Since it was such a nice cool morning and I had new guns and new bullets to try out, I headed out to the range to turn some money into noise.
Beautiful day
I took a wide assortment of stuff with me to try out: the new (to me) 38/44 and 4" 1950 with the wonky sight, my other 2 1950's, a 14-3, a 15-1, and a 25-2. The K frames and the other 1950's were there for ammo tests, and the 25-2 came along to continue my never ending quest to find a load that doesn't hit 3 inches to the left.
Ammo for the .38's was reloads using 3.5 grains of Bullseye and Missouri Bullet Company "target .38" 158 grain lead semi wadcutters with a Brinell hardness of 12. I've used hard bullets since I started reloading and I was curious to see if a softer compound would make any difference.
The .44's were all reloads of 6.6 grains of Unique and a Missouri Bullet Company "#3 cowboy" 240 grain lead truncated cone, also with a Brinell hardness of 12. The first batch of bullets that I tried from MBC were the .44 Elmer-K 240 grain lead semi-wadcutters at a Brinell hardness of 18. These left just a tiny bit of lead in the barrels, so the #3 Cowboy bullets were also an attempt to get rid of the leftover lead.
The 25-2 has been giving me fits with my normal .45 acp load of 4.7 grains WST under a 200 grain lead semi-wadcutter. Even with the rear sight maxed out to the right, this gun always hits in the 8 ring at 9 o'clock.....even from a bench rest. I brought along some mouse fart loads of 3.5 grains of Bullseye with the same 200 grain lswc to see if slowing things down would help. As I was packing I found 2 Hornady 185 grain XTP hollowpoint loads that were left over from a previous test with my Kimber, so I tossed them into the bag as well. These 2 shells were the only factory loads of the day.
The 38/44 was in the first case I unpacked, so it seemed like a good place to start. Since I had no idea what the POI would be, I set the target at 15 yards and rested my wrists on a sandbag for the first group. The itty bitty fixed sights are better than the ones on my Chiefs Special, but not by a whole lot. I was pleasantly surprised when the first shot plunked into the dead center of the bullseye.
Here's what it gave me for the first 10 shots:
Standing up on my own two feet opened the group up a bit...
I guess it can stay.
I've been planning on hotrodding this one with duplicates of the original 38/44 HD loads, but it is such a joy and shoots so well with the light loads that I think I'll just leave well enough alone. I have plenty of .357 Loudenboomer's for when I want more snap.
Next up was the new .44 special 1950 with the wonky front sight. Starting again from the bench, the first few shots went low. Bringing the rear sight up 4 clicks gave me this:
10 shots standing using a modified Weaver stance resulted in this group. And yes, I may have yanked the trigger just a bit on one shot:
The truncated cone .44 bullets actually leave a smaller hole in the target than the .38 semi-wadcutters.
Even though it shoots well, this one needs a bit of work. I experienced 3 distinctly different single action trigger pull weights during this string of 10 shots, so either there is 65 years of gunk built up inside or it needs some new springs and a fluff and buff. I'll drop it off with Nelson Ford and have him work his magic.
The other issue I had was with the Magna grips. I had no problems with the .38/44 and the target .38 loads, but the .44 special would shift in my hand with every shot. I'll betcha Mr. Culina can help me with that.....
The point of impact seems just fine and the rear sight is well centered. Whoever did the work on the wonky front sight wasn't much for aesthetics but did fine in terms of height and placement. Replacing the sight has moved down on the priority list now.
Moving along to the other two .44 specials, I fired a 10 shot group from each with the Cowboy bullets. This was a bullet test and not a "me" test, so the sandbag was used again. Both guns seem to like the soft compound:
Looks like I need to bring the sights on the 6.5" gun down just a bit.
The K-frames ate up the soft compound bullets just as well as the 38/44 did. I was starting to get hot and hungry so I didn't bother with pics.
The 25-2 came out last and went back on the sandbag for more testing. The mouse fart 200 grain lswc loads printed 3" left and 2" high, so no joy there. Just before I packed up I snapped the two Hornady 185 grain hollowpoints into a moon clip just for giggles.
They hit 1" low
and 2" to the right in a nice figure 8. Maybe, just maybe, I can get that rear sight off the right side stop and still hit in the black. Time to hit the bench and cook up a variety of 185 grain jacketed loads.
These last two shots actually made my day because they implied that the 25-2 wasn't actually a boat anchor.
One question remained: The soft bullets worked well on paper, but did they leave a bunch of gunk behind in the barrels? Yes and no.
The barrels on all 3 of the .38's looked great. Just the usual Bullseye powder residue.
The .44's were a different story. Big streaks of nasty inside every barrel. It came out easily enough, but there was more leading from the soft bullets than I was getting from the hard ones. The load I use is in the 15k psi range, so the conventional wisdom says that the Brinell 12 bullets should be the hot ticket. In my guns, on this day, with my loads they were not.
Here's the lead that came out with a brass brush. This is after 65 shots through 3 barrels. The wonky-sight gun was shot the most and also had the most buildup, but the other 2 had significant amounts of leading after just the 10 shots that were fired from each. Other people may not think this is a lot, but I do.
To be a fair test I need to run the same amount of shots through the same 3 guns using the Brinell 18 Elmer K bullets and see what is left behind in the barrels.
Oh darn. That means I have to go to the range again.
New old iron - range report
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