Hi folks...I have several hundred of Hornady's swaged 158 grain SWC hollow points and am interested in developing a .38special load for them with which they will expand reliably. I have loaded a truckload of .38s with hardcast SWCs, but not these particular bullets. So...because these are swaged and softer, I don't think they need to be screaming out at +P speeds...somebody please correct me if that doesn't matter. I have also been reading Brian Pearce's article about stretching powder to get more bang for the buck, and so am thinking about using Red Dot for it's small powder charges. Anybody with experience loading this bullet care to offer some advice or insights? Thanks in advance.

--LOTM

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I've used Red Dot with the Hornady 158s' and it worked good but nowhere near what I think you would need for expansion. I would guess you would need near 1000fps to get any kind of relible expansion. The loads I used with 3.2grs Red Dot were only running 750fps out of my 6" gun. You'll need to look at slower powders to get that kind of speed out of your loads, at least Unique or Blue Dot range.

I have loaded the bullet you have for plate shooting and have had some very good results.Please work your load up for your gun but I have been loading 9.0 to 9.5 grains of 2400 with a standard small pistol primer and in some guns get 1000+ FPS.I also get no leading and have found with this bullet the slower the powder(within reason) the less leading I get.I have also loaded the bullet with Bullseye and 231 and get great accuracy with Bullseye but I also get more leading than I like.

Depending on your gun and it's dimensions, leading will start as low as 850 fps with these bullets. To move that number upwards a little, I've seated a gas check upside down below the bullet to shield it's base from the burning gases and to provide a little scraping action to reduce previously-deposited lead (though don't count on this totally eliminating the problem).

The "FBI Load" of a soft 158gr SWC-HP @ 800-850fps is considered the best 38 special defense load according to the Wound Ballistic's Laboratory, so no need to try too hard to get more velocity.

I like the way you're headed. A light charge of "fluffy" powder (something that bulks up well) would be a reasonable load. You could use Red Dot, Green Dot, Bullseye, Unique, Solo 1000, or any number of other flake-shaped powders of relatively fast burn-rate to accomplish this. Ball powders, such as ZIP, W231, HP38, etc. will work well too, but they don't bulk up as much. In a medium-small case like the 38 that won't matter too much though.

Thanks for the input guys...I was anticipating generating a load with about 800-850 fps (hopefully) out of a 4inch barrel. I was also figuring on running into leading much past that. Barring Red Dot, I was also thinking about Unique and American Select.

I am surprised though, by 2400...I have never considered that in .38spl as I've used it primarily in .357 loads.

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You might be pleasantly surprised by the 2400! One thing you will not do is double charge a case!I have driven these bullets to 1200 FPS in my 686's using 38 spl brass and 2400.Please note I am talking here about a .357 and more than 9.5 grains of powder! I have found with the Hornady swaged bullets if the cylinder throats are the proper diameter the leading comes from bullet base gas cutting not bore friction so the use of slower powders.

The swagged all lead HP bullets will expand at relatively less velocity than a jacketed bullet. The factory +P "FBI" load is driven at around 890 fps from a 4" barrel.

With Red Dot you may be able to get that using a 3.6 to 3.8 gr load. 3.8gr is max for the Speer 158gr LSWCHP's in the #13 manual though it lists 848 fps as the predicted velocity.

I've loaded 4.5 to 4.7grs of W231 and 5.0 to 5.2grs of Unique in the .38 spl with 158gr Speer LSWCHP's in Winchester cases using WSP primers and they chrono right around 890+/- a few fps from a 4" revolver.

I agree and you can easily achieve those velocities with that bullet. When I use those Hornady LSWC/HP bullets to replicate the FBI Load I use HS-6. With the right charge you can easily achieve the velocities needed to reliably expand that bullet even from a 2" barrel.

In general if you are going to load a soft bullet you are better off choosing a powder that was around when soft bullets were common. I've found the older powders like Bullseye, Unique, 2400, W231/HP-38 and so on will work very well with soft lead bullets.

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I load these over 3.4 grains of bullseye. The only leading problems I had were when I failed to sufficiently bell the cases, thus shaving the bullet down to the point of being under sized. I've pushed them as fast as 1100fps with MINIMAL leading.

As far as expansion of these at 38 velocities, forget it. These swagged bullets have 5% antimony. Here is what the bullets look like after recovery from the shredded rubber mulch bullet trap. Sadly, even shot into water at this velocity, expansion isn't much different.


BTW, if you want expansion you may want to go with casting your own, thus being able to control hardness, design and even hollow point depth and width.

Here is a home brew bullet made from range scrap, gas checked and hollow pointed. Placed next to factory semi-jacketed hollow points you can see the performance is remarkably similar. Bullet = Lyman 358156 forester HP jig hollow pointed 1/3 of the way into the nose cone. 14.0 grains of 2400 for about 1250 fps (I use 13.5 grains in 38 brass and crimp on the closest crimp grove to the base and get nearly identical velocity to the .357 mag loading...used in a .357 mag gun, NOT a 38)

Hello there August 2010 Handloader Magazine Brian Pearce had some loads using the Hornady Swaged bullet using TiteGroup starting at 4.0-4.7 with velocities reaching 1,005 fps. I will use Bullseye and Unique with these bullets until I source some TiteGroup Powder. Regards.

Hornady 158gr swchp bullets shoot great in all my 38 & 357 guns. in 38spl i load it with 5gr unique, and in 357mag i load it with 6gr unique. It gets a chrono verified 1050fps from my 4" python and a little better from my 6" trooper. the 38spl load shoots great and right to point of aim w/my s&w 640 but have never run that load over the chrono, ill get around to that one of these days. I think I'd sooner use the Speer 158gr swchp for self defense though, it shoots just as good as the Hornady. (BTW, even at 1050fps i do not get any excess leading in the bbl with the hornady bullet)

Load them to a useful defensive velocity and after you've used it to defend yourself and saved your life, then go get a Lewis Lead Remover to get the little bit of lead out of the barrel you'll get from shooting 6 shots.

Just practice with plain SWC loaded to about the same velocity.

You know what else I would try? Enlarge the hole in the nose a little. The Speer Gold Dot bullets descended from the 'flying ashtray', a cast SWC with a big hole in the nose. NyClad bullets were ahead of their time with a coated SWCHP.

PS: Titegroup and Bulleye do about the same thing with a small amount being a good target load, but being able to load them up to higher velocity, IF YOU ARE VERY CAREFUL. An overload of fast powder can turn your gun in shrapnel.

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4.5gr 231 is a great .38 load in my 4" 686. Clocks about 830-840 fps and nails 7" plates regularly at 25yds and always down zero on IDPA cardboard at 50yds. Dont know about expansion but good hits and easy shooting is what Im after.
Jim

I'm fairly sure the OP came up with a load over the last 7 years or has given up.

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