Hi All, I considering some heavy for caliber lead bullet loads for use in my 6'' .357 magnum and old .38 snubby. I was wondering about the leading issue in the .357. As I was researching and seeing that leading can depend on a number of factors, it struck me you cast bullet aficionados would be able to tell me all I would ever want to know on the subject.
In particular I'm looking at .38 special +P Remington High Terminal Performance 158 gr. LHP RTP38S12A, to use as a light defensive load in the .357. From what I've seen, I should expect to get about 1,000 fps out of the 6 inch barrel.
For the snubby I want a standard pressure load both because it is old ... no +P ..... and I think I'm in the camp of giving up on expansion out of a .38 snubby and therefore would rather just go with something that punches a good hole and provides adequate penetration. So, I'm looking at Federal's train and protect 158 gr "Versatile Hollow Point" FATP38VHP1. In addition to a defensive load for the snubby, I thought I could use this as my target/practice load out of both guns. its listed as 830 fps so it would be moving a lot slower than the Remington.
Anyway, what would you guys think about the leading issue in these guns with these loads? Maybe I'm making too much of it, I've never really had to deal with it but it doesn't seem like that much of an issue to clean up anyway but I thought I would ask since I want to stock up on the loads and shoot quite a bit of them. For the .357, I wouldn't want to have to do cleaning of the barrel that could affect accuracy or anything like that. Thank you for the thoughts