Reloading Help!

[Oldmanwesson]

Congratulations, I'm glad you found the fix.

One thing though, I truly feel you should use a slight crimp to at least remove the flare on the case. It will also make your ammo more consistent. In a revolver the recoil can cause bullet pull and extend the bullet which can lock up the cylinder. I think a slight crimp will improve your ammo which you said is already very good. Just my opinion.

Good point. I get what you are saying. I will try a few rounds with a light crimp. Thanks!

 

[glowe]

Crimp will not help the 38-44 Target since the conical bullet is set way down into the case and can move forward beyond the front of the cylinder while not yet touching the crimp. These are strange cartridges and were meant to simply be a brass tube right up to the rear of the barrel to minimize free-space. I am not surprised that your gun shoots satisfactorily, but with a 1/4" free space between the case and the rear of the barrel, you will get blow-buy and the bullet will likely shift and not enter the barrel perfectly. Blow-by around the bullet and blow-back with a loose case in the chamber will reduce performance and will get your revolver very dirty fast. Free space allows the bullet to cant before it enters the barrel, further reducing accuracy. Lastly, a .357 bullet likely will not get full spin through the bigger bore.

From what you see so far, it sounds like your gun could shoot 1" groups at 25 yards with the proper ammo. Once brass starts showing up again, please do try the process of trimming 357 Max to full cylinder length, expanding the case to take .361" bullets and you might well be amazed at how accurate these old revolver can be!

 

[glowe]

I just got back from the range yesterday shooting several different loadings of 38-44 Target and now have a good idea of the performance for what I was loading. I prefer Trail Boss for most of my vintage calibers, so loaded 3 and 3.5 grains, with a 145 grain LRN from Missouri Bullets set fully into the shortened 357 Rem Max cases. I have lots of Small Rifle primers and wanted to test the difference between SR and SP primers. Results are below and I think I am at the sweet spot with 650 to 750 fps on all loads.

3 grains Trail Boss - Small Pistol primers - 624 fps
3 grains Trail Boss - Small Rifle primers - 664 fps
3.5 grains Trail Boss - Small Pistol primers - 719 fps
3.5 grains Trail Boss - Small Rifle primers - 765 fps

Interesting that using small rifle primers raised the velocities by a consistent 6% in both loads. Good ignition and low standard deviation in all loads.

Can not guarantee satisfactory results in any other gun, so start low and work up to a load you are comfortable shooting.