical use while I was on the force (retired 1978).

Speaking of Federal, they developed a lead free primer for use in indoor ranges, and marketed ammunition for this, but the name escapes me. Now that they're owned by CCI, don't know if they still make it.
Morgan

[fecmech]

I have a new 4 lb keg of Bullseye purchased just a few monthes ago and it still has the same old acrid smell it always had. I love the stuff as it's the most accurate powder for my .45 and .38 but indoors at 50' Clays and 231 don't cost me any points and they are less acrid.

[Shiloh]

Excess lube on the bullet bases makes a lot of smoke in my loads, regardless of powder. Might be something to check. I just have a rag next to the sizer and wipe every bullet base after I size it.

Mike

I got some .38/.357 gas checks from one of the posters on the forum. I put that in the base of the sizer die to prevent the bevel base from getting lube on in. There is no lube on the base. There is however 3 lube grooves on the 35891 boolit. would it be okay to just fill two of them?? There is plenty of lube left in the grooves of recovered boolits.

Shiloh

[lathesmith]

Yes, I would try lubing just one or two grooves and see how it works. Use the least amount of lube you possibly can; this will create less smoke. I notice lots of guys here love those huge square lube grooves on their bullets. This is fine, for outdoor stuff and when you need more lube for carbine-length barrels. But indoors it does create more smoke, stink, and mess. That is one reason I prefer some of my Lee designs for indoors--they have shallow lube grooves, and hence hold down the lube smoke, stink and mess. And for target loads they have enough lube to get the job done for me.
Morgan, I figured that was the case. Besides, nylon and teflon are two different animals, and like I said I always did have a problem with the urban legend of the nyclad bullet.
lathesmith