crappy alliant

Most of the hollow based wadcutters I've used are very soft swaged bullets. With a charge hotter than 3.2 gr. or so, they will start leading your barrel, and possibly squirting the hollow base skirt out through the cylinder gap.

My go-to load for years in 357 and 125 gr jacketed or plated, is 7.0 gr. of Bullseye. this is an extremely accurate load with great trajectory that shoots POI at 25 yds, and again at 100 yds. It is a pretty snappy load, but still a grain below max as listed in my Lyman book. jd
 
Hbwc',s are not magic bullets. Unless you understand the relationship between case construction, re- sizeing, expanding, and crimping, you would be better off with a cast wc. You could easily end up with a skirt seperation from excessive pressure.
 
He's trying some reverse loaded HBWC's. That stops the base from being blown out by muzzle pressure. It is also an old trick to get a lot of expansion at relatively low velocity (think snubby's here). But if the HB shot more accurately reversed, it's because it sees too much muzzle pressure at the load level used. In 38 Special, 2.7 grains of Bullseye under one of these bullets it the old standby target load. Given the funny results Hodgdon got with 231, I would start even the .357 cases with 2.7 grains and chronograph it and do the same with some .38 Special cases to see how the velocity compares.
 
Uncle Nick ..I tried that 50 years ago when we didn't have many expanding bullets available. It is very dramatic. My fear is having a younger shooter have a bad experience with lead bullets. I'm sure we agree cast bullet performance can be tedious at times.
 
I happen to like Alliant, their powders, reloading data and pamphlets. Power pistol is great, and so are their shotgun powders. I have many of their extruded powders and ball powders which are capable. I personally would not call them "crappy" and know how to capitalize a proper noun.
 
They answered my email

They answered my request for data in a day or two, by email.

"For phone inquiries, an Alliant Powder representative will be available to answer your calls between 7 a.m. - 7 p.m. CT Monday through Friday (866) 286-7436"
 
thats the thing rod, its easy to guess that the load data for 38 specials is HBWC... the loads are right on the spot for standard bulls eye shooting data from the late 80s.

but those big 357 magnum charges,,,
 
If you look at the Alliant online data, it is for a flush seated swaged Speer HBWC and the maximum load is at 799 fps from a 6" barrel. That is a warm target load that probably shoots about 770 fps from a 4" unvented test barrel. If you go to the SAAMI specifications, they have a separate one for the 38 Special Match wadcutter. It has the same upper-pressure limit as any other 38 Special, but the nominal velocities for the 148-grain wadcutter are 700 fps from a vented barrel and 800 fps from a non-vented standard test barrel. Both types of barrel have about 4" of rifled bore from the throat forward, but the vented one has a 0.008" gap between the chamber and throat to simulate a revolver's barrel/cylinder gap.

The classic 2.7-grain bullseye load fits right into that performance range. Pressure is somewhere in the vicinity of 12 kpsi.
 
but those big 357 magnum charges,,,
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what big .357 charges are you referring to?

The 8gr of Bullseye you said earlier that no one else verifies, or something more like these?

My Alliant 2004 Reloader's Guide has the following data for 357 magnum:

148 LWC, Bullseye 5.7 gr, 1,475 fps, 34,000 psi.

148 LWC (target), Bullseye 2.8 gr, 780 fps, 10,000 psi.
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Take a look at the difference here. And do note the word "Target" and where it is.

The heavier load is up at about the pressure limit for the round and is essentially as hard as you can drive that bullet, for what ever application you choose to use it for. It's "full power" ammo using a 148 LWC bullet.

The lighter charge is a target load, intentionally light, slow and low pressure for punching holes in paper targets. When you see data for a target load and it lists a max of 2.somthing or 3 or 3.1 that's the max amount that still produces a light target load.

Not a hard and fast rule, but sometimes that's how the data is arranged.
 
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