Have had good luck with the following loads in more than one 38-55. Work them up for safety. All use Win. brass and CCI200 primers, seated to crimp groove and crimped if necessary.
30.0 RL7, 255gr Barnes or Win. bullet, avg. vel. 1750, about a max load. Hunting load.
27.0 RL7, 250gr cast bullet, linotype, fairly fast cast load at 1670 fps. I would hunt with this with a softer alloy bullet.
19.0 AA5744, 250 cast bullet, duplicates factory ammo vel. at 1380 fps.
45gr bulk measure, Pyrodex RS, 250 cast wheel weight alloy, very uniform vel. at 1310 fps.
45gr bulk measure, Pyrodex Select,250 cast as above, 1290 fps.
45gr. bulk measure, Goex FFG black, 250 cast, not chronoed but guess about 1300 fps. All pyro and black powder used a single .030 card wad under bullet and were lubed with 50-50 mix of beeswax and Thompsons bore butter. In other guns and calibers I have had better luck with Pyro RS than the Select, in this case they performed nearly identical.
