OK, I am totally new to this cartridge.
I recently picked up a 1969/70 ish S&W 31-1. The cylinder throats run nearly .315”
It is a dandy little gun that makes me giggle. Except beyond 15 yards.
I’ll explain,...in my haste and rush I hurried up and bought “any” bullet I could find just to gear up and have something to shoot not yet having the gun in state to measure the throats. They were pretty cheap relatively but the quality sucks.
I bought Cast Performance 32/95 gr RNFP. They’re prelubed with some dry lube. They were sold as hard cast (I know, I know) but the box says heat treated. They run all over the map in size, 0.312 to 0.3145 often on the same bullet. These are obviously as cast dry lubed, complete with wrinkles and bases that may be beveled or simply rounded from poor mold fill out depending on which bullet you examine. With a 2.4 load of W231 and a light crimp they hold 2-3” at 15 but jump out at 25 yards.
Yea, I expected so much pulling the trigger early. I might try running them through a 0.314 sizer, my largest in that approx size.
Anyways with the background covered I want to buy a mold in the 98-110 grain range that will throw X alloy at 0.315”.
I hardly want to use linotype or Lyman #2 as I suspect that is wasteful of tin. I am guessing a 20-30 to 1 alloy should be plenty. Am I on the right track? what do you suggest? I am not loading this for self defense or anything, it’s a pleasant popgun to make me giggle. 800 ish fps is fine as long as the accuracy is nice too.
I’d have bought some Hornady swaged HBWCs had they still existed to test things out.
thanks in advance!