TargetTalk

I have the (Penn) 200 LSWC and am interested in the minmum velocity which this bullet stabilizes at, for both 25 yd and 50 yd lines. I believe that this design duplicates the H&G 68 so hopefully there are many shooters out there using this style bullet.
Also if there is any historical test data on this bullet, which answers this same question, I'd be interested.
Thanks folks,
Ed

If you want the gun to be on target at both 25 and 50 yards, your load should be a little more than minimum. I use 4.2 gr Bullseye or 4.8 gr WW231. You can experiment from there.

Used to use 3.8 of WST or Bullseye, but point of aim was different between 50 yards and 25 yards. Finally went to 4.2-4.4 of WST for a good load.

3.7 grains of clays works wonders for me. It will function an ultradot match dot on a slide mount.

Does anyone have a chronograph here !!!

inthebeech wrote:Does anyone have a chronograph here !!!

For what?

When I used a 200 gr. LSWC the load was 3.6 gr. Clays for ca 730 fps - good at 25 yards.
I have switched to the 185 gr. Star LSWCHP with 3.8 gr. V V N-310 for 25 and 50 yards.

I use 2 loads. My 25yd load is with the 200gr 68 bullet. 4.1 gr Bullseye with federal primers. For 50yds, I use Rem 185gr match bullet with 4.6g of Bullseye with Federal primers. At the time Federal match ammo was using the Rem bullet which gave me a clue to use it. Best part is that no impact change in my gun using both ammos. Don't have to remember to fiddle with the scope.

I am using a 200 grain Saeco 069 molded bullet and get away with 3.5 grains of Clays for 50 yards and 3.5 of 231 at 25 yards. Each load is the lightest I can get away with and still get accuracy. My gun is a Les Baer wadcutter that I bought in 1980 something. Since it has a frame mount scope, it will shoot lighter loads by quite a bit compared to a slide mount. In the last 2700 fired a few weeks ago, my Matchdot went haywire and I borrowed a friend of mine's new Baer that he bought just a few weeks ago and my 25 yard load made it through till the last shot and stove piped and typically ejecting about 18 inches to 2 feet. Shooting the 231 like this is dirty because it is a slower powder and I doubt if it is even 600 fps but my short line scores are in the 190's so I won't change even though I get hoots for how weak they sound. I think the Clays at 3.5 are only about 700 fps. Since the Penn bullet will be quite hard compared to my cast bullet it might make a difference in loads. My bullets are about BHN 8 and the Penns are probably 18 - 20. The velocity the Penn bullet is stable will be the same as my bullet and it is just that it might take more powder to achieve the same velocity. -- Bill --

oldcaster wrote:I am using a 200 grain Saeco 069 molded bullet and get away with 3.5 grains of Clays for 50 yards and 3.5 of 231 at 25 yards. Each load is the lightest I can get away with and still get accuracy. My gun is a Les Baer wadcutter that I bought in 1980 something. Since it has a frame mount scope, it will shoot lighter loads by quite a bit compared to a slide mount. In the last 2700 fired a few weeks ago, my Matchdot went haywire and I borrowed a friend of mine's new Baer that he bought just a few weeks ago and my 25 yard load made it through till the last shot and stove piped and typically ejecting about 18 inches to 2 feet. Shooting the 231 like this is dirty because it is a slower powder and I doubt if it is even 600 fps but my short line scores are in the 190's so I won't change even though I get hoots for how weak they sound. I think the Clays at 3.5 are only about 700 fps. Since the Penn bullet will be quite hard compared to my cast bullet it might make a difference in loads. My bullets are about BHN 8 and the Penns are probably 18 - 20. The velocity the Penn bullet is stable will be the same as my bullet and it is just that it might take more powder to achieve the same velocity. -- Bill --

I would think about going just a bit hotter with the Clays. I have used it with three different bullets. and 3.7 is very accurate at the long line with a 200g wadcutter. I have used 3.7 with a 160g bullet and it works great unless it is a really cold morning. Clays is slightly more temperature sensitive than some other powders, so be a little cautious about loading it too light. I also shoot a frame mounted dot. For the long line I use 4.2g of Titegroup under a 185g Zero LHP. I am pretty sure I could use 3.7 of Clays under both bullets with good results but am thinking of trying some Bullseye as my friends like it even on chilly mornings.

Isabel, I too was using a heavier load. As a matter of fact, my 25 yard load was 3.4 grains of Clays and my 50 yard load was 5.4 of power pistol, all worked up on a Ransom Rest. I happen to load 3.4 of 231 in 38's and wanted to load up some 45's and had in my mind that the powder measure was already 3.4. After loading 50 of them it dawned on me that it should have been Clays. I expected one shot feeding at that time and figured I would just shoot them at 25 yard for slow fire practice rather than pull them. As I was shooting them, they just made it out of the ejection port a foot or so but were reliable. What I noticed was how good of a score I was shooting on the 25 slow fire target. I then sat down and benchrested the rest and was pleasantly surprised how accurate they were at 25. One of my friends said try them at 50 and I joked that they might bounce off the paper so I shot some of the 3.4 clay 25 yard loads that I had at 50 off the bags and was surprised that they were quite accurate also which I did not expect because they were lubed with hard lube and generally slow velocity don't like hard lube. Since that experience I raised the loads one tenth of a grain at 25 and one tenth at 50 and found out that they shot to the same place. I have been doing this for only about a month now and the thing I noticed the most is the 25 yard loads are sooty but I'll put up with it because getting older I don't like recoil. My elbow won't straighten out any longer and because of this recoil makes my gun come back in an inconsistant direction. With light loads I don't have this problem and let my body rock instead of my arm going up. -- Bill --

oldcaster wrote:Isabel, I too was using a heavier load. As a matter of fact, my 25 yard load was 3.4 grains of Clays and my 50 yard load was 5.4 of power pistol, all worked up on a Ransom Rest. I happen to load 3.4 of 231 in 38's and wanted to load up some 45's and had in my mind that the powder measure was already 3.4. After loading 50 of them it dawned on me that it should have been Clays. I expected one shot feeding at that time and figured I would just shoot them at 25 yard for slow fire practice rather than pull them. As I was shooting them, they just made it out of the ejection port a foot or so but were reliable. What I noticed was how good of a score I was shooting on the 25 slow fire target. I then sat down and benchrested the rest and was pleasantly surprised how accurate they were at 25. One of my friends said try them at 50 and I joked that they might bounce off the paper so I shot some of the 3.4 clay 25 yard loads that I had at 50 off the bags and was surprised that they were quite accurate also which I did not expect because they were lubed with hard lube and generally slow velocity don't like hard lube. Since that experience I raised the loads one tenth of a grain at 25 and one tenth at 50 and found out that they shot to the same place. I have been doing this for only about a month now and the thing I noticed the most is the 25 yard loads are sooty but I'll put up with it because getting older I don't like recoil. My elbow won't straighten out any longer and because of this recoil makes my gun come back in an inconsistant direction. With light loads I don't have this problem and let my body rock instead of my arm going up. -- Bill --

I am absolutely sure they will work for the short line, with the right spring in your gun. I just think you should have a back up plan for outdoors on cold mornings. A lot of my friends have trouble getting Clays to meter consistently in their Dillon. I have found that the medium powder bar actually meters more consistently than the extra small one that Dillon recommends for light loads.

I still have the orginal what Dillon called small before their new extra small came into existance. I modified the front of the bar myself so I could drop powder for my 32 Benelli. If I tried to use the Dillon for 231 with a 32 load, (1.8 or below) it wouldn't work at all because of a lack of metering accuracy. If a person has metering problems I would suggest Accurate #2 because it is fine and is close to 231 and although 231 is better than Clays for metering it is not as good as #2. If one wants to be close to Clays, I would go to Bullseye. Bullseye got a bad undeserved reputation a few years ago when everyone started calling it dirty.
Whenever any of these powders are shot at slow velocities they seem dirty. Anything about 700 fps up is suddenly clean.

I guess the most important thing to realize is that there are so many variables that one never knows what is accurate or isn't until they try but to the original poster, they can go real slow and still be accurate at 25 yards.

We just fininshed shooting our weekly 1200 practice and one of my friends that saw the accuracy gotten from such low velocities in my gun lowered his 231 from 5 to 4 and the accuracy at 25 yards was excellent but since he has a scope on his slide, it wouldn't cycle. His gun is an iron sight Les Baer that he put a scope on, so I don't know if his recoil spring is the same as my frame mount or not. We are going to measure his spring and see if it can be lightened and still be reliable. -- Bill --

oldcaster wrote:...I have been doing this for only about a month now and the thing I noticed the most is the 25 yard loads are sooty but I'll put up with it because getting older I don't like recoil... -- Bill --

I'm curious whether you are having trouble with blowback or lead fusing to your rifling due to the low pressures created by these loads and the brass not forming a tight seal in the chamber when the cartridge is fired?

Also, any idea about how many extra tenths of a grain of powder you might need to charge the cases with to prevent the sooty cases?

I'm asking because I'm interested in finding the dividing line between too little pressure and too much pressure in such a load.

Bamo, I have been having similar trouble in my S&W 52, sooty cases and lead buildup in the front of the chamber. Using 2.7gr of BE with 148gr cast WC. Maybe my load is too light also, causing blowback. I never considered too light of a load causing chamber leading. I will try upping the load a few tenths and see what happens.

I'm not sure if I could make my Baer lead if I wanted to. 45's are not normally much for leading anyway and the Baer barrels are very slick inside.

One of my friends who just bought one of these guns but has a Matchdot mounted on the slide was shooting 5.2 grains of 231 out of his gun with a 200 grain bullet and after he saw my results he tried 4 grains and at 25 yards got excellent accuracy but it wouldn't cycle without going to 4.2 which I think was right at 700fps. The 4.2 wasn't as accurate as the 4 but bear in mind that each gun is an entity to itself when it comes to accuracy although there is usually similarity.

I think your best approach would be to keep loading just a few rounds at a time lower and lower until you are happy. The loads with 4.0 looked pretty clean but I don't think you could go a lot lower and still be very clean.

GBertolet, A load of 2.7 or 8 was a standard load of a 148 grain cast for years when 38's were used for Bullseye matches and was what we used for 50 yards, but modern Bullseye doesn't burn as fast as the old stuff. When I shot in the AMU in '65 we went as low as 2.0 for short line shooting but they were sooty. The guns were cleaned after every match in those days so 90 rounds was the max. I don't recall any leading at the time and the bullets we molded were very soft and close to pure because the people in charge insisted it was best. In those days all of the swaged HBWC's were pure lead but that changed in the late 80's and now the BHN of a typical swaged bullet is about 10. The last pure lead bullets I am aware of were Stars. I think soft lead is a good idea at these velocities but it is hard to mold with unless your temperature is rather hot. -- Bill --

I have a custom Caspian .38spl. 1911 (6" bbl) with a Ultra dot mounted on its slide. I shoot 2.9g BE with swaged 148HBWC's. No problems at all, but as i get to timed and rapaid stages I brush and patch the bbl. Couple of swipes very quickly, Magazines are a problem as they are gairly expensive and I find tough to get them to feed perfectly. Accuracy at 50yds is suspect, as .38's dont fly all that well to 50yds. I've heard of the same problems with the .32's. Accuracy and recoil is terrific for timed and rapid fire though, which is where I Usually make up most of my points.

tenx9, keep trying because 38's can be superbly accurate at 50 yards and so can 32's. As one goes down in caliber it seems like more work is necessary to get all the bugs out but they will shoot well. If you want a challange, try 9 mm with lead bullets. -- Bill --

Ive tried a bunch of loads and bullets over the years. It seems the best I can get is approx 31/2" for a 10shot Ransom rest group. That coupled to my poor slow fire scores and if I get an 85 or better I'm pretty happy. Mostly, I shoot my .45 at fifty, but then i suffer in rapid fire. At 25yd the .38 drills the x ring and its amazing how much it drops off when it comes to the long line.

I think the problem today is there are no longer any 38 HBWC bullets that excel. The last one I knew of was the Winchester bulk HBWC that was bought by the pound and was lubed with a clear wax. Something like 1400 and some odd bullets to a box and everybody seemed to be happy with their results. I only shoot 38's out of a revolver in bullseye matches and the most accurate bullet I can come up with is a RCBS SWC molded bullet called a 150. These will easily stay inside 2 inches at 50 yards 10 shots out of my 14-2 or Python. My Python will shoot currently made HBWC's better than the Smith but the Smith will beat all with the 150 grain bullet and shoots the HBWC's rather poorly, even worse than your results.
Some of my friends and I have recently been experimenting with cutting 32 long cases shorter and installing round nose or SWC bullets so that they wind up being the same length as a 32 long wadcutter because that is how long the magazine is. One friend uses 32 shorts and I trim 32 long brass based on how long the bullet is and where it crimps. They are highly reliable made that way and might be something you would like to try in your 38 semi auto. You could use 38 Colt police brass or trim Specials to what you want. Just be aware that as you shorten the brass you need less powder to do the same thing. -- Bill --