38/40 jacketed loads?

O

Old Stony

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I've got a Winchester model 92 vintage of about 1895. It's an octagon 28" barrel that I had relined some years back. I haven't shot this for some time and decided to dig it out of the safe and hunt some with it. I have always used cast bullets out of it, but decided I would like to use some jacketed for a change. The headspace is nice and tight on it and it was always a good shooter with lead.
I just thought I would like to try it with some 200 gr. jacketed bullets and wondered if anyone had any favorite loads for this combination.
My barrel is a .400 dia. with a 1-25 twist.
 
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Thanks for your input. This is along the line I am contemplating. I have some Hornady .400 hp bullets and wanted to experiment with them for hunting purposes. I shoot a lot of hogs and smaller critters and want a little better performance than I get from my wimpy lead loads.
 
With a 28" barrel, I might be tempted to try the slower-burning Reloader-7, but it might involve more experimentation than you have time for.
 
I thought of some Re7 as one of the possibilities. I don't want to push the pressure envelope too far, just get a little bit better performance. The lead cowboy loads I'm shooting out of it now are probably in the 800 fps range. I guess I could pump them up a little and forget the whole jacketed thing really, but it seemed like an interesting project for me to play with.
 
Couldn't find any 180 gr. jacketed bullets around here locally, and decided to just work up a cast load that would do a better job. I ended up at 10.5 gr of Unique and it's averaging 1418 over the chrono with no signs of excessive pressure. I probably could actually get a little more speed, but this will suffice, as accuracy was good with this round as is.
I mentioned the project to a friend and last night he brought me over a box of Hornady's, so I guess it's back to the loading again. I'd already loaded 10 of the cast into the rifle and propped it in a corner ready to go...but now I guess it's back to the drawing board.
 
My thoughts about Re-7 were to keep the charges and pressures modest, but let the projectiles gain velocities with the slower-burning powders. At one time, Alliant published data for the .38-40 in rifles with Re-7, and they kept pressures within SAAMI specs.

The data is out there somewhere. I ran across another load in my search:
13.0/Alliant 2400/180 Cast. Gave 1300 f/s from a rifle, and below 14,000 C.U.P.
 
Found it. 2001 Alliant Reloading Data. 25.8/Re-7/180gr. Sierra JHP. Gave 1745 f/s, probably from a 24" barrel. Pressure was 13,500 c.u.p.
 
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