Going to a gun show tomorrow, hoping to find some powder. I have used Unique, Bullseye, and TiteGroup on .38 special loads in the past and all seemed to work well. It seems from reading the S&W and other forums, a lot of reloaders feel that Unique is better suited to medium or full power loads, and is not as good at lower power or slower target loads.

So, for SWC or WC (158 gr and 148 gr) to be used at around 800 fps, is TiteGroup a better choice than Unique or Bullseye?

Thanks.

I use 231 (aka HP38) in nearly all my 38 Sp loads. The one exception is Bullseye in the classic 148 gr HBWC load. There may be better powders, but my skill level won't show the difference.

Most shotgun powder will work in a 38. Just look it up on the net.

Of the powders you mentioned, I have exp with BE and Unique and they both work fine in the loads you are talking about. 231 also works well in the application.

I just shot three different .38 special plinking reloads over my chrono today. All were loaded with Penn 158 gr. TCBB bullets, CCI 500 primers. Load #1 was 3.8 gr. of Win 231. Load #2 was 3.9 gr. of Unique. Load #3 was 3.4 gr. of Bullseye. All performed well, but Load #2 with the Unique powder was the most consistent. In a 5-shot string, the average was 755fps, with an extreme spread of 36, and standard deviation of 14. I have all the other data if you are interested.
Dave

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mr mom
Fire Chief, Retired

Most of the fast burning powders will work, bullseye and titegroup are commonly used for competitive target work by many with WC. 231 and unique work fine too but a bit dirty with light loads. Try 2.7g of bullseye with the WC's in 38 cases, ome of the most commom loads for "Bullseye" matches.

For what you are wanting, I would recommend Clays. It burns cleaner than Bullseye and produces very accurate rounds. In past years I tried Red Dot, W231, Unique and Bullseye. They all worked but I eventually settled ( as have my shooting buddies) on Clays for all my cast lead loading for target/ general purpose use. 2.9 gr under a 158gr LSWC is a very accurate, clean burning and low recoiling load in the 825 fps range.

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Dave

Wee Hooker nailed it. For consistent, accurate, gentle loads I've found no better than Clays.

Be aware that it is what it is though. Don't try getting high velocities from it.

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GOA
USA Shooting Supporter

Bullseye's the Best!

Give ramshot true blue a shot if its available in your area. 7 grains with 125 grain Jsp gave me one ragged hole @ 7 yards. That's 1000 rounds per pound. Works great In .357 too. Just a suggestion.

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Still got the shovel

Pequod- if you are going to the show at the speedway, I too am going. My quest...primers. Good luck,

Ramshot true blue, 7.0 grains (+p load).gave me one ragged hole at 7 yards. MV was 677 with an SD of 2. Good light load. That was from a 640 pro .357. Works great in .357 as well and burns very clean. Good luck. That was with sierra 125 grain jsp.

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Still got the shovel

I'm in the W231/HP-38 camp. It's a powder I feel was made for the .38 Special and .45 Auto. You can load very light or push up the pressures to the SAAMI limits with equal success.

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Freedom is never free!!
SWCA #3437

2.8 grs.bullseye 148HBWC 3.4 gr 158gr SWC pretty much does it IMHO.

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SWCA#2288
SWHF#407

For light loads:
3.2gr W231 under a 148gr DEWC
3.4gr W231 under a 158gr LSWC

For normal loads:
3.5gr W231 under a 148gr DEWC
4.0gr W231 under a 158gr LSWC

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Freedom is never free!!
SWCA #3437

I agree with the Clays. It's a soft shooter and accurate but doesn't measure worth a **** through my RCBS. Looking into a new powder measure for the Clays and Unique. Shows you how much I like Clays if I'm willing to buy another measurer. It's my go to load for new shooters.

TRY TRAIL BOSS BY IMR

Either bullseye, titegroup or 231/HP38 will work fine for light target loads. Bullseye has been the traditional target powder with the 148gr wadcutter since probably prior to WWII. Whatever you can get the cheapest.

W231, HP38 is a great all around powder for the 38 spl.........
but some guns don't shoot Ball powders well and this is where
flake powders like Bullseye and Unique come in to the picture.

Now if Alliant could turn out a powder that would combine reddot and greeddot that would be like w231, they would really have something !!
They just went the wrong direction and came up with Power Pistol............maybe next time?

I use 2.3gr B.E. with 148gr HBWC's for PPC. This was the best for me, quite a bit better than 2.3gr Titegroup and only very slightly better than 3.1gr unique.
For 158gr SWC, 2.6gr-2.8gr B.E. is really good too. I have not run either of these over a chrono, but they might be a little lighter than (slower than 800 fps) what you are looking for.

For light target loads, Bullseye is hard to beat. The only drawback I’ve found with it is that, it’s a bit dirty.

I’ve tried TiteGroup and found it burns a bit hot and when using cast bullets, will give you leading in some applications. It’s also a very dense powder and easy to double charge.

For almost 20 years now, WST has been my go to powder for light target loads. It almost matches the performance of Bullseye grain for grain in 38 & 45 acp target loads except it burns a whole lot cleaner. In almost every handgun caliber and bullet weight combo I’ve tried it in, WST seems to show the best performance. The only challenge is finding load data.

Jeff

+1 on this load, it was my PPC load a well, great load.

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Still got the shovel

yet another hp-38/231 fan. It may pay to try slightly varing charges with your brand of primer/brass/bullet. Hp-38 can be picky about specific charge for best accuracy

Thanks for all the responses. Really just trying to see if anyone thought Unique had limitations on light loads versus TiteGroup or BE. I liked TiteGroup when I was loading before, used it on .38, .45ACP, 9mm with good results.

Picked up one pound of TiteGroup today, reloading supplies at the show were very lean. I have enough stuff for several months at least, no panic.

Duck32man: Yea, if you mean the PTPC show at Forest Hills Lodge. I was looking for primers too, Federal Small Pistol. No luck.

i have found thru the years that 700x is a great light target load..3.0 grains in my mod 15...thats with 148 gr wadcutters...winchester primers..

Right about now I would use just about anything I could find!Back in 60's I was shooting rats in town dump. The 22's just punched right through a big dump rat. Did not stop them. So started loading "light" for my 4 inch Colt 357, using 38 cases. Found that 0.8 grains of Bullseye would tear up a rat fast and became my "rat" load.
Haven't found any Bullseye for a couple of years so recently tried some 231 for light loads.
My wife is 81 and loves my 38 but wanted a mild load. Started at 3.3 grains with 148 lead WC. Went down in 0.3 grain steps from there. 1.8 grain stuck in the barrel (just beyond 4") of my 6 inch S&W!
So much for lower limits. For myself I would never go below 2.5 grain of those in the future.
Find what is most accurate above that I would suggest. I am using 2.9 gr 231 for my wife and 3.2 grains of Titegroup for myself. Both are accurate in my "pre 14" targetmaster.
Keep having fun!

+1;

My lightest loads with my J frame snub nose were.......
2.4gr Trail Boss ..........560fps
2.5gr Bullseye ............ 594fps
2.9gr W231................. 590fps
3.5gr CFE pistol
with a 148gr HBWC bullet from Speer.

I do NOT fire these loads in my 6" barrels !!

I would like to try out BE 86 if I can find it. I use W231 for .38 special.

In a pinch, when I can't find pistol powders I've also used shotgun pwders such as 700X or RedDot powders for light target loads. Very inexpensive and a lb. container goes a long way, I can load nearly 2000 rounds of light .38 special target loiads with a lb. of Red Dot or 700X shotgun powder.

This must be a typo. 8/10th of a grain? How that could NOT stick in the barrel of any 357/38? I'm pretty new to reloading, but that sounds like a recipe for a squib to me...

Been using 2.8 Bullseye with 148 Gr WC for over 40 years even killed a bear with same load.

Trail Boss is best by far

Yep. WST is all I could find locally last year. I use it for .38 Special (3.5 grains with a 158 grain SWC), 9mm, .40, and .45 ACP.

Green Dot works real well for me 3.5 gr with 158gr. lswc

You realize that the OP was going to a gun show two+ years ago

I noticed that. I wonder how he made out...

I didn't notice that, but apparently the topic was of enough interest to have a number of people to add to it over the last couple of days.

Good topics are sometimes worth resurrecting!

Only reason I posted a second time after two years...........
is because some people have a lot of JUNK loaded in their PC
and it takes a LONG time to up load, some times..................

Geeeeeze.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I got to look at the dates more often.........

It's all DWF's fault !!

Old or not a good update never hurt anyone.
I have used Clays for many years in all my 38, 357, 9mm, and 45 loads. For my 38 loads 3 grains of Clays behind a 125 TC lead bullet is a standard cowboy load and fun to shoot

I had to resort to what I could find and ended up with shotgun powder. I bought Promo and it works well for both my .38 loads and .45 ACP. A little dirty but I like cleaning guns as much as shooting so I don't care.

Oh, and it was cheap.

Now, see - there you go!

THAT is some more really good info.

I've never used Clays, but I just arranged to buy a pound from a local guy - all because of how many people have talked about it being good for light 38 loads, right here in this "old" thread!

If I remember right, Promo is weight-for-weight identical to Red Dot. I seem to recall that the density is different, but it will behave the same as Red Dot at any given charge weight.

I used Red Dot(along with a bunch of other fast powders) under HBWCs when I was running low on Bullseye. All worked okay, but everything I tried had issues that made me not like it as well as Bullseye. Titegroup and VV310 were too hot and caused leading sometimes and W231 left me with too much unburned powder(at lest with HBWCs), and Red Dot(IMO) metered too inconsistenly in my Auto Disk. I should have tried Clays-I have a pound and a half of it. Actually, I'm not sure why I didn't.

Since I found two pounds of Bullseye last month, I'm back to using it with HBWCs. With my recent acquisition of a 52-2, I'm going to be loading a lot of those. I loaded 100 with 2.8gr Bullseye(the auto-disk is dead on with a standard deviation of about .05gr at that weight). The 52-2 cycled and ejected perfectly with that charge, although my shooting left something to be desired and didn't do the gun justice

I've gone to using Titegroup with a 125gr cast bullet for a pleasant range shooting load. I don't remember the exact load, but it was about mid-range in Lyman. A local caster made me a deal I couldn't pass up on 2K of these 125gr bullets(under lead cost) and I couldn't pass it up even though it's not my preferred weight. The caster lubed them in the grooves with Alox, then tumble lubed them again in Liquid Alox. With Titegroup, this is a very smoky load but doesn't lead at all. It's also a very accurate, both out of my revolvers and out of my M92 Rifle. I often start new shooters out with this load in the rifle, as it's cheaper than the current price on .22s and has about as much recoil(i.e. none). Even in a handgun, it's still pleasant and very manageable for a new shooter.