The lee 312 target picture was posted simply because I find the 2400 powder extremely versatile.


The real push for this testing was hot loads for the short bbl'd l-comp. Getting 1200fps from 125gr bullets with that short bbl is child's play. I have 2 different 125gr bullets laying around and full house loads of bullseye & american select got 1200fps + in that l-comp. Move up to a 158gr/160gr bullet and finding a 1200fps load gets harder.

I didn't do any test targets yet. Was simply testing for consistency & velocities. Most factory ammo is anemic at best.
http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/revo...cs-test/#38spl

Now that I found a "ballpark" load I can work on accuracy and bullet alloy. Shouldn't take too much tuning seeing how 6" groups or less @ 50ft would be more than accurate enough for for my needs considering the longest shot inside my house that I would encounter is 34ft.

The next set of testing will be with targets stapled to wet pack @ 50ft. Wet pack is bundles of newspaper (12") that have taped together and then put into a cooler. The cooler is then filled with water. The bundles of paper swell up and it typically takes putting water on them twice to get them fully saturated. The cooler with the wet pack is brought to the range and a bundle is pulled out and setup on the bowling pin table and a target is stapled to it.
Testing 6" bbl'd 357's in wet pack.


Testing "Ness" safety bullets (h & g #38) @ 50yds in wet pack. These bullets are designed to keep vermin out of the yard/garden and explode upon impact/ no ricochet. The blow golfball sized holes 4" to 5" deep in things that they hit.


Testing alloys in wet pack:
Took 4 or 5 tries to get the alloy right to get the bullet to hold together (the home swaged jacketed 44cal in post above) @ +/- 1100fps. Made those bullets up for deer hunting and wanted to simulate a full house load hit @ 75yds to 100yds. IE 1400fps at the muzzle ='s 1100fps @ 100yds. The recovered bullets along with the test target.


45acp alloy testing in wet pack:
Wanted these bullets not only to penetrate I wanted them to explode. They left fist sized holes in the wet pack and penetrated at least 7 1/2" of wet pack. The test target and recovered bullets tested @ 50ft. 3 shots in 10 seconds and a double tap.


If you look at the blue picture in the center of the wet pack you will see holes in it where the double tap blew out the bundle of wet pack. Don't know how true it is but they say 1" of wet pack is = to 1 1/2" of jell. I've tested factory ammo in wet pack and it seemed pretty close to being true. Really doesn't matter, just another way/form of testing.


Anyway, I found a load. Now it's time to tailor the bullet to that load along with refining it. I want these hp's to stay intact/mushroom which will be hard seeing how they have a huge hp that is designed for slower loads. If I can't get the 359640's to work I'll simply pick another hp to test. I wanted to use the 359640 bullet simply because I have as 4-cavity mold that rains bullets in a hurry. I'm sure I can get 1 of these 35cal hp's to work in the 1200fps range.