Home Forums Reloading Reloading Software Light 38 Special loads for wife

I am requesting help on finding a light target load for the wife to practice with. She is new to shooting and seems to enjoy it a lot so I want to keep her active with practice.

I have several pounds of Red Dot powder and approximately 1000 cast lead bullets. These are 124 gr flat nose. The problem I have encountered is that I can find no loads using these components in any of my reloading manuals. There are a plethora using the 158 lead but I have so many of these 124's on hand I'd like to use them up and allow her some range time.

After searching the internet for some time I found one load using 3.5 grains of Red Dot and standard primers under a 124 grain lead bullet. With no other references I am a bit skeptical and wanted some others to weigh in. Is this a safe load? Any and all help is appreciated.

Thanks

If you were starting fresh and looking for bullets, I'd suggest wadcutters, preferably @148 grains, although 141grn WC's would work too.

But you already have those 124oer's.

Neat thing is the wadcutters usually are propelled at around 800fps or more.

Have you ever looked at ReloadersNest.com? Maybe there you can find a 'Red Dot' load for your bullets in the 800-900fps range'

For home defense hwoever your wife definitely needs to step-up and shoot the most powerful short-barrel .38 ammo that will work in that gun! Even with a 125 or 130 grain snubby load, your wife's piece will still be weaker than a 9mm.

.38 Special is the 'lightest' handgun round I'd recommend or pick for self-defense, provided the shooter is using stout loads! Even plus-P's if possible. Actually I would never own a J-frame or snobby .38, but a .357 ONLY - and shoot .38's most of the time!

Save yourself some trouble and invest in one can of Hodgdon Universal or Alliant Bullseye.
4.7 grains of Universal is a good 125-grain cast bullet load.
3.5 grains of Bullseye is a good load but of higher velocity.
New female shooters have a different feel for handguns than men. I know of one who could tell the difference between Bullseye and Unique. You could hide one load in a cylinder filled with the other and shee could find it by the recoil impulse.

Most of the powders in that burn rate will work OK. Another good one is Clays. It's popular with the cowboy action crowd. Solo 1000 is probably the cleanest of them all. American Select is another very good one.

I would recommend finding CAS loads on line. They're perfect for what you're doing.

DF

I have other powders to choose from but I wanted to use up my oldest stock first(Red Dot). I don't use it for much else so I figured on killing two birds with one stone.

Thanks for the input. I will give Reloadersnest a try and see what I can find. I will also see what I can find for CAS loads.

These are merely practice rounds not defensive loads. We have invested in several boxes of defensive loads for her pistol. She handled them well but wants more practice. She also has a Sig 225 in 9mm but she likes her "baby" (revolver) more. I support the fact that she wants to practice. I would like her to every familiar with whatever she chooses if God forbid she ever needed to use either one.

Thanks for all the help.

From Alliant's website:

http://www.alliantpowder.com/reload...&bulletid=9&bdid=14&oal=1.45

I'm not sure how I missed that. I guess I didn't get into the CAS portion. That is exactly what I needed. Thanks so much Son.

One thing, roadhog. Once your lady is armed, she could become dangerous...

So, you'll have no choice other than being sweet and nice to her.

No wrath like that of a woman scorned...

Don't ask me how I know such valuable stuff..

DF