Your revolver seems to have low velocities/low performance. This is why I asked about die sets.
Several years ago I decided to thin the herd with the different 38spl/357mag bullet molds I had. Here is a picture of some of them along with 3 others not pictured.
I did a lot of head to head testing over a chronograph and in wetpack looking for the best performing bullets. After testing in 2 1/2", 4" (2x), 6" (3x), 8" & 10" 357mag bbl's these 4 always had the highest velocities. Didn't matter with the 5 different powders tested, they were always to dogs.
What they have in common is the ability to seal the throats of the cylinders and bbl faster with their large bottom drive bands (bullet bases) or long full diameter bodies or a gc. This makes them more efficient makes better use of the pressures exerted on them.
Most reloading dies are designed for the shorter, smaller in diameter jacketed bullets. The expander doesn't actually open the case enough where it counts. Namely near the bullets base.
They will flare the mouth of the case but not anywhere near the depth needed to use cast or coated bullets. A lyman m-die expander next to a lee factory expander. You can clearly see the high water mark on the lee die that was left from the case mouths. The cases need expanded further in the case to keep the cast/lead bullets from being swaged down.
If the bullet gets swaged down it will not only loose pressure from the load blowing by it. It will use more pressure to bump it back up in diameter to seal the cylinders and bbl.
I'm not saying that the rimrock swc is a bad design. It's just odd that a gc'd bullet has the same velocity as the plain based bullet does. Typically when you see this it's telling me that the soft gc bullet is being swaged down when seated and the harder swc isn't.
Just something to think about. A lyman m-die expander next to a factory lee expander. You can clearly see the high water mark left by the top of the case mouths on the expander button on the lee die.
Several years ago I decided to thin the herd with the different 38spl/357mag bullet molds I had. Here is a picture of some of them along with 3 others not pictured.
I did a lot of head to head testing over a chronograph and in wetpack looking for the best performing bullets. After testing in 2 1/2", 4" (2x), 6" (3x), 8" & 10" 357mag bbl's these 4 always had the highest velocities. Didn't matter with the 5 different powders tested, they were always to dogs.
What they have in common is the ability to seal the throats of the cylinders and bbl faster with their large bottom drive bands (bullet bases) or long full diameter bodies or a gc. This makes them more efficient makes better use of the pressures exerted on them.
Most reloading dies are designed for the shorter, smaller in diameter jacketed bullets. The expander doesn't actually open the case enough where it counts. Namely near the bullets base.
They will flare the mouth of the case but not anywhere near the depth needed to use cast or coated bullets. A lyman m-die expander next to a lee factory expander. You can clearly see the high water mark on the lee die that was left from the case mouths. The cases need expanded further in the case to keep the cast/lead bullets from being swaged down.
If the bullet gets swaged down it will not only loose pressure from the load blowing by it. It will use more pressure to bump it back up in diameter to seal the cylinders and bbl.
I'm not saying that the rimrock swc is a bad design. It's just odd that a gc'd bullet has the same velocity as the plain based bullet does. Typically when you see this it's telling me that the soft gc bullet is being swaged down when seated and the harder swc isn't.
Just something to think about. A lyman m-die expander next to a factory lee expander. You can clearly see the high water mark left by the top of the case mouths on the expander button on the lee die.
