Are there any here familiar with the actual bullet itself? It's a sort of wadcutyer looking thing that's designed to be loaded with the very mouth rim to be loaded almost flush with the case mouth, at least that's how they're loaded from Federal.

Let's say I was able to find a good deal on some pulls for a decent price and wanted to try to load some, could anyone offer any advice on how I would proceed, besides very carefully?

I am still new to reloading with about 4 years under my belt and havent blown my face off yet and have actually not had a single round of any of my reloads not go bang, pistol or rifle so I like to believe I have the basics down, along with safe practices and technique, I may be fooling myself but I still LIKE to believe that.

I load alot of the HST bullets in various calibers like 45acp and 10mm and have had some good success thus far. I've had excellent results with the 10mm 200gr and A#9 and 800x. Firing into my home brew "ballistics" get and water jugs has shown extremely reliable and beautiful, textbook expansion so I've developed an affinity for the HST line and the little 38s have just been sitting there waiting for anyone to click the buy button.

Federal seats them really deep the way they do saying that the decrease in open space in the case promotes more consistent and better velocities. The loaded rounds are designed and marketed for shorter barreled 38s but mine would be fired from a 5" barrel, if I buy, load, and fire any.

Anyone familiar with these have any thoughts or advice?

Much thanks.

There’s a couple of threads on here about the HST’s. They were available on GB for a time and several members(including me) bought some. I still haven’t loaded any yet, but I think others have.

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USS Brewton FF1086
SWCA#3597

They are easy to load with HP38 or Titegroup, but not my favorite .38s, especially if you're wanting best accuracy. My K an L frames that will shoot X ring bullseye with my 148gr wadcutters (from rest) open up with the short bullets.
Accuracy is plenty good for defense or plinking. YMMV

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Science plus Art

Why waist them in a 5" barrel ?

If you want a HP for a 5" get some Speer Gold Dot 110 ~ 135gr bullets, made for the higher fps loads, to perform correctly.

I have loaded these for 38 Special & 357 Magnum with WIN 231, Unique, Bullseye and AutoComp: all worked very well. Just remember that the cannelure is designed to provide additional jacket/core integriy for the bullet: not as a crimp groove.

Cheers!

I used 5.5 Grains of Unique and Federal primers.

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never get out of the boat

I would bet there was no problem with those expanding! Did you get a chance to chrono those?

That load with a Speer 135gr Gold Dot in my 686 6" revolver does.......
1035fps +/- and should be used in a K frame or better.

This load is TOO hot for my little J frame sub nose !!

Being between the 135 and 125 gr JHP bullets, you will need to "Adjust" your loads to fit your weapon.
Stay safe.

4.5 gr Unique is as high as I went: didn't chrono them, but 4.0 gr worked just fine IMHO. I, too, shot them out of K-frames: a Model 19 (2 1/2") & a Model 66 (4").

Haven't Chrono'd them. But they ought to only do about 900 fps.
Hornady's 6th edition vol 1, pages 746 & 747 show 900 fps with
5.6gr Unique behind a 125gr XTP , 900 fps with 5.8gr Unique
behind a 140gr XTP. This was out of a S&W model 15 4" bbl.

The 37-1 likes them and they are just right in the 640. Hopefully
they are going fast enough to reliably expand. Lucky Gunner's
expansion tests shot the Federal 130gr HST micros going about
825fps out od a 2" bbl and 854fps out of a 4" gun. They just hit
13" gel penetration out of the 2" gun at those speeds.

This is not a hot load in my guns.

https://www.luckygunner.com/labs/rev...llistics-test/

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never get out of the boat

Well, you would admit that 130gr of a jacket wadcutter would take up more of the available volume of a 38 Special case than, say, a 140gr bullet loaded with its nose beyond the case...?

That would indicate to me that the pressure (and the resultant velocity) would be higher given the same amount of powder. It might also be significant...?

Working backwards (somehow?) from a chronographed velocity (since almost all the variables are present and known) might help determine the approximate pressure range. It may well be within +P levels or otherwise safe, but...

P.S. Let me know if there is a flaw in my thinking about the available volume within the case comparison, please.

I bought a couple hundred off gunbroker. Got a bag of pulled bullets, they were not advertised as such. 20+ were tossed, they were corroded so bad.
Anyway... These were designed for snub nose, short barrel revolvers and to open around 900 FPS. Just got a chronograph, so I'll be loading them to get that 900 FPS from a S&W 640 and a 360. Let you guys know how it goes.

These rounds are loaded for an overall length of 1.45". Cases
were trimmed to 1.16' prior to that. There is about 9/32" of the
bullet sticking out. They are well within the parameters outlined
above.

Attached Images

20200421_200111 (1).jpg (133.1 KB, 69 views)

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never get out of the boat

Well, I've never actually seen them loaded like that, but it certainly answers my question about the bullet taking up additional room in the 38 Special case...

Thanks for the response!

P.S. Did you happen to use a cannelure tool on those nickel-plated cases? I know I've seen them before from the factory but don't remember the circumstances...

The cases shown are Remington-Peters. In my stash of 38's I had
a box of these. They had the cannelure on them. In researching the
HST's I noted Federal had seated the bullets to their cannelure. I
duplicated that configuration.

Nevada Ed stated in his 6" 686 the 135gr Speer Gold Dot ran at
1035fps. I was tailoring these to run in the low to mid 900's out of
a 2' J frame. Documentation of gaining 50fps per inch of barrel
length for a given load is out there and I'm sure you've read it.

If you look at the Lucky Gunner link I posted you see the 135gr
Gold Dots running 821fps from a 2"bbl. And the round gained
69fps out of the 4" bbl at 890FPS.If the 50fps/inch rule is
true (I've found out it's more like 35-40fps) and you add 200fps
to the 2" bbl speed you'd get 1021fps which is about what Ed got
out of the 686. So my numbers are good and this load will do about
930 out of a 2" bbl and 1050 out of a 4" bbl. You need penetration
and speed for this thing to work. A 2" J frame almost doesn't cut it.

It's a +P load now that ammunition is watered down but it's at or
below what was the norm in the 60's and 70's.

The only thing I'm worried about is muzzle flash. I didn't research
that when I did my workup. I'm sure the flash would be about gone
out of the 6" model 28 and 6.5" 27 I have, but out of a 2" model 37
I think it might be a bit much.

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never get out of the boat

I knew I had seen those cases before, and looked through my supply of factory ammo but couldn't find any examples in nickel plated cases, but did find some in my 38 Special cases stash. These had to be way over a decade old and are not marked +P. There was a box of R-P UMC 38 Special 158gr LRN with brass cases that had the cannelure, however.

I'm interested in the source for the info/load data re: Federal loading these "seated to their cannelure", because all the info and images I have ever seen show these as factory loaded wadcutters, with maybe only a 1/16" showing above the case rim...?

As previously expressed I don't question your recipe with the bullet extending 9/32" out of the case: I just was going on Federal's statement that the cannelure was not there as a crimp groove but designed to aid in bullet core/jacket integrity during expansion.

Please don't mistake this as me being argumentative. I'm sure you see that an extra grain of powder (almost 20%) and an OAL that's almost 0.22" shorter could drastically affect the pressure, hence Nevada Ed's and my concern.

Cheers!

No, you're right. I went and looked at all the saved links I had on
this and can't find the info. But somewhere there is a picture I saw
that had them with a Federal box loaded like I loaded mine and
the comment about Federal loading at the cannelure.

I like having folks question stuff that's not quite right on the
surface. Now I need a day without wind to actually see how fast
they run.

Thanks for making me squirm.

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never get out of the boat

I bought some on GB and got what appears to be new. I loaded some with 5gr Universal and they shot pretty accurate up to 25 yards. Expanded well in water jugs too. Don’t think I would carry. Too hard to reload fast

Is that the Declaration of Independence on the side of that barrel...?

Cheers!

This is an interesting thread. I though of these as purpose designed snubbie bullets but I see they are more versatile than that.

I afree with you about trying to do a quick reloid with these. I carry these in my lightweight J frames but carry a reload of something else with a more traditional non-wadcutter bullet profile.

Sort of a apples to oranges thing but it gives you an idea of seating depth and pressures.......
even though it is with a 148 wc lead and not the 130 JHP.

A double load exceeds +P pressure max by almost 100%...! Ouch!

Wow, sorry I havent been back since posting, we've been busy busy. Thanks for all of the advice and comments. I havent read all of the thread but bet I will. I skimmed mrrevolverguys post and sounds promising.

Let me catch up with this and I'll reply later. Thanks guys.

Well, first, the reason I'm gonna waste them in a 5" barrel is because a 5" barrel is the only barrel I own that shoots 38/357, an N frame 627 so theres that. Plus maybe I'll learn some things in the process. I've only been reloading for about 4 years and the vast majority of that has been rifle. I'll say though that in those 4 years I've become literally obsessed with the process and have done an inordinate amount of of in that time. Only in about the past year and a half I've gotten into reloading for my handguns that its expensive to shoot like my 10mm and 44mag. I hardly see how it could be a waste. I've loaded upwards of 1K of the HSTs for my 10mm, both 180s and 200s, also 124gr ones for my 9mm and the guys on GB have had these 38s for awhile and I thought why not. I think the HSTs perform well enough, plus at this point I have about 3500 38 and 357 cases cleaned, resized and ready to reload.

These things, and the way Federal loads them certainly threw me for a loop. The examples I've seen are all loaded with the bullets flush with the mouth so I knew powder selection, pressure and seating were gonna be tricky given my limited experience. I dont have ANY of the powders mentioned so far. For handguns I have Sihlouette, A#9, A#7, A#5, H110, 800X, VN340 and CFE pistol.

Mrrevolverguy, I hope you find the time to expound on your experiences with loading these, I'd love to hear more.

BillBro: I would opine that if 3.6-4.0 gr of ACCURATE #5 is an OK (4.0 gr booked as MAX) load for a 148gr 38 Special wadcutter it would be as good a place as any to start with these 130gr HST's...? It is one of the powders you list. Certainly not pushing it very hard...

Cheers!

P.S. Hodgdons also lists 3.5-3.9 gr CFE Pistol for a 148gr wadcutter.