Yesterday's Weapons Forums

I was just wondering if anyone had experimented with cast bullets and minimum loads. I was reading about using loads like .5 grains of bullseye in a revolver.

Dave

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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin historical review of Pennsylvania [1759]

I use 18 grains of VihtaVuori N110 behind a cal .311 210 grains cast bullet in my Mosin Nagant M39 and the same 18 grains N110 behind a cal .313 220 grains cast bullet in my M91/30.
It's great to shoot and the cases last"a life time".


Top bullet is .311. Bottom one is .313


Cases last a lifetime, but every now and then I check one on the inside.

Met vriendelijke groet,

Martin

_________________
A dart or a sledgehammer What do you prefer?

Old Thor ain't got nothing on me.



Gungrubber

If you troll through some of my posts (and others) in this forum, you will see discussions aplenty about reduced loads in rifle cartridges. Many of my posts have information about 8x56R and 8mm Mauser reduced load data.

As to reduced loads in pistols & revolvers. If you are shooting jacketed bullets in these, it doesn't make a lot of sense to reduce for them. Jacketed bullets are designed for specific purposes and need to go at these speeds to accomplish them. Reduction beyond a certain point with jacketed bullets hazards the possibility of stuck bullets in the barrel.

Reduction of lead bullet loads is less problematic and you can get loads down to pretty low velocities that will still clear the barrel. So many lead bullets are fired at targets and recreationally that certain minimum velocity levels for bullet performance purposes are not present.

An issue with revolvers is cylinder gap. If your gap is within specs, the amount of gas that escapes through the gap between the forward end of the cylinder and the barrel isn't much of a worry. On older revolvers that have been subjected to lots of wear, when this gap has grown, you have to worry that your bullet might not clear the barrel if the load is too mild.

With automatics, you are limited in load reduction to those loads that will still cycle the action. You can get lead bullet loads down a bit in most automatics and they will still cycle, and you can sometimes get a replacement recoil spring that has less tension that will allow for firing reduced loads while still functioning as a self-loader.

If you want REALLY reduced pistol loads, get some of the plastic projectiles that Speer makes. You can load these up with primers only; that way you will REALLY save on powder.

The way this article read. You kept lowering the powder charge until a bullet failed to exit the barrel, then increased the powder charge until it would reliably exit the barrel.

Dave

_________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin historical review of Pennsylvania [1759]

beware!!!

As you decrease the powder charge some powders are sensitive to case
Position. And will give different pressures depending on powder position
(front or back of case) Titegroup is a good powder for these loads
as it is very tolerant of case position. and a little goes a long way.

If you want to give me bullet weight and case I could peruse my stack of manuals for light loads and post some for you.

GG

_________________
A dart or a sledgehammer What do you prefer?

Old Thor ain't got nothing on me.



Gungrubber

The article I read was by William dresser. He was working these loads up in was 2" .38 special snubby. His point was to allow beginners to practice with the gun they were going to use with little or no recoil. He noted that if one already reloaded it would be as economical as a .22. He had a load of .75 grains of bullseye behind a 146 gr wadcutter cast bullet gave a muzzle velocity of 195 FPS.

Dave

_________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin historical review of Pennsylvania [1759]