What did you load today?

38 Short Colt

I just finished loading 604 rounds of 38 Short colt. I shoot this caliber in USPSA matches with my 627 8-shot revolvers. The recipe was new Starline brass, 160gr. Bayou Bullets long nose sized .358", 3.0gr Vihtavouri N 310 over Federal small pistol primers. COL is 1.16". These rounds in 8-shot moonclips load and extract very easily making competitive revolver shooting fun.

I've been loading 38 Short Colt since 2008 and it's an amazing round. There is virtually no loading data for the round but once you realize the cartridge is virtually a dead-ringer for 9x19mm ammo there is all the load data you can dream of.

Custom moonclips can be purchased that fit this Starline brass snugly and eliminates cartridge wobble when reloading on the fly.
 
S&WIowegan said:
I just finished loading 604 rounds of 38 Short colt. I shoot this caliber in USPSA matches with my 627 8-shot revolvers. The recipe was new Starline brass, 160gr. Bayou Bullets long nose sized .358", 3.0gr Vihtavouri N 310 over Federal small pistol primers. COL is 1.16". These rounds in 8-shot moonclips load and extract very easily making competitive revolver shooting fun.

I've been loading 38 Short Colt since 2008 and it's an amazing round. There is virtually no loading data for the round but once you realize the cartridge is virtually a dead-ringer for 9x19mm ammo there is all the load data you can dream of.

Custom moonclips can be purchased that fit this Starline brass snugly and eliminates cartridge wobble when reloading on the fly.
Click to expand...

Very cool!

Where do you get the custom moonclips? I've been thinking about getting my 629 cut for moonclips and shooting 44 Russian just to play around with it.
 
45 ACP: 185 gr Nosler JHP, 5.1 gr 231.

I hear that the Nosler bullet is extremely accurate. If so, it's going to replace the 200 gr LSWC in my go-to Bullseye load. N310 is supposed to be a great powder choice, but alas, I don't have any on the shelf. So I'll see what happens with 231.
 
dr. mordo said:
Very cool!

Where do you get the custom moonclips? I've been thinking about getting my 629 cut for moonclips and shooting 44 Russian just to play around with it.
Click to expand...

TK Custom; they're on the internet. Their whole business is milling cylinders for moonclips and providing moonclips for the gun. The clips can be used or not at your discretion. All you have to do is send them the cylinder.
 
Case Preparation time only.

Well I have actually loaded very little this last week, but I have managed to complete a great deal of case preparation for shooting over the next 3 months or so.

Last weekend, between shifts, I deprimed/resized 400 .38 special cases before hand priming them. I also managed to deprime and size 50 9mm cases for testing a load (50 for target shooting and 5 for the chrono) in my Tanfoglio CZ clone.

Yesterday, my first of three days off, I hit the range in the morning shooting off 126 of my last 150 .38 special loads. On getting home I put the cases, along with my last 50 fired cases, in the tumbler. I then loaded the 55 9mm cases on the bench before depriming/resizing another 600 9mm cases for a competition first weekend in September. I then sized and primed 100 new .45 auto cases before proceeding to deprime/resize and then reprime my last 200 several times fired .45 auto cases. The 100 new cases, along with another 200 I pick up on Friday, will eventually be loaded for our IPSC Handgun Nationals in November (less than a week after we return from our trip). I already have just over 500 new cases loaded up for the North Island Champs the week before we leave! (The round count for the NI’s is 240 so what is left over plus 300 rounds should see me through the usually 350 round Nationals, or do I need another 100 just in case? Mmm better make it an additional 200 just to be sure LOL). The previously fired cases will be reloaded and be practice ammo only during September (I still have 250-300 .45 practice rounds so that should be plenty).

This afternoon, after some chores around the house, I went back out to the shed and deprimed/sized and reprimed the 176 .38 special cases. I then primed the first 300 of the 9mm cases I deprimed and sized yesterday. Tomorrow I’ll finish priming the last 300 9mm’s then next week I’ll start the reloading (who am I kidding, the .38 press will be rotating tomorrow afternoon I can just about guarantee). The .38 press is already set up with the dies and powder measure drum for my .38 special load. Those’ll be first, then I’ll get the 9mm cases loaded and chamber dropped (luckily I still have around 500 9mm rounds for practice over the next month so don’t need to load for that). Then I’ll fill the .45’s and chamber drop those too.

Incidentally, the only difference between my practice and competition loads is that the later get chamber dropped before spending some time in the tumbler to get rid of any remaining lube and to look nice and shiny on the day :D:D:D.
 
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S&WIowegan said:
TK Custom; they're on the internet. Their whole business is milling cylinders for moonclips and providing moonclips for the gun. The clips can be used or not at your discretion. All you have to do is send them the cylinder.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I'll likely be ordering from them in the future.

No actual reloading today, but I bought 1600 once fired 45 ACP shells for a good price and ordered Lee 45 ACP dies so I can work up some *****cat loads for my 325 Night Guard, which beat me up shooting factory loads. Possibly tonight I'm going to order some 180gr coated bullets from Summers.
 
Nothing loaded, but sorted my wet tumbled "9 mm" brass which was a mix of 9x19, 9x18 (converted so wrong stamp) and 380 Auto (9x17) - lots of fun :eek:
 
Just spent another couple of hours in the man cave.

Finished off priming the last 300 9mm cases, and as I thought yesterday I got the .38 press spinning.

450 rounds of .38 special with a 148 gn plated HBWC over 4.2 gn Tightgroup in Starline cases, Federal SPP. At that point I ran out of the plated projectiles but had half an old box of Zero 148 gn LHBWC’s under the bench so I finished off the last 130 or so cases with those.

I’ll use the lead loads for practice and the plated for competition

And I have some .38 S&W rounds I’ll need to load soon which will take up the remaining LHBWC’s. But I’ll need to resupply the plated ones before 5he end of the year. Mrs KC will be pleased, not. :eek::rolleyes::eek:
 
S&WIowegan said:
I just finished loading 604 rounds of 38 Short colt. I shoot this caliber in USPSA matches with my 627 8-shot revolvers. The recipe was new Starline brass, 160gr. Bayou Bullets long nose sized .358", 3.0gr Vihtavouri N 310 over Federal small pistol primers. COL is 1.16". These rounds in 8-shot moonclips load and extract very easily making competitive revolver shooting fun.

........
Click to expand...

Interesting. Not only is there is no data for 38 Short Colt, there's no N310 data for the 38 Special. Yet, I just posted a "Ransom rest" thread wherein I commented on a load of N310 under a bulk (dime apiece) 125JHP in 357 Magnum cases that launches a 125JHP at only 782 fps .... 12 of them inside 3" @ 50 yards from a 4" 66.

A super accurate mousefart load for the 357 is something that I wasn't searching for but I'm sure glad I found it.
 
Mister meat and potatoes here .
Yesterday I loaded 100 rounds of .38, 148gr HBWC with 2.9gr BE.
Today it was 100 rounds of .380 , 100gr FMJFP , 3 gr Unique.
CCI small pistol primers as usual.
 
I loaded my first .375 super mags today. 200 gr Sierra under IMR 4227 with a CCI 200. The brass is cut down JBA 375 Winchester.

xpblIyNl.jpg
 
I have a Taurus 445 Ultralite arriving tomorrow, which is a ~20oz snubnose pocketable 5 shot 44 SPL.

Realizing that I'm going to want to run some rounds thru it and that 44 SPL loads would be a handful in such a light gun, I finally found a reason to load up the 150 .44 Russian shells I got on a whim last year.

Hodgdon doesn't offer a 44 RUS load for 180gr coated LRN (Summers Ent), so I did a little research and came up with 3.5gr of Trail Boss as a fairly light load but enough above minimum that Trail Boss' somewhat uneven metering wouldn't be an issue. Trail Boss actually meters pretty well from my Lee Auto Drum, with every throw I measured today being 3.3-3.5gr.
 
Loading up some 38-special using Extreme plated 125gr.hollow points and HP-38,I’m almost out of reloads.
 

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100 rounds of .455 Webley Mark II. Hornady cases, Remington 250 grain flat nose swaged lead .455 bullet, 4.5 grains HP-38 powder, Tula LP primer. These will be fired in my S&W .455 2nd Model that was carried by a British officer in WW I. I shoot about 400 rounds per year through this revolver and never have to worry about availability and price of this somewhat scarce ammo.
 
100 Rounds of 308 to feed my Hungry M14
 

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