Uberti 1866 in 38 Special

[PAndy]

I did a bunch of cold barrel chronograph testing years ago. It would be nearly impossible to test if I didn't have the ability to shoot in my yard. I was careful to keep powder position in the case consistent. (That's another can of worms) I used 30-30, 32-20, and 357.

I found that I almost always had a slow first shot with jacketed bullets, and I almost never saw that with cast.
I repeated many of the comparisons because I was skeptical of my own results.

[lmohar]

PAndy,
Very interesting. Can you tell us some basics of the loads tested? Powders, approximate pressure range.

Ill have to review my notes to see if I missed seeing that same phenomenon. I was in the low pressure range. Powder can move. Moderate crimp. N340 and N350. .44 Mag. 240 Jacket and 240 powder coat.

Any thought as to the cause of first shot low velocity?

Laine

[375Short]

Carful waxing. This is a conservative bunch and from what I have heard, it hurts, but only briefly.

[edgehit]

You lost them Wayne!

[375Short]

Tested some .38 special loads on Pigs and Rams at Whittington on the CLA range. I had a 158g load at 840 fps and a 125g load at 1100 fps. Both loads toppled the full scale Pigs and neither budged a Ram. Just information for the what it’s worth department. It did demonstrate that I could throttle back my .357 loads I use on CLA pigs in the future. It takes much less to topple a pig than I had assumed.

[375Short]

An odd but accurate load for the .38 produced .52” 50y groups. I had forgotten my chronograph (x2) so don’t have numbers. I loaded a bunch for our last PC match of the season and at Rams on a windy day it put a 2.5” group on the swinger.

190g Bear Creek sized .359
6.5g AA-9
Remington BR rifle primer
1.59” OAL with just enough crimp to lay the case mouth back against the bullet

[375Short]

After much loading I have a very non-earth shattering conclusion. For this rifle jackets on bullets is the easy button. It seems about any combo shoots good enough and more than a few shoot very well. Looking over data I have the best performance (or maybe it’s where I put the most effort) with slow powders, standard to heavy bullets and rifle primers. Maybe that combo works well in rifle length barrels . Powders like #9, 4227 and 5744. You don’t need to worry about powder position issues, no room for much of an issue. I like the slower recoil impulse of the slower powders as well. Things also got better (easier) in the accuracy department when I gave up on trying to keep everything subsonic and accepted that I could probably handle the recoil of a standard pressure .38 special in a 8.5lb rifle. It’s also hard to go wrong with about any jacket combo and Titegroup. Except for the oddities that Titegroup presents in stained cases, jabby recoil and eventually stubborn cleaning issues.

In the world of strange things to try. I have lower ES and less first shot fliers when I coat bullets (both already lubed cast and Jacketed) with Alox or xlox. Don’t laugh until you try it.

The odd ball load with the Bear Creek 190 has remained a solid performer and has great behavior on windy days. I think a supply will be on hand for the days the targets are getting blown off the stands.