Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting lyman mold 358429

this is the keith bullet in 170 grain. I have been trying to find a four hole mould for this. Anybody have experience with it?
i have the 358156 but it is a little lighter at 160grains, and is gas checked, and two hole.
I wonder how the bigger bullet preforms without the gas check?

Hear good reports on this one.

http://noebulletmolds.com/NV/product_info.php?cPath=35_301&products_id=2742

in a 357 at full tilt it works well. No need for a GC with 2400 Russ

That's the way Elmer Keith designed it. Square bottom grease groove(s) and a nice, wide meplat.

Ought to smack down anything shot with it.

Ed

i have looked at that mold, and his price is good. The part that throws me a little is evidently he cuts them to .360. Given .357 in a 38special or 357, i was taught with lead to go one or two over, but .360 seem a lot. Particularly if you are going to powder coat them.

i have been following this one on ebay. What throws me is when you supersize the picture of the mold it looks like some crud on one of the holes. Any thoughts?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lyman-4-cavity-bullet-mold-358429-170-gr-SWC-38-cal-bullet-/331829224096?hash=item4d429022a0:g:qVMAAOSwAvJXDC7u

I broke down and bought a new one in the 80dollar range off of ebay, interesting in that midway showed them at well over 100bucks.
i said ebay but my mine wasn't working, came off amazon seller being optics planet.

Midway is high on most stuff.

I have that mold in 4 cavity - casts very well and drops at 166 gr with wheel weight alloy.

My wife got me that mold 35 years ago and I really like it.

Most of my shooting was through a 6 inch Model 19.

5 grains of Unique in .38 Special cases makes a fun load for long range steel or white rocks in pasture. 5.5 to 6 grains of Unique in .357 cases make a good general purpose load.
Stouter loads with 2400 are really good but we used less of these in the K frame and usually used 2 grains under maximum.

I used wheel weights for almost all my casting, .358 diameter and never had a leading issue.

its in the mail. the 561 version is almost the same weight with me casting to about 160grains, but it is a gas checked bullet which i was wanting to avoid. i am sure it will be run in some k frames and i have a lot of unique, so your post was on target on all counts. I will size to .358 too. I intend to powder coat them too.

i got that four hole new lyman 170 grain mould in, those are big bullets. The mold came in really wrapped up good with oil on it, tighter than a drum.
I am going looking for an old grave way up in the mountains this weekend, he died in the 1880's, otherwise i would be casting some. Next week maybe then after powdercoating will post a pictur.

I have an old Lyman 358429 that makes absolutely beautiful bullets. I usually load them over 5gr of Unique in 38sp cases, been an accurate load in every revolver I've tried it in. Sometimes I do spool them up a bit with 2400 or Unique to replicate the old 38/44 loads since I have a couple of those revolvers and a 357 Blackhawk that I like to shoot.

My only complaint with the design is that they won't chamber in my Chief Special with the driving band outside the case mouth and I don't want to change the seater setting for one gun. I just feed it 358156s from my HP mold.

I have a couple of Highway Patrolman Model 28's, and those loads are great in them.

THat 170 grain 358429 was the solution to making my 38 SPL SP101 shoot to point of aim in my hands. (And it a great snowshoe hare load with 800X or Unique.

Ron

I cast that 358429 bullet with a two hole mold and with a lot of added tin in the mixture. I load it in a magnum case with 8 grains of Unique or 14 grains of 2400. As you can see from that box I just pulled off the shelf, I've been loading .357 magmums for awhile. That box was issued to me in 1970 at the National Police Pistol Championship Matches in Jackson, Mississippi where they were held at the Highway Patrol Pistol Range. I was a lowly deputy sheriff representing the Jones County, Mississippi Sheriff's department at the time. The high caliber of shooters who were there set an example for me as to what a good shooter could do with a handgun and it stuck with me.

If you shoot that bullet much, you will see it can be as accurate as any wadcutter and it will kill deer, hogs, and any other thing it hits.

Mr. Wills,

How do you keep your 550B so darned clean?

Ranger Green

. Because I am a squared away guy who likes his gear clean and neat. It's no problem if you clean your press every time you finish using it like I do. I bought that press in 1977 believe it or not and there is no telling how many 10's of thousands of rounds have been loaded on it. I did send it back to Dillon once about ten years ago to be refitted. It came back like new and they didn't charge me a nickel. Can't say enough about their customer service. I also have an old Lyman All American press mounted on that bench, and except for the paint being worn off in places, it is just as clean and I have been loading on it since 1968.

I wish that 550 was a 650, but I don't shoot enough any more to justify doing that now.

I've been shooting the 170gr Keith loaded up over 5.0 gr Unique in 38 Spl cases. About 900 fps from the 4" Security Six. Shoots great, no leading to speak of.

I haven't really leaned on it.

Up above I said I load that 358429 bullet with 8 grains of Unique. Actually I loaded it with 8 grains of Herco and 7 grains of Unique. I quit using Herco when a friend on the police department blew the cylinder out and the top strap completely off of an otherwise perfectly good Model 19 Smith using it. But you boys know to check loading data, so I hope no harn was done.

Well Montana, that is a good combination you are shooting there, but you probably can't get the velocity up high enough in a 4 inch barrel to cause any significant leading unless you shoot dead soft lead, or unless the bore is rough in your revolver, and Ruger isn't known for having that problem.

Most of us shoot wheel weights, linotype, babbit, or tin in some combination and even straight wheel weights won't give you any problems at or below about 1200 FPS. I believe Ron mentioned something about shooting in a rifle and you can get the velocity up high enough to cause leading issues in that case. That may be why he chose to go with a gas check design instead of the plain base that is on the 358429 bullet. As a general rule, I stay away from gas check designs unless I am going to shoot that bullet in a center fire rifle or a Contender/Encore. But he has me confused saying he got a 561 mold. I think he meant a 156 and just got the numbers juxaposed somehow.

I usually throw in a one pound bar of pure tin into every 19 pounds of wheel weights in a 20 pound pot because tin makes the metal fill out the mold really well with nice, sharp flats and I like shiny bullets that you get with tin. Like I said, I like neat, clean stuff. Guys see my loading room and freak out because it is kept neat and clean. It's an old habit I guess, but I don't have to go looking for anything. I know right where it is supposed to be.

A lot of the leading or not issue has to do with dimensions and fit, maybe as much as bullet hardness and velocity.

The cylinder throats need to be as large or slightly larger than the groove dimension of the barrel. The part of the barrel where it threads into the frame of a revolver can't be choked. The bullets need to be a close fit in the cylinder throats.

my sticky keyboard. it is 358156. An old mold i acquired years ago and decided to play with it. Not particularly fond of the gas check part. So i bought a four hole 358429 mold. Wheelweight with lead free solder added. Mold states 170grain, i got to 169.5 with my mixed alloy which means i am running at lyman no 2alloy hardness.
I cast up a bunch of the 358429 and powdercoated them. loaded with 2400. i did shoot saturday a few of the 358156 bullets in a 357. they were cracking river rock at about ten yards or so.
we couldn't find any of the spent bullets, but a friend came back with a completely flattened gas check wondering what it was.
I did another one today. loaded some 60's vintage brass that had been primed and sized but never completed. Loaded with what i think were 158grain remington jsp's. The bullets were pulled at some point but looked usable. The primers all went boom saturday using the same primed brass.
i have a couple of .358diameter rifles. i think i am going to eventually put some of those 358429 bullets in a 350rem mag.
with the tin from the solder added, they make right purty bullets.

as far as a rifle is concerned i have fire lead bullets with normal lube in a 375 winchester up around 1750fps without any signs of leading. Lot of it depending if the diameters and alloy are right.

i just did some up today, but i used 12grains of 2400, which should be a little milder load. and i aint taking a picture of my reloading area, would be too embarrassing. as to that speer box, i have one similar to it from speer just a few years later, think it said "lawman" ammunition from memory.i also did some for 38special with 4grains of 231. I am using a rcbs powder drop, and for some reasons unique doesn't stay uniform on light loads per the electronic scale. few years ago, i bought probably 15molds at an estate liquidation. There must be four or five for 358 diameter. He had two molds for wadcutter, one in the 148gr range, and another 158grain range. Not sure why using the two different weights in wadcutters. I still have a ton of 158gr round nose i cast up years ago, but i think i like these keith bullets a lot better.

You guys talk like you load in caves, but I have seen some photo's around here of some mighty nice loading areas. I don't have enough room to do what I need to for a loading room, so I have to jam everything up together and use what little room I have available. Here are a couple photo's of it.











There is a lot of stuff sitting on the bench top that ought to be on the shelves and out of the way, but there is no room for it. I don't load like I used to and have given away a lot of stuff over the past couple of years as I have slowed down and sold off rifles, shotguns, and hand guns. It'll do to take me on out of this lifetime anyway. About all I shoot a lot of anymore is a few handguns. All those coffee cans under the bench are full of cast, sized and lubed bullets ready to load, or they are full of loaded ammo ready to go.

Back when I had two .375 H&H Magnums in the safe, I cast and loaded Lyman bullet number 375449, which was a gas check bullet that weighed about 265 grains with the check on it. I loaded it to 1750 FPS as fired across my little Chrony and used it to kill whitetail deer. It worked wonderfully well with one shot kills. I had previously tried to use the little 235 grain jacketed Speer bullet that I thought would expand on deer. WRONG!!! I killed two deer using it and had to shoot both of them twice. That Speer bullet was tough and abviosly made for the 375 H&H to be shot at normal velocity and at thick skined game.

again, pretty impressive, mine is on the wrong side of the tracks in comparison.
I'm not shooting as much as i use too. but the reloading stuff is fun for me and i keep learning new things.
I have many many projects to do, including some day relighting some 577snyders from the british army from the 1860's.

HAR!! Went down that road about 8 or 9 years ago. Bought a Sharps 45-70 and started shooting BPCR matches. Then I saw those Browning High Walls and of course, got one of those in 40-65 Winchester. Got tired of the blow tubes and cleaning every 10 rounds and started duplexing my loads. That is a whole other thing and a lot of people say it is dangerous, and it is if you are stupid. But I could shoot 50 rounds without cleaning and the rifle would still be almost as clean as when I started shooting. But they won't let you shoot duplex loads in sacntioned competition. You have to shoot the dirty stuff and blow tube and then clean every 5 or 10 rounds. It'sa PIA.

Then I got a cataract in my right eye that is my dominant eye. So I had it removed and a lens implanted. That didn't go well and the result was that now I see spider webs in my vernier sight. So I got the biggest of the Browning sight disk in the gun and still couldn't see. I tried to sell that rifle and the molds and all the stuff you have to have to shoot black powder, but no one wanted to give me anything for it and the thing was in the box it came in and not a scratch on it and with an outstanding figured stock.

So I took it down to Roger Ferrell and told him to get a Shilen 22 caliber, air gaged, hand lapped barrel with a 1 in 8 twist and build me a neat .222 Remington with an octagon barrel on that action. It turned out real nice and I sold the 40-65 Badger barrel for 300 bucks and the vernier sights for 200 bucks and gave away the Swiss 1.5 powder and the molds and other stuff you need to shoot black powder.

The .222 shoots Swift 75 grain Scirocco II and Barnes solid copper 70 grain TSX bullets into neat little 1/2 to 5/8 inch groups at 100 yards. I think I am going to use it to kill white tails next fall. I 'll take only head shots of course, but I've had plenty of people tell me they use those bullets in .223's for their sons and they kill with any reasonable hit.

So I gave the 45-70 Sharps to an ole boy who wanted it real bad but couldn't afford it because he has 4 children and a sick wife and burns rods for a living. (Welder) Also gave him a Bonanza co-ax press, loading dies, bullet moulds, sizing dies, powder, cases, scales, powder measure, sizer luber and set him up to load for it.

So I have come full circle from the big bore black powder rifles to a neat little Browning High Wall .222 Remington. This shooting business can sure take a fella down some strange roads can't it?

I have 358156 and have used it for many years, good mold. I also have a brand new 358429 which I have yet to even heat up...and I've been wondering if I can use the crimping groove for .357 Mag and still chamber ammo in my Black hawk. I am assuming the answer is yes, reading between the lines of your post, but is that correct?

That is correct RR. That bullet seated to and crimped in the crimp grove will also fit Smith models 27, 28, 19, 66, 586, 686 ect. It was never intended to fit small frame guns like the models 36 or 60. That bullet was designed for MAGNUM guns and it is an excellent performer in them. When backed by enough powder, it kills deer and hogs with no problems usually giving pass through shots even through the shoulder bones. Let us know how it works for you. Oh, and we like photo's so get out your camera.

All the best.

I think there is a problem with the Smith 27 & 28. They have short cylinders.

If I recall correctly Elmer Keith came up with the 358429 for the so called 38/44 loads which he developed before the 357 Magnum arrived.

When crimped in the crimp groove & loaded in 357 mag brass the loaded round won't work in the 27/28 cylinder, too long. It is very close in the smaller frame OM Blackhawk but works great in the NM large frame Blackhawk. And if memory serves I used it in my Model 60 [38 Special] crimped in the crimp groove.

As luck would have it, my BH is the old model. Guess I'll just have to cast a few and see how it goes.

Creeker, did you get out of the bullet business? I bought a couple thousand SWCs for my .45 from you over ten years ago. Still haven't used em, though.

I sold the bullet business to a man in a town near here. I also closed the firewood business & retired from clearing trees. Body bucked on me.

Dang Creeker, no wonder your body said STOP!!! I feed two wood burning stoves and a fire place every winter and cut and split all my own fire wood, but my splitters are the old fashioned "armstrong" type along with steel wedges. It gives me something to do over the summer when hunting season is closed, but I only do it about four hours early in the morning when its cool. Anybody doing it on the scale that you did has a right to get tired of it and that goes for commercial bullet casting as well. After about four hours, I have enjoyed doing either of those all I want for one day.

The wood business was good to me simply because of the set up I had. All the logs were free & many times I was in the truck, on the clock getting paid when I dumped them. Guess I'm in pretty good shape but running a saw 8 hours on the job & then fooling with firewood in the evenings & Saturday was a little much for someone in their 60's.

That timberwolf splitter is something, I looked at buying one about 10 years ago, they have some nice models.
Ronnie

Mine is a TW-6. I purchased it used, drove to Atlanta & hauled it back to WV. They are great & that one has split many tons of wood. The trouble I had was keeping the splits out of the way. A local guy sold me the conveyor & that was some of the best money I spent.

lyman no 49 cast bullet reloading page 359 shows 358429 seated to 1.553oal.
page 356 under general information it shows the length of the 357magnum at 1.590.
interesting enough it shows a number of jacketed rounds seated to 1.590 including the 155gr 258156 seated to 1.590 oal.
you shouldn't have any troubles with the 358429.
It's the 358156 designed by thompsen that has two crimp grooves to allow the bullet to be seated out further in 38special cases for 38/44. Problem was yes they had 357magnum guns but not a lot of brass. This was an attempt to solve the problem.

this is a solution in 27/28 revolvers as copy/pasted from another forum: "I can tell you for sure that it will fit Smith 586/686, Smith M-19, Ruger Security Six and will not fit Smith M-27/28 if crimped in the crimp groove.

My solution for the M-27/28 was to seat deeper and crimp into (not over) the front driving band, shortening the overall cartridge length to where the bullet was just below flush with the front of the cylinder. I never measured this length, so I can't post it, but the setting is fairly easy. Set your bullet seating die to seat but not crimp. Seat the bullet to the crimp groove and insert the cartridge into the cylinder. Observe how much of the bullet protrudes from the front face of the cylinder. Screw the bullet seating stem down aproximately equal to the amount of bullet nose protrusion you observed and seat the bullet deeper. Check the round in the cylinder again. Repeat this cycle until you have the bullet nose just below flush.

Now, unscrew the bullet seating stem as far as possible so you don't seat the bullet deeper when you adjust the crimping function of the die. Adjust the crimp to your requirements, then, with the cartridge all the way in the die (press handle down), screw the seating stem down until it makes firm contact with the bullet. Then lock the seating stem with its lock nut.

From this point, you can seat and crimp in a single operation."

translated, if its too long for your particular gun, seat to where you crimp over the top driving band.

That is a perfect description of how I do it Ron and I thought everyone did it that way. I do rifles the same way setting the bullet to just bump the lands in rifles that like to shoot that way and off of the lands in rifles that like to shoot that way. I never read the recommended seating depth because reloading allows you to custom fit every bullet to every firearm. That is the beauty of it. I don't reload to save money although I am happy about that. I do it to make ammo that fits the gun so that it will shoot more accurately.

But I guess everyone works out their own method after awhile and then you can cast a bullet, scratch your thumb nail across it, and know instantly if it is hard enough, too soft, or too hard. You can tell about how brite or shiny it is and about how much tin is in it or not in it. A lot of people tell me they only reload in order to be able to shoot. That's okay, but they are missing out on a dang interesting part of shooting and the part that can help them shoot better if they would get into it more.

I have never understood guys who don't want to adjust things. Reloading tools are made adjustable for a reason. Not every firearm chambered for a specific cartridge is made the same way or to the same dimensions and because you can adjust your tools, you can make a bullet to fit each and every different firearm.

But that takes time and patience and knowledge and understanding and experience and some people just are not willing to give it that much time or study it that much. Those people can get pretty close using the loading manual data and setting their tools to those dimensions, but some of us old grumpy types go further than that and to tell you the truth, I never saw a master class pistol shooter that wasn't that way. You don't become a master shooter shooting average ammo, set to standard information from a loading manual, and fired in average handguns. You can get close, but you ain't gonna be shooting in the master class doing it.

Of course, most people could care less about shooting in the master class and they just want to go shoot and have fun. The loading data and standard dimensions in any good loading manual and out-of-the-box guns will do fine for those people. But if you want to excel, you have to get grumpy and start paying attention to the little things because it is the little things that makes the difference in a bullet going into the 10 ring and the one that goes into the X ring. But I know that you already know all of that because you are a grumpy shooter too. Smile Ron. I know you are.

We start with:






But then we have:

Seating 358429 bullets the way Ron explained has been a successful method of loading that bullet since it was made. The method he outlined allows you to load the bullet in the different chamber lengths and different brass lengths by crimping it in the correct location which is determined by simple observation of the bullets position in the case relative to the over all chamber length. Some chambers allow it to be seated in the crimping groove, others do not depending on the brass used, but the bullet can be used in most all 38/357 chambered guns using either 38 or 357 magnum brass, or some combination of those components.

River Rider wanted to know if it could be used in his Blackhawk using 357 magnum brass and still be crimped in the crimp groove. The answer to that is yes. It can also be loaded in many other guns, but depending on the brass used, some may require it to be seated deeper in the case and crimped a little forward of the crimp groove. That is easily done as Ron explained and I have used the same method that he explained to do exactly that for half a century with no problems. Many others have done the same thing. It is well understood and commonly used by those who have loaded bullet 358429 in various guns.

I'm well versed in the seating and crimping of the 358429 for various guns and lengths of brass.

My post highlighted contradictions in the various parts of the discussion.

Reading over how I said it, I can see where you are coming from. Sorry it came out the way it did.

I shot hot loads using bullet 358429 loaded in 38 special cases in a model 28 and crimping the bullet in the crimp groove. It shot very well with no problems. I didn't have a chronograph back then, so I don't know the velocity on those loads. All I can say is they killed hogs graveyard dead.


Elmer Keith, Ed McGivern, and others used the #358429 bullet for long range shooting when the .357 magnum first came came out, but they loaded it with heavy powder charges behind that bullet in .38 Special cases according to what McGivern's book says. At that time, much experimentation was done with bullet seating depth, full-length magnum brass, trimmed magnum brass, and .38 Special cases. They all came to the same conclusion that the .38 Special case was just fine for .357 magnum loads using the 358429 bullet in the model 27 and 28 Smiths.

Today, many people have been taught guns are dangerous. Some shooters have beeen told reloading is dangerous and they should not do it. So when some try, they are overly cautious and want everything to be just so, or just like the loading manuals say. Nothing wrong with that, but more experienced shooters often interpolate data or change components and make educated guesses at how to compensate for those changes. People screamed bloody murder when I duplexed BPCR black powder loads in 45-70 and 40-65 Winchester, but I never had any problems doing it and didn't have to constantly clean my rifle like those who shot straight black powder did.

This ain't rocket science and if you use your head and common sense coupled with a little experience, things usually work out well. Get stupid and we'll see you on the 6 o'clock news.

this thread made me go out and look in the hideyhole. I did load a couple of boxes worth of the 358165 a few weeks ago, but they were mostly in 357magnum cases.
And i crimped to the first groove as looking down from the top as they were 38special.
I thought i had done some of the 357magnum ones with 358429, but mistake, i did them in 38special, running at about 850fps. I seated these in the crimp groove.
But talk about working your way through things, when i got through loading those 359429 in the 38special casings i couldn't get them in the cylinders, and i don't have a taper crimp for them, so,,, i pulled out the decapper pin and plug from the sizer die, and ran them with the bullet up a ways till i felt resistence, at which point i tried them in the cylinder for fit. I think i have found another way to taper crimp without buying a taper crimp.
I wish a had a ruger 357 blackhawk to try these guys in, my ex son in law is in tucson, don't think he would want to drive up here with his.
I have an aedequate supply of loaded ammo, but the fun is in trying different combinations/loads, weights etc, and different types of alloys. At the local gunstore yesterday a guy was telling me some people had been "testing" powdercoating, but failed it for coming off in the barrel.
no use contradicting, but that hasn't been my experience.
and the aussie's have been doing it for 20years.
i don't have any empty 357brass laying around, so i have got to shoot some to free it up, then i am going to put 358429 in some. In 38special tho, at 850fps i think it would be "aedequate" for most things. Part of this is experimentation for my daughters two inch ladysmith. I have some 200grainers for that if she ever gets around to firing them.

Such is the life of a dedicated loader.

Ron, you DA MAN!! That's using your head and being a good problem solving reloader. And on top of that, you shoot those pretty bullets. That is all part of this reloading business and why it is interesting and as much fun as shooting.

Creeker, I thought about you and that Timber Wolf splitter when I was out there this afternoon with steel wedges and a 12 pound sledge hammer splitting some well dried, hard oak. I sure could have used a gas powered hydraulic log splitter today, but my old armstrong splitter is all I had. Have you ever noticed how quick you can get over the enjoyment of swinging a 12 pound hammer after a couple of hours??

a LONG time ago right after i first got married carter had a moritorium on gas hookups. which left only electric. which was instaled in the house i was buying. which i couldn't afford the electric bill to stay warm in winter. so a little trailer, my truck, and saw and i murdered juniper/alligator pine. I hate to admit it, but we would work till the jug of jim beam ran out, then figured we had enough.
My mom got really mad at me one day when were 75year old companion went to open my truck door after one of these excursions and fell out. Still miss that fireplace.

I am coming up real soon on birthday number 74 and have long ago given up on the Jim Beam except for special occasions. Heck, it's all I can do to hit that dang steel splitting wedge with the sledge hammer while I'm sober and there is no way I could do it with the help of brother Jim.

My winter electric bill will run 400 to 500 dollars a month with only the heat pumps running. Firing up those stoves and the fire place reduces it to about 175 bucks a month and the house is drier and more comfortable too. I love it when we get snowed in up here on the mountain. I just put the coffee pot on the wood stove, fill it with wood, fire it up, and sit back and read a good book until the weather clears up.

Where I live it's the stinking July and August electric bills from air conditioning that kill my bank account. I love winter electric bills. (Cajun country, south of I-10.)

I feel your pain.

Having had surgery a few years back & the Dr. letting to know to watch what I pick up I'm using a maul/wedge these days to make the rounds smaller before loading them on the pickup.

Oh man!!!! Now THAT is the way to do it. First, there are no knots in the round. Second, the round is shorter, and third and most important, the round ain't all dried up and hard. Cut like that, it'll split pretty easy.

A dang big oak snapped off and fell and hit the north side of my house last October. The good news is that since it's the north side and up the mountain, there are no windows on that side. But it tore off the gutter and facia board but didn't put a hole through the roof decking. I got out there and cut it up and stacked it against several trees until I could get around to splitting it. It looked like this:







Then hunting season opened and I already had up my wood supply for the year, so I didn't need that oak I had stacked out there.

After hunting season closed, a friend started building a house and I went and helped him every day for about three months. Then I built a shed on the north wall of the house to store fire wood.

It looks like this now:




Then I put in a small garden. Then I rebuilt a stone wall where a cross tie wall used to be with steps through the middle of it to get up the mountain side. All of that was damaged when that tree fell. It looks like this now:




Now I am finally getting around to splitting that wood and it's dried and as hard as a brick and as Paul Harvey used to say, now you know the rest of the story.

But it gives an old coot something to do and keeps him outta trouble. Well sometimes it keeps him outta trouble anyway. Why is it so dang difficult for an old coot with a 4 wheel drive pick'in up truck and a 44 revolver to keep outta trouble? It just seems to follow me around and if I ever see that sumbitch named "Murphy," I am gonna shoot him.

this project has been going on about four years now. It was intended and probably will be the last hurrah now. Age and back issues.
But the decision was made to make a basement under a eventual slab and workroom. There was no way to get equipment in so it had to be done by hand.
it measures 7feet deep, 14ft long, and 8feet to the back.
dug by hand, and dirt removed in 5gallon buckets. We would fill and lift out about 30buckets to load in the truck to be moved and dumped. Still isn't completed to the above ground structure. Won't mention the amount of concrete need to do floor/walls, and a 4inch rebar reinforced top. It was extra special when the temp was pushing over 100degrees.

I feel your pain brother. Three years ago my wife wanted a "LITTLE SPOT" carved out so she could sometimes park her car there when she was in a hurry and didn't want to go in the garage and where she could store plants and other stuff and keep it out of the driveway parking pad area because on the mountain, there isn't a lot of room anyway.

So Dumb me, I got my pick and shovel and carved out a "little Spot." WELLLLLL what do you know? That isn't even big enough, so I got one of my guys to help me and we hacked this "LITTLE SPOT" out of the side of the mountain. Then I got two more of my guys to help us haul up stones from the stone yard and set them and build the retaining wall and steps up to the main level of the house. Photo's below. You can see what is left of that dern oak that snapped off and hit the house still sticking up at the top left of the first photo and top center of the second photo.







Three weeeks after I had finished the shed along the north side, a big limb fell out of that 90 foot tall pine standing there and knocked a hole in the clear PVC corrigated roofing pannels and just yesterday, I hauled out the ladder and climbed up there and replaced them only THIS TIME, I put THREE pannels one on top of the other one in case another limb falls out of that tree.


Like I say, if I ever see Murphy, I am gonna shoot him.

that rock makes me cringe, i have done that stuff too. I was snickering at some guy loading his truck at lowes yesterday. Loading 60lb bags of concrete premis rather than the 80pounders. I found out about that years ago.
I found some 357mag brass, which i sized and belled, currently in the tumbler.
I was having some trouble with one of the dies, and ended up digging out 4sets of 38/357 dies, where did they all come from? And found a taper crimp so that's good.
One of the sizer dies was kind of unusual. It had the normal pin to knowck the primer out and the button for the case mouth, but that was attached to rod that did the belling.
never had that where you could size, deprime, and bell in one step. I am going to put some of those 358429's together and i have a model 28 sitting there so i am going to see the length thing for sure.

If memory serves I had a set of RCBS dies for 45 ACP I think. Any who the sizing die only sized. The second die decapped & belled, the third seated & crimped. Again, if memory serves.

That's nice Bob. I can feel the "work" from here.

i loaded some of those 358429 bullets today. they are too long if crimping to the crimp grove for a 28. work fine in the k frames. I did crimp one to the front of the top driving band. and that measures 1.553 which is what the lyman no 49 says to crimp to in 357. over all length of the 357 mag again is 1.590.

Ron, is there any advantage in loading 358429 in a magnum case and crimping it on the driving band over loading it in a 38 special case and crimping it in the crimp groove? I tried it both ways in a model 28 and found none, but my experiments did result in me selling the model 28 and getting a model 19 so I didn't have to deal with the short cylinder issue. Well that and the sheriff made me get a model 19.

I shot 13 grains of 2400 behind the 358429 bullet in a 38 special case crimped in the crimp groove in the model 28 and never had any problem at all. The cases were not overly stressed, the primer pockets stayed tight, the case dimensions at the head were not enlarged, the accuracy was excellent, case extractions were easy and not sticky, so I never saw the need to use a magnum case and crimp on the driving band. I didn't have a chronograph back then, but I'd guess the velocity was somewhere around 1300 FPS.

To each his own, but since you are a very experienced reloader and shooter, I just wonder if there is a reason for you to do it and if there was something I missed when I was experimenting with it.

That is the beauty of reloading and the fun of doing it. You can try these things and see how it works. Most of the time that is exactly why I try some of this stuff. It's just plain old curiosity and for no other reason than wondering how a certain bullet mold design/ casting metal composition/bullet size/ lube used/powder/ charge weight/ primer brand/seating depth combination will work.

i did 12grains of 2400 and crimping in the crimp groove.per a reloading manual it showed a min. load of 9.7grains of 2400 for 879fpsm and max of 15.5grains of 2400 for 1242fps. that same book showed crimping at 1.553 which is at the top of the driving band.
i would have to look at the length of the barrel they were using. They do like those ten inch barrels for this stuff.
until i shoot it i am guessing at about 1000fps or so. I did one bullet with the same load crimping to the top of that band, gonna save it to go through the chrony. I would suspect that pressure would be lower seating the bullet to the top of the band. Which is where the chrony comes in, at 12grains i will be curious to see what it gets up to. I also loaded 12grains of 2400 in a 38special and crimped to the crimp groove. Which is close to duplicating your load.
I only have a little hesitation in using these in a 19, but it is not as stout as a 27/28. Matter of fact i have the load using the crimp groove in a two inch 19 right now. which should reduce pressure as the bullet is sticking out.
Long about way of saying i was thinking similar to your thinking i don't know a reason other than a 27/28 will take more abuse than the k frames. but even lyman's reloading manual showed crimping in the magnum to the top of the band and they made the mold and wrote the manual.
I have put thousands of rounds through a four inch 19 since the mid 70's but i bet less than a box of magnums.
I probably wont make many more for use in a magnum case, the 358561 bullet is only about ten grains different, and it impressed the snot out of me breaking that river rock i was shooting with it.
that 358156 has the two crimp grooves for use in either magnum or special casings, so i am pretty sure the guys fooling with the 38/44's were following similar thinking, hotrodding the special to get into magnum territory.
Interesting enough, some years back in talking to this FBI guy he showed me a ankle gun he was packing in 9mm, it was loaded with a round pushing a 115gr bullet at about 1300fps. I ended up buying some with warnings all over the box above saami specs. Shot some too with no bad things, but i am sure a steady diet would advance wear the gun.
and probably running up 38special into magnum territory in a non N frame would do the same thing in time.
another similar thing was i loaded some "skeeter" loads for 44special recently at I think it was 8.5grains of unique. Which is up there in current manuals. But he shot it. And i don't anticipate any problems using it.

I think this is pretty much it. . "so I never saw the need to use a magnum case and crimp on the driving band."

I originally bought my 28 to somewhat experiment with. But it is a boat anchor compared to the 19. And the atvantage of the 19 is being able to hot load to some extent the 38special without stressing anything. I'm kind of jacking around with this caliber, given i like 41 and 44, and 45 much better.

i like that exension you put on the back of your house, got to start on something similar on mine for a couple of pet pigmy goats.

You hit the nail on the head with all of that. You have discovered like many of us have, that cartridges whose caliber begins with a four can do everything the 9mm/38 special/.357 magnum can do and then some. Frankly, although I have the others and have cast, loaded, and shot them for many years, all I use very much now is a 44 special running between 850 and 1000 FPS.

If you are going to do that, you might want to consider using a roofing material that will let light in under the shed so you can see under there. I've got stacked fire wood under mine and the copperheads and scorpians just LOVE to get in that wood so I need to be able to see the suckers. In the 30 years I've been here, I've been bitten twice by copperheads out there and it is no fun.

Metal roofing places have pannels of strong material they use for sky lights that will withstand hail stones and falling limbs and still let in light. The clear PVC stuff I got from Home Depot lets in a lot of light, but it isn't very strong. If what I used gives me any more problems, I'll take it off and install some of those heavier grade roofing pannels and I should have done that to start with. But I was already at Home Depot to get other stuff, so I thought I'd try it. I did and I should have gone with what I know works and will last.

You have pigmy goats? I have these dern whitetail deer and even though I have a 7 foot tall black wire fence around the place, every now and then one gets in here and eats a few hundred dollars worth of plants over night. A dang deer is the first cousin to a goat. The only thing in the yard they will not eat is the rocks.

I'm pretty sure Skeeter's load was 7.5 grains of Unique.

Those things are so inconvenient.

Yep. I'll bet living in West Virginia you know all about them because you should have plenty of them up there. They seem to like the mountains and hilly or rocky areas and wood piles for some reason. I've killed only maybe a dozen rattle snakes in the yard in the 30 years I've lived here, but I kill that many copperheads every year. They like to get in the garage under or behind things and especiaslly in my wood supply. The rattlers don't come up close to the house like the copperheads do. Two years ago, a man fixing one of my heat pumps was also bitten by a copperhead and almost lost his right hand because of it and that happened after I had warned him to watch out for the copperheads.

But nobody ever said is is easy being a Renaissance mountain man and I suspect you know a lot about that too. I keep telling these flat landers who move up here that gravity is three times stronger up here on the mountain as down below. But it keeps the tourist away and the yuppies last about one year and then they sell out and move down the mountain to the golf course or around one of the lakes. That leaves only we custy old crumudgeons up here on the mountain and that is the way I like it, copperheads and all.



When I look off the upper deck, I don't see any yuppies down there anywhere. In fact, I don't see anybody down there because there isn't anyone for a quarter mile.

I shot 7 grains of Unique behind #358429 in a magnum case and it was all a model 19 Smith could stand. It resulted in extremely flattened primers and cratered firing pin hits with breech face imprints in the brass and hard case extraction from the cylinder. So hard in fact, that I had to bump the extractor rod on the bench top to get them out. My loading note book remarks say DO NOT DUPLICATE!!! I didn't load any more of those.

If you are interested, here are his actual loads. Click here -->> http://www.darkcanyon.net/MyFriend_The357.htm



I only have these two of his books because as far as I know, these are the only two that he wrote. They are listed for sale on Amazon for about $130.00 dollars each for new hard backs. I don't remember what I paid for these, but they were expensive even 25 years ago.

I was responding to a quote of 8.5 grains under a Keith in a 44 Special.

Well I completely missed that part. It's difficult sometimes to keep up with the discussion because we are talking back and forth about different things and Ron is so conversant with this stuff it just comes off the top of his head so easy and he can switch back and forth between cartridges and bullets and powders and guns. It makes for good discussions, but it can lead to me missing some of those changes. And I am suspicious of a man who keeps goats for pets anyway. Why can't he have a labador like any normal person??? Well okay. So he ain't normal, but we all benefit because he is sorta into this reloading stuff.


No harm done. The Skeeter books are still a good read. I sure wish he could have written more but like Bill Jordan said, you have to stop before you get yourself into trouble telling about what you did back then.

looking back at my original post, that was 8.5gr of unique for a 44special using 429421.
as in second table or category two 22000psi or less, hand loader,36 brian pearce article on loading for 44special.
it actually started at 7.5 and went to 8.5grains.
the 22000psi category included colt single action army, new frontiersaa, charter arms bulldog, usaa imade in the u.s.
i probably should have called it a pearce load for certain revolvers. He had a categoy III which was warmer still 25000psi and under.
I have a n frame conversion from 28 to a 44special, i refer to it as a skeeter gun. and it has the 1950 44special barrel on it.
you are entirely right on 7.5grains.

I have enjoyed following this subject but found out the hard way what you guys are talking about. I cast a same style bullet and loaded some 45 Colt loads for my nephew. The work fine in my Blackhawk but are to long for his Italian model. Now I have to pull them, recast, and reload them or just shoot them in my Ruger then load some more for him.

scott to go further off topic as i usually do, a lot of this isn't set and dry.
I have had a problem for a long time producing 38special that will fit in my daughters ladysmith. It was only when i took the expander/decapper pin out of a die, and used that to squeeze down the round i started to get a glimmer.
I got to looking through my messy stash of dies and realized i had 4sets of rcbs 38special/357 dies. They look the same but not the same. I was also using brass that had been sized and primed, but not belled or loaded, done my a deceased friend of mine back in the 60's. I don't think he had the dies set quite right.
I am still screwing around with that idea of a 200grain or larger bullet at about 1000fps.
Along with what i wrote above, i loaded up some rounds of 38.40 today, starline brass, and a 180grain bullet, non gas checked.
I have always heard that 38.40 is difficult to reload, no it's not but it does have its issues. The mouth is pretty thin and if you don't have it lined up right when seating, you will squash them on the mouth with very little pressure envolved. I only wrecked one today which is better than last time.
The other thing I habitually forget to do, but it is good to do, is run the completed round in the guns intended for to see if they fit. I have one 41magnum that won't take a long round like a 57 or 58.
now these 38wcf rounds all measured to 1.60 all seated an crimped nice and proper, and i ran them in a cylinder. Wouldn't go in easy on a number of them. Why, just a little dab of lube on the casing or on the side of the bullet. Wiped it off and no issues. when i turned the cylinder over they didn't just fall out, and to give a slight push with a pencil which means that 1.60 oal is really tight in these cylinder bores, like right on the money. as is the diamer of the cylinder holes, hardly any slop.
The cylinder was one ruger cut for me in 38wcf. And they had to be right on the specs, as in little no wiggle room of casing, and so on.
I had that little ladysmith of my daughters checked a couple of times by competent gunsmiths, they both told me it was tight. Which translates that brass being off just a little, fowled up the works. If i load anymore for her, i am going to have to have the revolver.
Try some revovlers that might have three different diameters in the barrel.
oh by the way, that 180grain cast bullet should be flying at about 900to 950fps. One of the guns i will shoot it in was successful in killing a guy on whiskey row in prescott back in the day, and has an inscription inside the grip about two shots killing a grizz in mexico turn of the century. I should bring it to quemato with the period holster, leather cutout for the triggerguard/trigger. It IS a piece of history. the other colt bisley i have in 38wcf was also successfully used by one indian in oklahoma to kill another indian in the 30's. I don't think you need the speed so much, as the mass.

If Lyman sells an M-die expander in an appropriate size it can mitigate bullet seating problems. Instead of a plain flare expansion of the case mouth it produces a step which will allow finger seating for a little start.

and that would be a good idea too.

i tend to bell just enough that i can set the bullet in the casing by finger pressure. My issue is me getting them out of line on the way up into the seating die. fat fingers.

They're also great for straight starting jacketed rifle bullets in bottle neck cases for which a "competition style" support sleeve seating die isn't available. Lowers runout with ordinary dies.

scott
my worst "issue" was one time having to uncork about 500rounds of m1carbine that i screwed up. I was cussing the whole time for being stupid.

this stuff can get real fascinating.
a member on this board sent me some projectiles for 41mag, they are almost completely seated in the casing, kind of reminding you of the 7.62mosin revolver round.

Now that is the truth Ron and I really enjoy all the comments and photos from the different posters. Between all of us, we can keep each other straight and also share some interesting information.

Something that has always facinated me about casting bullets is how different casting methods and techniques can be taylored to match your needs. Those who cast only light weight bullets don't consider the variance in bullet weight because as a percentage of the total weight, those variances don't amount to much, certainly not enough to cause any problems.

But when I was shooting BPCR rifles with bullet weights running 500 grains or more, it became an issue, particularly when those bullets got out there at 800 to 1000 yards at the very end of their rotational stability range and then dropped back through the sonic barrier as they lost velocity and became sub-sonic. That transonic transition from super sonic to sub somic bullet speed causes a lot of problems with bullet stability and accuracy.

Having bullets that weigh the same or very near the same becomes critical to accuracy then because a bullet varience of a half a grain or more in bullet weight makes a big difference when velocity and rotational stability is already compromised and then it hits that transonic range and things don't go very well. At a BPCR match one day a fellow shooter and I were talking and he casually mentioned how he selected the bullets he used in competition and how he cast them using a hand ladle. Heck I hadn't used a hand ladle since I got my first bottom pour pot. But I tried it and was surprised to learn that when I used a hand ladle and cast those big bullets using it instead of a bottom pour pot, that I got more consistant bullet weights even though I was using the exact same metal composition, the same mold, and casting at the same temperature. I never did figure out why, but many BPCR shooters cast their big bullets that way for the same reason.

So a casual remark during the usual shooter talk at a BPCR match improved my over all scores by about 10 percent using that simple technique to cast my bullets. You never know where these gems of wisdom and information are going to come from. They just seem to drop out of the sky every now and then and I am always greatful when they do.

I use a ladle to pressure pour certain bullets & find as you very little variation in weight.

"air bubbles" in the cast bullet alloy will throw the weights around bullet to bullet. I suspect.
what i haven't done yet but keep threatening to do is make a duplex lead bullet. Soft nose followed by a hard shank.
not like it hasn't been done before.
I have at least a half dozen of these combinations i need to run into water jugs/chrony. But then it's only in the 90's now, as usual i probably will wait till it's 115 in the shade on the desert.

Hummmmmm. That must be an Arizona kinda thing. Over here east of the Big Muddy, we don't have air bubles in our casting alloys because they just rise to the surface and pop.

As for the temperatures, I feel for you and it's begining to get summertime up here on the mountain too. The weatherman says it's gonna get up to 77 or 78 degrees today and it's already up to 74 out there now and I still have a few post holes to dig. Digging post holes in the mountains can be fun because you never know where those big rocks are hiding which makes laying out split rails that are 8 feet long more like putting a puzzle together than building a split rail fence. Nobody ever said it was easy being a mountain man.

Creeker, funny you should mention "pressure molding" because that is exactly the way I cast those big BPCR bullets. I had about 25% fewer culls due to weight variance from each casting batch doing it that way. People say using a ladle is too slow, but by the time you factor in the cull difference, it is about as fast to cast good usable bullets that way because you keep most of what you cast instead of putting them in the recycle can.

Works great for the long ones.

Experience: When you recognise your mistake after you make it again.

Modern retractable gear aircraft are equiped with a GPWS, or Ground Proximity Warning System. An alarm sounds in the cockpit or headset when the aircraft gets too close to the ground with the landing gear in the up position. An old flying friend of mine flew in here the other day on his way up to Virginia and I met him at the Gainesville airport for lunch. He told me that two weeks before, he had accidentally landed his Piper Navaho with the gear up. I was surprised to hear that because of the GPWS and I asked him why it didn't work to prevent his accident. He smiled and said, "oh it worked fine and the dam thing buzzed and irritated the hell out of me all the way down to ground contact!!!"

Some people only learn after acquiring a sufficient amount of scar tissue.

lyman mentions it in some of their faq's. more noticable on big bullets and when the mold in not venting properly.
https://www.lymanproducts.com/lyman/faqs/bullet-casting.php

Nice load room,Bob.Have to like TWO Acoustic waves too!Scott

You have a good eye s2503000. I have had people ask me what they were. As old as I am, I bought the first Wave radio back when we all played 8 track tapes and one of those radio's has an 8 track tape player in it. The newer one has a CD player in it. I have them cross wired with in put / out put jacks so that when I play one, I can hear it through both radios and have eight Bose speakers going instead of just four. That much sound get's that little room jumping pert good. Since I still have a bunch of 8 track tapes and a bunch of CD's, I always have good blues music to do my reloading. That's why my reloads come out so good even if I don't powder coat my bullets. My bullets are coated with a thick layer of the down home, dirt road, acoustic Delta BLUES. Hear what I'm talk'in about here -->> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikg38fS4eH0

You will get the chance to see those to long bullets this weekend.