.357 mag -158 gr. cast- H-110

[remshooter]

i use 2400, but a friend got out of reloading ,and gave me a full pound of H-110 .will shoot it out of an .357 mag L-frame S@W .158 grain SWCGC cast from W-W and 2% tin . every body says dont load below 3% of max cause of squib loads .what min load should i start at ? lymans cast man. says start at 14.4 min to15.9 max.hornady has no cast load for H-110 but there jsp 158 gr load starts at 15.0 min to 16.7 max. anybody got a goodload?

 

[Steve C]

H110 is a volume sensitive powder that needs to fill most of the case, a heavy crimp for tight bullet pull and magnum primer to get reliable ignition. Too light, or too little crimp and you can get a squib. Good thing about H110 is that any where in the range listed will probably give you similar velocity. There are no light loads with H110. Lymans data is perfectly safe.

I have loaded jacketed 158gr .357 mag with 14.5grs of H110 (data on the bottle label) up to 15.8gr and got less than 50 fps increase in velocity.

 

[cjw3]

I have used H-110 with Lyman 358156 GCHP with good results. Ready to load, my bullets came to 160 grains and I had excellent accuracy with 16.0-16.5 grains/H-110.

H-110 is excellent powder when maximum loads are wanted but has nowhere near the flexibility of 2400, which I now prefer. (I have no need for maximum loads in anything I load.)

Steve C's advice on choice of primer, load density and crimp is right on the money.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

Using a 158gr LSWC/GC bullet I load a charge of 16.4gr W296/H110 with good success. That load is accurate in my 4" M686. (don't forget to use a Magnum primer and a heavy crimp)

 

[David Sinko]

I load 17.0 grs. with a plain base 158 gr. SWC and the Winchester WSP. It gives me exactly 1200 FPS over the chrono in my 4" 627. The fireball at the muzzle is most impressive, so obviously not all of the powder charge is contributing to the velocity. I'm kind of committed to this load, having loaded up over 500 rounds a while back. I find it's a surprisingly easy load to shoot well, even weak handed. I plan to take this gun and load to the local IDPA match this weekend to find out if I have any problems with leading or unburned powder clogging up the chambers. I was never a huge fan of the .357 Magnum, but this seems to be a decent load for either the street or the field.

Dave Sinko