What are some of your favorite loads for HBWCs in .357?

Also, what do you guys use WCs for besides paper punching?

I used to use them for home defense years ago but have since decided there are too many liability issues with handloads for HD, and there are a great number of factory rounds that will do the job without any legal ramifications. I forget the exact load but it did involve accidentally loading the HBWC upside down.

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Guy-Harold Smith II

3.0 grains of Bullseye in a .357 case and a Zero HBWC.

I use 2.8 gr Bullseye, same as I use for .38 special cases.

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Common sense isn't so common.

I've never bothered with .357 cases. I like the HBWC in a .38 special case, hollow base forward, over 3.0 grains Bullseye (a standard target loading usually producing around 750 FPS in a 2-inch revolver).

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Life of the party until 8:00PM

With the hollow base forward, don't they get unstable? It also seems like they would slow down really fast.

The HB forward idea has on-again and off-again popularity with handloaders. The driving force seems to be the truly impressive expansion seen on ballistic gelatin targets, something that is hard to get when firing .38 Specials from a snubnose revolver.

However, the NRA Technical Advisor has stated that .38 HB wadcutters loaded with HB forward is a bad idea because the HB skirt frequently blows off and is left stuck in the forcing cone. A followup shot of course, will damage the gun.

As for accuracy, the reversed bullet is strictly a close range affair. The HB bullet is designed with weight forward, and optimum accuracy greatly decreases beyond the 50 yard point.

John Traveler is entirely correct regarding accuracy beyond 50 yards. The loading described is intended for close-range defensive use only, and for that purpose it is completely devastating in performance.

I have loaded and fired many hundreds of this type over the past 30-plus years, fired in 2" to 4" revolvers with no problems whatsoever. I would suggest that having the weight to the rear might just drive any potential obstruction out the bore, rather than leaving a forward portion lodged there.

I have also been present at an autopsy during which I was required to photograph the coroner's examination and recover physical evidence from the process. I cannot compare the results to anything attempted in ballistic gelatin or other media. The coroner was a very experienced pathologist, and described the results as the most devastating wound he had ever seen from a handgun fired into a human being's torso.

The HBWC design was developed to perform on the shuttle-cock principle (weight forward), with the added benefit of a thinly-skirted rear hollow-base that would expand into the rifling (much like the Minie bullet design).

In my experience, loading the HBWC with hollow-base forward works very well at close ranges, provided that the pressures and velocity are kept within standard velocity parameters.

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