1911 fun

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stagpanther

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I'm not much of a handgun guy, mostly cause my bad eyes have a hard time with their sights (I've been down the road of all kinds of corrective glasses etc.). But I recently stumbled on a goldmine of hand-load recipes on Shooting Times and that has inspired me to dust off my Colt competition series Government in 38 super and try out some new stuff. Its stock irons are big and clear enough that I have less trouble with them than most other handgun irons. Here's my first "at bat" load, .356" 125 Hornady HAPs driven by power pistol in starline nickle-plated brass.

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Eye issues as well and a red dot has allowed me to remain active in competition with my 45/1911.
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I have a red dot on another 1911 but my eyes give me a bad flare--sometimes a double-dot--even when using a good one. That's why I rarely use anything illuminated these days.
 
I'd only ever loaded "minor power" .38 Super, 130-135grs @ 1000fps, for competition, but I'd accumulated an odd assortment of jacketed bullets, loaded them at the hotter end of the spectrum, but haven't made a range trip with my chronograph, since.
It's going to be over 100 degrees the rest of the week, so maybe when it cools off!
Any good loads for a 147@1200?
 
Here's the link to the great Shooting Times article. Scroll down to find the recipes. I've dabbled a bit with Lehigh defense's .357" bullets but they can be problematic feeding--not that they won't fit the chamber but that the bullet nose can catch on the barrel shroud. I'm just an occassional handgun shooter and am by no means any kind of "authority" on the 38 super 1911--I bought it mostly cause I simply always wanted a colt 1911--and I found a Lew Horton special for well under 1K.;)
 
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Hello stagpanther. The Super has been one of my favorites to reload since the '70s.
I've had several Colts in .38 Super, along with some other makes. I was never interested in lightly loaded .38 Super ammunition, so used slower powders for the more energetic ammo I loaded. The Accurate Arms powders flow so smoothly and produce such consistent velocities, that they have become favorites for loading the Supers. AA-7 is very good, but the slower AA-9 is what I've used for years to produce the most energetic loads. For some years now, I've only purchased Starline 38 SuperComp and .38 TJ cases for loading, and used CCI #500 primers. Using these components, 124/125 grain handloads at 1450 FPS and 147s at 1250 FPS are easily achieved. I do favor the guns with the Integrally ramped barrels due to their superior case head support.

Anyway, fun and easy cartridge to reload. Enjoy!
 
Hello stagpanther. The Super has been one of my favorites to reload since the '70s.
I've had several Colts in .38 Super, along with some other makes. I was never interested in lightly loaded .38 Super ammunition, so used slower powders for the more energetic ammo I loaded. The Accurate Arms powders flow so smoothly and produce such consistent velocities, that they have become favorites for loading the Supers. AA-7 is very good, but the slower AA-9 is what I've used for years to produce the most energetic loads. For some years now, I've only purchased Starline 38 SuperComp and .38 TJ cases for loading, and used CCI #500 primers. Using these components, 124/125 grain handloads at 1450 FPS and 147s at 1250 FPS are easily achieved. I do favor the guns with the Integrally ramped barrels due to their superior case head support.

Anyway, fun and easy cartridge to reload. Enjoy!
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Thanks for that. I currently use starline as well and have 8lbrs of both AA7 and 9 so pretty good shape there. i too use CCI 500. I notice that 1991 barrels tend to come in 3 flavors of ramp support--standard, Clark and Wilson; any recommendations there? The barrel it comes with is stamped N.M. but I can't tellif that means anything different from a conventional government barrel. Also, do you tend to stick strictly with .355 bullets or find any benefit in .356 or .357?
 
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Just out of curiosity I pulled the barrel and examined it; it does not appear to have full support all the way around at the face of the chamber though I've never seen any distortion of cases that I've ran hot loads in. It has an ever-so-slight "glock smile" where the ramp feed comes in (much smaller than a glock's). I also took a look at the bore with my borescope--very impressive for the most part, it looked a lot like a quality custom rifle barrel though perhaps not quite as good as a top-tiered hand-lapped finished.

In case you're wondering how the loads turned out--ummm, my shooting wasn't up to the task of making good shots:o, so instead I need some extended return to basics prectice sessions.
 
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There was an article in American Handgunner magazine, maybe twenty years ago, in which they bolted barrels into a fixture and fired them for groups, to determine if the tube played much of a part in accuracy, as opposed to the quality of the barrel fitting, and there was no correlation between barrel accuracy and source.
The WWII-vintage G.I. barrel was as accurate as some of the "Custom", "gunsmith fit", as was the factory Colt drop-in barrel.
 
There was an article in American Handgunner magazine, maybe twenty years ago, in which they bolted barrels into a fixture and fired them for groups, to determine if the tube played much of a part in accuracy, as opposed to the quality of the barrel fitting, and there was no correlation between barrel accuracy and source.
The WWII-vintage G.I. barrel was as accurate as some of the "Custom", "gunsmith fit", as was the factory Colt drop-in barrel.
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I think I read that one--I've heard that the argument comes down to how all pieces interact--and simply bolting a 1911 to a ransom rest doesn't prove anything on the inherent accuracy. I'm not skilled with handguns at all--but I find that I always get better results shooting freehand than I do off a rest of some kind (short of a bolt-down).
 
stagpanther, I've used .355", .356" and .357" and never noticed any particular difference, other than the .357" is a bit tight chambering in some barrels. Now days I just use .355". Brian Pearce in Handgunner indicates that most manufacturers just use 9mm barrel stock for pistols chambered in .38 Super anyway.

If you are getting Glock type smilies where the feed ramp transitions/"breaks over" into the chamber, that is the brass trying to shear. I immediately discontinue use of such ammo. Some case expansion is normal, but "smilies" are not. The case is permanently weakened, and resizing does not restore it's structural integrity.

As to barrel ramps, I've used the three types you mention. The integrally ramped types, be they W/N or C/P, both provide better case head support than the factory Colt type barrels. Any of these barrels though, can be excessively throated, reducing case head support.

The former head of the Colt Custom Shop has indicated that Colt's "NM" marked barrels are different than the standard Colt barrels. I don't doubt him, but have never seen any consistent accuracy advantage in NM marked barrels. Within my humble experience, it is as RickB indicates, "the quality of the barrel fitting". For instance, I have and old Govt. model .45 with a Non-NM factory barrel welded up and refitted by James Clark over 50 years ago that will still produce approx. 2" 10-shot groups at 50 yards from a machine rest.
 
American Rifleman had a piece about correlation between bullet diameter and accuracy in the .38 Super, and they found that bullet bearing length was more important than diameter.
That suggests heavier bullets will be more accurate, but bullet shape plays a part; 147gr Truncated Cone JHP might be the hot ticket.
 
RickB said:
American Rifleman had a piece about correlation between bullet diameter and accuracy in the .38 Super, and they found that bullet bearing length was more important than diameter.
That suggests heavier bullets will be more accurate, but bullet shape plays a part; 147gr Truncated Cone JHP might be the hot ticket.
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Data from the Shooting Times article referred to in the link shows the 147 grain bullets did not produce as small a groups as the lighter bullets.

It would be interesting to see that old American Rifleman article to see how they tested it. Have the reference by chance? Thanks.
 
The article must have been printed twenty years ago . . . which means it may
have been thirty years ago!
Does NRA maintain archives of AR articles?

EDIT: Yes, they do, and I couldn't find it among eight pages of articles.

I wonder if all Super barrels use the same rifling twist rate?
Colt uses 1:16, which is considerably slower than some 9mm barrels, and you'd think the latter would be more suitable for longer, heavier bullets.
 
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The Colt N.M. barrel on my 38 super appears to be an unramped conventional barrel, though compared to other unramped conventional 1911 barrels it does have less radius machined out apparently offering somewhat more support for the case head as far as I can tell. The only bullets I've had trouble feeding with are lehigh's--which I'm guessing nobody ever considers using in match shooting anyway. I've seen no signs of case stretch even on the hot loads I've fired.

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