Anyone have any accurate loads for their 686's? Trying to come up with some combos to order some supplies of components that might shoot.

I used two different 686s in PPC competition, a 4" and a 6". For both, I used the classic 38 Special recipe, 148 grain wadcutter bullet (mine were DEWC) and 2.8 grains of Bullseye. Kept me in the winners circle when I did my part.

Kevin

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Afternoon Robbor

First find a bullet you want to use then we can guide you for a proper loading.

Bullets have gotten REAL expensive lately so you might want to find an affordable bullet then build your load around that.

Soft double end wad cutters are always good at light powder loads but those have gotten expensive to shoot

I have given up on soft wad cutters in favor of a local bullet caster (148gr), semi wad cutters are about 1/2 the cost of major brand 148 WC's so that is what I build my load around.

Local guy makes good bullets but they are hard 22b so it takes a stronger powder charge to get accuracy out of those.

I do like Bullseye as that powder is cheap to shoot as light loadings of BE are all usually takes to get accuracy.

If you load Bullseye, & 148gr. LWC, you might think you are shooting a .22. (light recoil) I bought a box of commercial bullets at a flea mkt, close to 500 for $10. My loads cost me $3.48 a box of 50. (cheaper than .22) Accuracy is there too. Bob

Buying bullets? I quit doing that about 1year into competition. I would take one day every two weeks or so and cast what I needed. Back then, I had three two cavity molds and kept them going.

Today, there are many 5 and 6 cavity molds available. If you need more than a few, you can really open up a new world by casting.

Kevin

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Unshared knowledge is wasted.

OP doesn't mention what sort of competition (if any) he participates in.
I load a DEWC 148 grain in 357 cases.
Either 3.0 of Bullseye (soft) or 4.5 of 231 (s bit of snap).
Both loads are sufficiently accurate for most any purpose.

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-jwk-
US Army '72-'95

The only commercial lead boolits I buy are the soft swaged ones like the Speer SWCHP.

Commercial cast boolits are nearly always too hard & undersized.

Regarding what StrawHat said: I was trying to decide if I wanted to get into casting again after a 20-year hiatus, during which I sold all my equipment..

When I crunched the numbers, I determined even if I used commercial alloy (vs smelting my own from scrap), a Lee 20-lb furnace, six-cavity mold (handles extra), and a Lee sizer kit (mounts to your press, the setup would pay for itself in 3,000 rounds of .38 boolits.

Right now what i have are Hornady XTP HP's. 110, 125 and prob 140.
The only load i have found recomended was a speer 140 load with like 6.1 gr of longshot. Looking for other loads. Sending the gun in for a trigger job and getting a ransome rest b4 its gets back for load testing. I have everything to cast load for fishing but dont want to bother for bullets. I also need some higher power hunting loads for vermin.
so far i only bough 2K of 357 starline brass, prob should have go 38 spls.

Zero 158gn JHP w/ 4.3 gn WIN 231 in 3 inch 686