I've been shooting the Zero 158 grain JSP and JHP in .357 diameter for years and like them. I can't say how they hunt since I just kill paper nowadays, but their bullets shoot plenty accurate enough for me. I've also started loading their 9MM 147 grain JHP bullets but I really haven't put enough of them downrange to have a good feel for them on accuracy. They seem accurate enough so far though and no problems with them feeding through my Beretta M9 or P4X Storm subcompact.

I use their 185gr JHPs & 230gr JHPs in my 45s. Even use the 230grs in reduced 460Mag loads.

I use their 165gr JHP exclusively in my 40xxs & 10xxs pistols.

I tried their 125gr JHPS (& they shot great) but I like heavy bullets in my 357s so I use their 158gr JHPs.

Don't shoot enough 9mm to make it worth trying theirs.

FYI: You can order (500) 357s and (500) 44s & they'll give you (1000) pricing & free shipping.

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I need to use my 460 snubby (MagNaPorted) to make rings.

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Waiting for the break of day

I do hate die adjustments. For me it's a pain in the butt because it seems to take me forever to get them exactly the way I want them. You're point is well taken. Got to make up my mind.

I just took a picture of the various Zero brand bullets I reload and labeled them for you. From left to right is the 9MM 147 grain JHP bullet, the .357 dia 158 grain soft point, the .357 dia 158 grain JHP, the .431 dia 240 grain soft point and the .451 dia 230 grain full metal jacket.

Hey, thanks a bunch.

Well, I just now ordered a 2K bullet salad mix from Roz so I can try out their Zero brand in everything including 9mm Luger/corto. 38/357, 10mm, 44, and 45ACP. Plus, I should get to burn up some H110 but probably still a bunch or 231 too. I've been using 231 for so long I doubt I can stop. I think my RL450 is still set up for 9s. Unfortunately it still has the manual powder dispenser unlike the RL550. I'll have to try and remember that rhythm again.

PS: Don't think I'm quitting lead. Never, I love light lead loads and hot gas checked lead loads.

PS#2: Hmmm! If you want to powder coat but are doing gas checks, you would still have to run it through the lube sizer to seat the check, right? Run it through dry and then powder coat or no need for gas checks with powder coating? Say for hot loads for my Ruger 44 carbine and SBH or Marlin carbines 44/45/70 or even the Rossi 357 carbine?

PS#3: rant Why the heck doesn't Henry make a light weight 357 carbine. The Rossi is just because I couldn't find a good light 357 carbine in anything under collector safe queen prices. The Henry is too much gun for a 357. /rant

Finally got my .44 conversion kit in yesterday from Dillon. I must say they get on the stick out there. I got it in three days. So now all I need is some bullets from Oregon Trail. I've never ordered from them. Never loaded any of their bullets. You have to make decisions one way of the other. There's so many choices. I appreciate everyone's input on helping me get started in the .44 world. I decided to go with Oregon Trail 200gr RNFP. Have no idea what they'll shoot like. Also had 300-400 .44spl brass laying around from a long time ago so I'm gonna jump on the .44spl wagon to get my feet wet and then load some .44mag which I don't have hardly any brass for. So today, I've got all the dies in place, powder charge adjusted, etc. and am just waiting on the bullets. Kind of exciting to me.

I much prefer SNS, Bayou bullets, or Missouri bullets with the new Hi-tek coating.
cleaner, no leading, less mess on the gun and dillon dies

200gr RNFP or 240gr SWC are great choices

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NRA Life
USPSA/IPSC

I used to use a lube that isn't made any more. I don't recall the name off hand. It smelled good, was a bit messy and very smokey. I think it was a high percentage bees wax. It left my gun nasty filthy after a long session. The good part was my gun pretty much just wiped clean with a rag. Nothing really got stuck on to the point of requiring scrubbing. That was using straight wheel weights. Probably not good in doors but I was quite happy with it outdoors which was where I shot 99% of the time. I'm not as thrilled with the hard wax lube most of the commercial bullet makers use although they make for less messy loading. My guns look cleaner after a session but it doesn't clean up as easily.

If the new bullet coatings work well they're probably the way to go now days.

I use to lube with Alox. I no longer have my sizer/lube press, traded it about 10 years ago. I now shoot only jacketed. I bought so many boxes years ago, I doubt I would ever have to buy more {other than the desire to try some of the new additions like Speer Gold Dot's}

So far I've only tried them with 9mm, but they produced zero smoke, whereas plain lead generated a small amount in that cartridge. Nothing like the .44 clouds, though.

The only thing I noticed was the chemical smell often noted. But I didn't find it remotely objectionable or overpowering--for some reason it reminded me of shooting older ammo at an indoor range many years ago. It dissipated in seconds even on a warm, very humid evening with no wind.

I'm definitely going to switch to coated in .44. I might try it out in .45 as well, but I'll probably stick to plain in .38.

Anybody else here shooting Oregon Trail bullets? Your thoughts on them if you are. Would love to have your input!

I've been very happy with there 44 240 grain SWC bullets.

Thanks for the comeback. I finally got 'operational', so to speak, yesterday, and got a few rounds off the press. 200gr Oregon Trail. Dying to get to the range today but other things hanging fire so it might be later in the week.

To those that haven't tried powder coated bullets , you need to give them a try . I , after yrs of " size and lube " my own cast bullets decided to try PC'ing my own . I have had excellent results so far . I have shot them from " mild to wild " with the same results . Regards, Paul

Don't know if I'll ever get into casting my own bullets but that process sounds interesting.

Tomorrow, range, 629-4, 200gr Oregon Trail RNFP, 5.3gr Win231, taking the chronograph. Will post pcs and results. Wish me luck.

dwpmusic , are those loaded in a " special " case or " magnum " ?

Loaded these in .44spl case. Just got in from the range. My reloads shot fine. Range report/pic to follow today or tomorrow.

Well, to continue poaching dwpmusic's thread,
I went to the range today to primarily shoot my model 69 with some hotter loads. These were RimRockBullets 240gr hard cast lead SWC on top of 10 grains of 231. A mix of mainly CBC and Midway magnum brass. I brought my old Chrony. I discovered that if I shot very close to the top of the Chrony I got fairly consistent results. I used my 629-4 3" magnaported Trail Boss and got about 1050fps but with my 2.75" non-ported 69 I got right at 1000fps. I thought that was kinda odd. I didn't do any bench rest shooting. All shooting (model 69) was standing at 15yrds off hand. I found I could do rapid "controlled" 5 round strings and keep them on the 14" X 15" target. Plenty good enough for qualification. The few slow fire strings were probably 7" to 8". My age is showing in eyes and steadiness.

While shooting very low on the old decrepit Chrony did produce some acceptably consistent results it is sadly no longer with us:

Oh, if anyone is interested the 69 trigger tested out at about 11lbs double action and 5lbs single. It's actually pretty smooth and doesn't feel that heavy. I didn't check the 629.

Oink,

Ben there done that -- more than once actually and once intentionally. Old model chrony never worked right, sent it back to the factory for refurb, got it back and same old same old -- 280 gr 45 Colt thru the LED eliminated all future frustration.


The worst offenders (gunwise) are ARs that are scoped with Hi mounts.

Paul

Paul,
So what are you using for a chronograph. I don't want to spend a fortune as I won't actually use it a whole lot. I can get a bit of a discount if I send in the old carcass but do I want another of the same brand? Mine always was a bit buggy. I most always had to send across a sacrificial round to sort of wake it up, even when it was newish and otherwise working fairly well. This one was now pretty darn old so I guess it was time.
Recommendations???

Lots of folks swear by the Chrony, but I never had any luck the two I had. I've gone to the basic Competition Electronics ProChrono Digital. Been pretty happy with the ones I've had/have.

Friend has a Chrony (don't remember which one) -- we ran my CE behind his chrono to see if there was any material difference in readings -- very minor difference less than 10 fps.

Paul

A 14# rebound spring & a little polishing will get that SA pull down to 2.5 to 3.0#

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Don't know if you were using their bevel base or the flat base 240gr bullet. I liked the FB better but they cost more.

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Bummer about you Chrony.

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Rim Rock bullets: FB= BHN 15; GC= BHN 20


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Waiting for the break of day

BD37

Always impressed with your photo skills.

Paul

I'm using the Bevel Base.

You are very good with the pics. What are you using?

Thanks.

Good lighting & my smartphone. They're great for close-ups.

My Canon 80D stays in it's camera case.

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Waiting for the break of day

Finally got to the range this past Tuesday to give my first .44spl handloads a try. Well, the greatest thing about them is they all went bang. Started off with the 5.2gr Win231, 200gr RNFP Oregon Trail and wound up with and average of 764fps. Very consistent with little variation there. So, I had loaded a few rounds with 5.3gr and got an average of 787fps. So, 23fps increase for .1gr. Why not? That's what I'm settling on, I think. It shoots consistenly, very low recoil and accurate. I'm the only one who needs the accuracy improvment. Oh, I almost forgot. I took 3 rounds of Winchester Silvertip (200gr) that I found lying around and thought I'd see what it was getting. Got and average of 882fps from it. So, mine a 100fps slower, give or take. I can live with that.
Was I satisfied with the Oregon Trail bullets? I think so. Never satisfied with me but that's a whole other topic. I will say that the 629 was pretty dirty after only about a 100 rounds. No evidence of any leading from what I could say but major gun cleaning time.
So, this brings up another question from the me, the novice. How about some input for/against shooting lead. Advantages/disadvantages?? I've been handloading for only about 5 years and have mainly shot Berry's plated bullets and Hornady XTPs along the way. Of course, that's a lot of Glocks and no lead in them.
It seems that my original post opened up quite a lot of comments on .44spl/.44mag. I've enjoyed each one of them and look forward to many more.
Great bunch of guys and I'm sure some gals also.
Will try to attach a couple of pics to this for your perusal!!

Attached Images

	Need Considerable Improvement.jpg (39.4 KB, 17 views)
	Got To Shoot More.jpg (49.0 KB, 16 views)

Well, to continue my thread hijack, I finally loaded up some of the Zero 240 grain JFP bullets for my model 2.75" 69. I used Federal brass, Federal magnum primers and 23 grains of H110. I only made about 50 rounds. I had to increase the flare on the case mouths for those bullets. My 3 test rounds seemed fairly stout.

Most of my manuals indicate a starting of 23 and a max of 24 grains of H110. One manual listed both a lower starting and higher max loading. The 23 grains seem plenty stout enough for what probably isn't the strongest 44 mag to be found. Extraction seemed fine but the primers looked a bit flat even though not max listed loads. I tried to take primer pics to post but the primers looked much better in the pics than they do in person. I have no idea what velocity I'm getting as I haven't replaced the murdered Chrony yet.

Once I feel well practiced with the magnum loads I'll load up a bunch of powder puff rounds for plinking fun. The only part of the FDLE qualification with magnum loads that is at all challenging is the 2 rounds in one second from holster. I plan to do some decent range time tomorrow with the 69 and my Glock model 40.

I already qualified with the model 40 but I'm not a natural with the red dot I have on it. I keep looking at the iron co-witness sights. When actually used, the red dot turns that gun into a laser.

I'd ditch the H110, it burns too slow for that short bbl. You'll actually get better performance from 2400/AA#9. Every caliber I've ever tried H110 in it needed at least 4" of bbl to get any performance out of it.

short bbl & 2400 ='s less powder, use standard primers, more fps (+/-50fps)

The thread hijack continues,

Well my range session was shorter than planned due to a late start. The Zero jacketed bullets loaded with the 23GR of H110 seemed fine. I shot more of the cast lead bullets because I'd made more of them previously. I haven't had any major extraction problems with the 69 that some have reported. I have noticed that the short ejector rod has disadvantages after the gun starts getting dirty. After only 45 rounds or so they don't fall the rest of the way out when ejected and have to be pulled the rest of the way out. It's not at all difficult but does add another step to slow down a reload. It's not an issue when cleaner and I'm sure the issue would take longer to develop if I wasn't mostly using cast lead bullets lubed with a hard wax type lube.

I had had some issue previously with fouling and lead building up just inside the cylinder on the crane. After last cleaning I put a little moly grease there. I'll see a bit later if that did anything besides make more black mess.

I've discovered I really do like these cheap Hogue Bantam Boot Grips on the 69. They work much better than I ever thought they would. Although I still don't like how they install. The (one of, there were 3 today) range officer (a real nice guy) shot it a bit and he appeared to find it a bit harsh to shoot (I believe his comment was "I don't know how much of this I can take"). So the grips obviously don't work for everyone. But they do work for me, so for $20 bucks or so, if you have one of these or perhaps some other L frame, you might want to give them a try. For reference on my grip selection, I guess my hands are kinda medium large. Large gloves are never big enough but some extra-large are a tiny bit too big, unless made in China, then who knows. Length is usually the issue with gloves. My fingers aren't slender but they aren't big fat sausages either. Oddly though, the finger groves on Glocks aren't made for my hands and are a bit annoying as are most finger groove grips. But the Bantams work.

The moly grease idea was a bust. It just dried up. Strangely, the area was drier than ever after shooting, even though the area was lubricated as previously with Breakfree with just the addition of the grease at the outer edge. Generally I find dirty lubricant, as would be expected. This time dry grey residue. I can only speculate that the grease melted and mixed with the Breakfree and the combination was more volatile than the Breakfree and then the grease evaporated and carried the Breakfree away with it.???? I may try some higher temp grease, maybe. Or I could just carry on and accept that the area will require more attention than my other (older) revolvers.

I found it best to clean it as well as you can & leave it dry. Like you discovered, lube only get incinerate on it causing problems sooner. Just accept that without the gas ring you'll need to clean it more often than ones with one.

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Waiting for the break of day

I use this on stainless firearms/bbl's.


It does an excellent job of cleaning the carbon/lead/crud off of the front of the cylinders, crane, around the forcing cone, top strap, etc.