.357 in a long barrel

I have .357's in 3", 4", 6", 8-3/8", and 16" bbls. The 16" being a Henry.

Just so you know, I tend to be a fast powder guy. I don't like big flashes and booms with tons of propellant burning in the air in front of my barrels. I've come of age where that just seems silly to me.

With 158 grain bullets (all jacketed for this discussion), I load almost entirely with 2400. Performance is great in all my guns. However, in my Henry rifle, I move to Winchester 296 (which is the same as H-110 under a different label). In the Henry, moving from 2400 to W296 gives me an extra 100 f/s; whereas, the W296 gives but a few extra f/s in the revolvers - with a ton of additional flash-boom-recoil.

IMHO YMMV
 
What happens with SWCs and my Marlin is that with the rifle in certain positions, or the lever not being worked at the "right" speed, the round on the carrier gets slightly misaligned with the chamber.

As the bolt pushes the round forward, the side of the bullet nose contacts the edge of the chamber. With any kind of RN or jacketed bullet this is no concern, the round just slides along into the chamber as the bolt closes.

But with a SWC, the edge of the chamber hits the "ledge" of the bullets front driving band and at that point the round STOPS! Continuing to apply pressure on the round, by trying to finish closing the lever simply jams the bullet against the chamber edge HARDER.

The trick to managing this is being aware of what's going on, first. And then do what needs doing. When cycling the lever and it just stops, the trick is not to try and force it closed, the solution is to open it just a tiny bit. Bumping the lever forward just a tiny bit, takes the pressure off the round, and then it falls back on to the carrier and is properly lined up for smooth chambering. SO, when a SWC jams during feeding, bump the lever forward just a bit, THEN close it and it will close smoothly ...usually...most of the time...;)

The other point about SWCs in lever guns is length. Specifically nose length and where the bullet is seated in the case. Some designs, when seated to the crimp groove have noses too long for the lever gun's feed mechanism, but work find in revolvers (where they were developed, generally).

Overlength rounds absolutly WILL go into the tube magazine just fine. What they won't do is feed out. Friend of mine once loaded some 210gr LRN slugs he got too long, without knowing they were too long. He put 2 rnds in the mag to test the feeding and the gun jammed up solid. He brought it to me and I had to disassemble the action to get the rounds out.

If whatever you load is at industry spec for length (or slightly below) it should feed fine, as far as length is concerned.

Using 2400 powder in my Marlin carbine, I can drive 158gr into the 1800fps range and I have driven 125gr at 2200fps. The 125gr JHP pistol bullet is seriously overdriven at that speed, and behaves quite differently than it does from a handgun barrel.

Cast bullets hard enough for good high speed performance are poor candidates for expansion. Even if they're hollow points.
 
Yes. Powder coating has changed things. I look at it as a plastic approximation of paper patching, which has always let you shoot pure lead a lot faster. It also mitigates the bullet base powder blasting, so it is part of the way toward being a gas check alternative, like a thin version of the p-wads the late Roger Johnston developed and that are still sold by NECO.


Uncle Rick,

Lots of places sell fired brass. Many buy scrap brass from the military, who do not reload, so that stuff is truly "once-fired". The drawback is a lot of it will have been fired in full-auto weaponry which tends to stretch the brass and military brass is often hard and springy enough that the extra stretch will not allow a standard resizing die to fully return it to its original size. In that instance, a small-base die is then required the first time you size it yourself, while a standard sizing die is usually adequate after it has been fired in your gun. However, due to the high stretching some of it receives during military firing, it can be thinner or otherwise fail to last as many reloadings as new brass fired initially in your own chamber will. Some will last, some won't, and it can't be counted on to be consistent within a lot as it wasn't all fired in the same gun. So you have to look for incipient head separation and neck splits by inspecting after every firing.

There are a number of places, like Top Brass, that sell "conditioned" once-fired military brass. "Conditioned" means they have cleaned it, removed the spent primer, taken the military primer crimp out, and resized and trimmed it. They often use a roll-sizing rather than a convention resizing die. Roll sizers hydraulically roll the cases between two plates that have the new-brass case profile machined into them that forces the case exterior to have the correct profile. This brass is the easiest to use, as you can just load it as it comes and then reload normally thereafter until it is worn out.

There are some dealers, particularly smaller ones, who are not purchasing military scrap and who just sell range foundlings. A number of indoor ranges collect whatever falls out in front of the firing line and some don't allow brass pickup at all. These outfits are collecting brass with an unknown number of previous loadings and firings and it may or may not have much life left in it. These places are catch as catch can.


Note that you won't be able to post photos until your status has changed from Junior Member to Senior Member. It takes being an active member for a month and having at least 25 meaningful posts. When you do have that change, note the board does not allow hotlinking to images at other websites, as it steals the owner's bandwidth and those images can change without notice. Also, under current copyright law, anything posted on the web is automatically copyrighted and you need permission from the owner to post copyrighted materials here except for narrow "fair use" situations. You can read the board's policy on posting copyrighted materials here.

What you can do, however, is post a link to the page in question.
 
Thanks for that. I just thought it funny that the site selling "fired once" brass would post a photo showing serious over-pressure evidence -- primer flattening and cratering.
 
Military brass won't have that problem, so the outfit must be selling stuff they're collecting that is of unknown load history.
 
Thanks for that. I just thought it funny that the site selling "fired once" brass would post a photo showing serious over-pressure evidence -- primer flattening and cratering.
Click to expand...
I’m not trying to be argumentative — but I’ll disagree here, even though I’ve not yet seen this picture.

Experience has taught me repeatedly that folks who think they can “read primers” aren’t reading nearly anything. Guessing, and not accurate guessing and little more.

Bulged case heads, ”Glock’d” brass, flowing and leaking primers are another matter.
 
While I agree that one can't read primers and presume safe pressure, I would argue the opposite for overpressure. We also agree that brass flow is always an indicator of "too-hot-for-the-brass" conditions, but so too is a seriously flat/no-remaining-edges/firing-pin-extrusion an indicator of unsafe pressure for the rest of the "system".

EX: https://www.africahunting.com/proxy...001.jpg&hash=2aab939211f608179fbde24311c1f46a

No brass flow -- but the primer is talking to me about what it thinks of the situation.
:mad: :eek:


.
 
Last edited:
While I agree that one can't read primers and presume safe pressure, I would argue the opposite for overpressure.
Click to expand...

In general I agree. However, being the nit picker I am, and having a slightly different way of looking at things than most, here's a couple of points to consider...

First off, if you can read the primer at all, the pressure was "safe". The case did not fail, the gun did not fail, this is "safe".

However this does not mean the pressure was suitable. Suitable loads are always safe, but safe loads are not always suitable. Proof loads are safe (the gun survives unharmed) but are not remotely suitable for regular use.

You can "read" primers, but their vocabulary is small and all they say is the gun equivalent of "I am Groot!" so you need to know just what they are telling you.

You cannot read primers and match the signs with specific pressures. You cannot look at a primer and say "this is 28,000psi" and another and say "this is 35,000psi.." it just doesn't work that way.

What you can do is look at a fired case and see the primer telling you (on behalf of the gun and ammo combination) "I don't like this..."

Doesn't matter a lot what the pressure actually IS, what matters is how the gun and ammo combination handle it. Each combination is different, and while most are very similar there is always the potential for being drastically different from the usual. Its a bell curve, and one does find examples at both extreme ends.

Doesn't matter what the book says, either, what was fine in their test gun MIGHT not be in yours. Probably will be, but might not be, so when you start seeing pressure signs on your primers, you need to recognize something isn't completely right, even if it is within "book" limits.

Primer pressure signs won't tell you where you are, but they DO tell you "go ye no further.." and its best to heed that warning.
 
Uncle Rick,

I note all the flat and cratered-looking primers are in Federal brass. Federal primers are famous for being softer than average, so I wouldn't read anything into that.

Otherwise, the cases look pretty normal to me, except I was surprised to see a Herter's headstamp among them. The original Herters folded in 1981. Alternatively, it might be a more recent OEM case made for the HertersAmmo.com outfit, though I don't see any of their own brand on their site currently. They just seem to sell other makes of ammo.
 
300-MP also looks like a great 410 powder.




Although the 44Mag data looked a little strange:
As the bullet weight went up, the Powder weight went down (normal)
-- but the velocity increased dramatically.
 
Decreasing charge weight with increasing bullet weight is normal. Two reasons: 1) a heavier bullet typically seats deeper into the case, leaving less powder space, and 2) a heavier bullet has more inertial resistance to acceleration, so it expands the powder burning space more slowly, which means it takes less gas from less powder to reach a given peak pressure with it.

Several folks have commented about trying 300-MP and not finding it did any better for them than H110/296, despite Alliant's claims. I have not had an opportunity to try it myself, so that is purely second-hand hearsay at this point, but am curious to do so.
 
I plan on using TCFP now on in my Henry. Missouri’s RNFP seemed to work ok at first in 38 cases but lately have been too problematic. I plan on only using 357 cases now on too.
 
-- but the velocity increased dramatically.
Click to expand...
I'm used to better efficiency... but Alliant's data to that effect was (well) rather dramatic.
Must be a rather inefficient burner w/ lighter projectiles... sure would like some QL parameters to see that graphed out.
:confused: ;)
 
also consider the possibility that Internet published data could be in error. Not a big possibility, but not an impossible one, either.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top