357 Cast Loads for PC

[Tlee]

....(snip)
I would love a 32 H&R or a 327 Mag with a heavy Oct. bbl, but no such animal or in the case of the 32 H&R, Marlin made one for a brief time in only 20 inch. Other problem is if you look at the PC rules, I don't think they are allowed.
Thanks again for the advice, Dennis.

32 H&R Mag is allowed. I shoot one about 1/2 the time in PCCLA. There's usually a few of them each year at the Nationals.

- Tim

[PhxShooter]

Dennis,

While as you say, no one is currently producing a 24" or longer octagon barreled lever gun in either 32 H&R Magnum nor the .327 Magnum, if a manufacturer were to do so I can see nothing in the rule book that would prevent someone from shooting that rifle in any NRA Pistol Caliber or even Rifle Caliber Lever Silhouette match. The calibers listed are only examples and not a definitive list. As with the .357 Mag, the .44 Mag and even the .45 Long Colt rifles the shooter would probably have to download the ammo to prevent damage to the Pistol Caliber targets but that's the only restriction I can see.

By the way, I recently had to send a Taurus .357 revolver back to Taurus (in Florida) for repair. It was returned in less than 3 weeks and they did a great job the first time. Too bad it wasn't correct from the factory but the repair process was very painless.

See Ya in Raton,

Craig

[TheBugFather]

Thanks Tim and Craig.
It looks like I'll be sending in this one also.
The 357mag loads look a little promising, but the 38spl loads are all over the place.
I might take my older Win 94ae, and/or just stick with my Marlin 57M.
Craig, it does not look like I'll be able to get my fancy bowsight thing working by Raton. I'm just going to make another set of sights quick, and come back to it when my friend has more time or I get a little milling machine of my own.
Also see you at Raton, hope I don't forget the stuff to work on the 57 trigger. I'll see if I can get the sear ready, that is 90% of the work.
Thanks, Dennis

[Tlee]

...(snip) As with the .357 Mag, the .44 Mag and even the .45 Long Colt rifles the shooter would probably have to download the ammo to prevent damage to the Pistol Caliber targets but that's the only restriction I can see.

By the way, I recently had to send a Taurus .357 revolver back to Taurus (in Florida) for repair. It was returned in less than 3 weeks and they did a great job the first time. Too bad it wasn't correct from the factory but the repair process was very painless.

See Ya in Raton,

Craig

Craig/Dennis -

Amen to the download comment! We've had folks show up with factory ammo at a local match (American Eagle 158g SPs come to mind) that really did some damage on the targets, particularly the chickens and pigs. There was even a healthy crater on the turkeys from them. These were targets that withstand regular hits from 55gr 22Hornet loads running 1800FPS during the Hunter Pistol matches.

Subsonic loads like Cowboy ammo are more than adequate for all the PC targets and are much easier on the shooter. They also work well on the full size CLA chickens, pigs, and turkeys... IF you have sufficient sight elevation adjustment for the tall birds. Darned full size ram needs 180g or 200g gaschecked lead running 1400+ though. But I digress... See you both at NRAWC this time next week!

- Tim

[jbolt]

I use 10g 4227 in my 357 pushing a 158g round nose. Works exceptionly well for PC

ex pom, what bullet? Is it plain base or gas checked?

Thanks,

J~

[jbolt]

Dennis- How were the Nats? I picked up my M92 today. Looks like I got one of the good ones. So far it feeds whatever I put in it. The trigger pull is even decent out of the box. I hope to get to the range tomorrow to test some loads.

J~

[jbolt]

Follow up - My current load for PC is 6.0gr Unique behind a Lee 125-RNFP non-GC cast bullet with my own lube. Lead is range lead heat treated to 20 bnh. Load took down rams no matter where I hit them.

I also tried 4227 and Trail Boss with this bullet. No amount of tweaking made the trail boss accurate and the 4227 is very dirty. I use 4227 in my 30-30 with great success but its not worth the mess in the .357.

The Lee TL-158-RN shoots well with both Unique and Trail Boss but they leaded up the barrel pretty quickly with just the Lee Alox lube (2 coats). I may try 3-4 coats of alox and see if that works. Not sure if there is an alternative to the alox for tumble lubing?

Jay

[TheBugFather]

Jbolt, Glad you got it working. I did some testing, but have set it down for now. I work better under pressure, so I'll most likely wait until a few days before the AZ State Match or the Nationals to start working on it. Trail Boss works OK for me, but I'm trying a light copper coated lead bullet (125 gr.) I heard from Tony that some else is using a barry's 158 with about 4.5gr of Trail Boss (DON'T Quote me on that, just from my weak mind) and has a great group. I plan on trying a 158 gr version and also mess with a, I think, 98 grain Round nose moly coated cast bullet from Bear Creek. That should be fun too. VV - N-110 works about the same as your 4227, but should be cleaner burning.
thanks for the info, Dennis.

[Tlee]

Jbolt, Glad you got it working. I did some testing, but have set it down for now. I work better under pressure, so I'll most likely wait until a few days before the AZ State Match or the Nationals to start working on it. Trail Boss works OK for me, but I'm trying a light copper coated lead bullet (125 gr.) I heard from Tony that some else is using a barry's 158 with about 4.5gr of Trail Boss (DON'T Quote me on that, just from my weak mind) and has a great group. I plan on trying a 158 gr version ...(snip)... Dennis.

Most of this is a cut-n-paste from a previous post; I wasn't too impressed with 158gr bullets and Trail Boss....
With 4.5gr Trail Boss and 158g Berry's Plated I saw an average of 670FPS out of a Marlin 1894 with a 24" barrel. With 4.8g of it I saw 704FPS avg. I don't know how it grouped as I ran out of sight adjustment trying to get it on the paper. I believe the longer barrel is actually a detriment with the 158g bullet because I got 730-775FPS with the same two loads out of a 6" S&W revolver.

With 5gr of Trail Boss and 125gr plated bullet I saw 985FPS average out of the same rifle. With 5.4gr of it I saw an average of 1005FPS and it did group well, a couple inches or better at 100m, IIRC.

I used CCI pistol primers and seated the bullets to an OAL of 1.59"

Don't be tempted to compress TrailBoss any at all... The group size "went to heck" and I actually LOST about 40FPS when I tried 5.8gr with the 125g bullet (which should've put the base of the bullet barely touching the charge).

-Tim

[Tlee]

Bringing up an old thread... Has anyone else seen big changes in velocity (and resulting sight adjustments) using Unique powder in cold weather?

At the AZ state match this past weekend (it was a chilly 50ish degrees a couple days) I had to adjust sight settings almost a full 6 MOA using the 357 mag for what are usually 1100FPS Unique loads using 160gr bullets (in 70 degree WX in Texas)... I suspect they were moving MUCH slower in AZ as I could see the bullet traveling downrange when spotting on almost every shot from about 40 yards out. We also lost a couple pigs with full bullet hits on the nose and ear, so I know they were running dead slow.... just not enough umph to push the target over on hits not well centered. I did pull a couple bullets and verified my load was correct (it was).

Strangely, at the same match, my 700X and GreenDot loads (125gr bullets at 1050 and 1100fps, respectively) all were within 1 to 2 MOA of my sight settings that I usually wind up with when shooting in Texas or at Raton.

I do know that some single based powders are temperature sensitive, particularly in light loads (Solo1000 immediately comes to mind as NOT doing well in light loads at anything under 50degrees F). However Unique is double-based and has performed very well and consistently until this past weekend. It still seemed to shoot accurate, just significantly slower, requiring huge sight adjustments....

Anyone else have similar experiences?

-Tim