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Hey Reloaders,
Thought I'd share a project I carried off over the last few weeks. I cut apart some federal 20ga game loads a friend of mine gave me to recover some #8 shot, then set about loading some 357 cases up. My materials were over-powder wads cut from card stock and some aluminum gas checks I bought off of eBay.
I charged three of each case with a charge from a ladder table I came up with, lightly tamped the powder wad over the powder, added 100gr of shot on top of the powder wad, then seated a gas check on top of the shot.
To finish them up, I gave each case a heavy roll crimp over the gas check, the topped it all off with several drops of wood glue to hold it all together against recoil.
In researching this, I found that overcharging the case with powder, giving the pellets top much velocity, causes them to engage with the barrel's rifling and impart some spin to the load, causing the center of the pattern to open up. My ladder load was designed to see where this center hole showed up so I could back up to the next hottest charge.
Below are some pics of the cartridges and the results. I'm intentionally omitting the powder name, as I'm using a load that has proven safe for my gun, but that's not published anywhere. My takeaway is that 5.0gr of powder x is the sweet spot.
Anyway, enjoy!
Pic of cartridges with wet glue
Pics of targets at different loads
Thought I'd share a project I carried off over the last few weeks. I cut apart some federal 20ga game loads a friend of mine gave me to recover some #8 shot, then set about loading some 357 cases up. My materials were over-powder wads cut from card stock and some aluminum gas checks I bought off of eBay.
I charged three of each case with a charge from a ladder table I came up with, lightly tamped the powder wad over the powder, added 100gr of shot on top of the powder wad, then seated a gas check on top of the shot.
To finish them up, I gave each case a heavy roll crimp over the gas check, the topped it all off with several drops of wood glue to hold it all together against recoil.
In researching this, I found that overcharging the case with powder, giving the pellets top much velocity, causes them to engage with the barrel's rifling and impart some spin to the load, causing the center of the pattern to open up. My ladder load was designed to see where this center hole showed up so I could back up to the next hottest charge.
Below are some pics of the cartridges and the results. I'm intentionally omitting the powder name, as I'm using a load that has proven safe for my gun, but that's not published anywhere. My takeaway is that 5.0gr of powder x is the sweet spot.
Anyway, enjoy!
Pic of cartridges with wet glue
Pics of targets at different loads
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