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Just to preface, this isn't a scientific study/test, and it probably doesn't have a lot of really useful content. Rather - it is just the random musings of a guy that had nothing better to do on a Thursday afternoon, bored silly after sitting through seemingly endless morning corporate Webex meetings. I had some time to play with my guns, found a use for some old powder and unknown bullets, and stumbled across a very nice load combination.
Last week I was minding my own business and cruising the local classifieds, and came across a fellow that had 500 "unknown manufacturer" 38spl SWC bullets that he acquired at an estate sale. He didn't need them, and wanted to trade for something he could use. I could tell from the pics that they were probably someone's home cast bullets, but they looked good, and I was bored, so......
Here's a picture of the bullets, hand packed in homemade boxes, so I assume cast. Can anyone venture a guess as to the mold identification? Bullets weigh in at 148gr.
I ended up trading a 325 count box of Federal Auto Match for the pile, and took them home. Now for test loads..... what powder to use this time. Rooting through my powder stores, I found a can of W540 way in the back. Hmmm.... I knew it was a shotgun powder, so maybe good for pistol as well? A quick internet search showed that it was the same as HS-6, and I found a few promising recipes to try. I chose a 6gr load, made up some test rounds, and went to the range.
I decided to give it a go in my Marlin lever gun to see what's what. The first five shots were all in the black, shooting off-hand at 50 yards. Recoil was mild, primers were still nice and rounded, no soot, very good accuracy, and they fed very smoothly and reliably through the Marlin's action. Nice.
So, for the next 15 minutes or so I fired all 50 of the test rounds at the 50 yard target, and when it was all said and done I was very pleased with the results..... with the exception of 3 rounds, all were well within the 8" target black..... and of the 3, 2 were at least touching the black.
Target face:
Seemed to me that this was a good combo, so I loaded up a batch and put them on the shelf for later:
Last week I was minding my own business and cruising the local classifieds, and came across a fellow that had 500 "unknown manufacturer" 38spl SWC bullets that he acquired at an estate sale. He didn't need them, and wanted to trade for something he could use. I could tell from the pics that they were probably someone's home cast bullets, but they looked good, and I was bored, so......
Here's a picture of the bullets, hand packed in homemade boxes, so I assume cast. Can anyone venture a guess as to the mold identification? Bullets weigh in at 148gr.I ended up trading a 325 count box of Federal Auto Match for the pile, and took them home. Now for test loads..... what powder to use this time. Rooting through my powder stores, I found a can of W540 way in the back. Hmmm.... I knew it was a shotgun powder, so maybe good for pistol as well? A quick internet search showed that it was the same as HS-6, and I found a few promising recipes to try. I chose a 6gr load, made up some test rounds, and went to the range.
I decided to give it a go in my Marlin lever gun to see what's what. The first five shots were all in the black, shooting off-hand at 50 yards. Recoil was mild, primers were still nice and rounded, no soot, very good accuracy, and they fed very smoothly and reliably through the Marlin's action. Nice.
So, for the next 15 minutes or so I fired all 50 of the test rounds at the 50 yard target, and when it was all said and done I was very pleased with the results..... with the exception of 3 rounds, all were well within the 8" target black..... and of the 3, 2 were at least touching the black.
Target face:
Seemed to me that this was a good combo, so I loaded up a batch and put them on the shelf for later:
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