The ransom rest, with which I have a standing love/hate relationship, gave me some satisfaction yesterday. The gun is a new 629 6" and the bullets plated 240 gr from Rainier and Berry and 240 SWCBB from Tennessee Valley Bullets. Powders were 231, HP-38, Bullseye, Herco and finally Universal. You can see why this was frustrating. I test all the options once and then retest looking for repeats. The plated bullets (RN from Berry) and (HP from Rainier) came easy a couple weeks ago at 5.9gr of 231, 1.25" groups at 25 yards. That's as good as I've come to expect from plated bullets. The bevel base lead bullets demonstrated the fickleness of the rest, giving good results at some grain measurement or another but never quite the same twice. I took the pistol and targets to the very savvy gunshop owner I bought the gun from and he said my results were pretty typical but to try Universal Clays. I got the usual best groups of 1.75" from HP38 and BE yesterday at 5.3 grains, but I got 1" from Universal at 5.0. Particularly interesting was that the groups opened up very slowly at 5.2, 5.4 etc. until they only really got to 2.5" above 6 grains. So this powder will give me good results even if I don't meter too carefully. Finally, I noted that I had a regular flyer in my groups. I numbered the cylinders, and a shooting pal drew little constellation drawings of the groups numbering the shots. Two is the wild one so I wont load it when I'm after accuracy.

The ransom rest, with which I have a standing love/hate relationship, gave me some satisfaction yesterday. The gun is a new 629 6" and the bullets plated 240 gr from Rainier and Berry and 240 SWCBB from Tennessee Valley Bullets. Powders were 231, HP-38, Bullseye, Herco and finally Universal. You can see why this was frustrating. I test all the options once and then retest looking for repeats. The plated bullets (RN from Berry) and (HP from Rainier) came easy a couple weeks ago at 5.9gr of 231, 1.25" groups at 25 yards. That's as good as I've come to expect from plated bullets. The bevel base lead bullets demonstrated the fickleness of the rest, giving good results at some grain measurement or another but never quite the same twice. I took the pistol and targets to the very savvy gunshop owner I bought the gun from and he said my results were pretty typical but to try Universal Clays. I got the usual best groups of 1.75" from HP38 and BE yesterday at 5.3 grains, but I got 1" from Universal at 5.0. Particularly interesting was that the groups opened up very slowly at 5.2, 5.4 etc. until they only really got to 2.5" above 6 grains. So this powder will give me good results even if I don't meter too carefully. Finally, I noted that I had a regular flyer in my groups. I numbered the cylinders, and a shooting pal drew little constellation drawings of the groups numbering the shots. Two is the wild one so I wont load it when I'm after accuracy.

Thanks for sharing your efforts. You may want to edit your post as you mention the gunshop owner suggesting Universal CLAYS and then you mentioned only Universal . That might confuse some.

I am going to try that load as I have all of the components. Thanks, Bob

Is there another "Universal" brand name powder besides Hodgdon's Universal Clays? Good luck with your load testing. I'm very pleased I found that powder.

You do realize that HP38 and W231 are identical right??

Yes, Curtis. I've bought HP38 when 231 wasn't on the shelves and so had it around. I used 231 to find a good load for plated bullets and I used the HP-38 under the SWCBB. When I typed the original topic above I thought someone might call me on that!

To be honest I didnt know it until recently. I have buying powders (some out of print) when I find a bargain. I bought 3lbs of HP38 here a while back and called Mike at Hodgdon about it...and he told me.

BTW IMSC 6.5 grs of either with a 240 Keith is a good load