So my wife is getting started in mounted shooting and would like to load up some rounds for her to use in her 357 until I gay a couple 45s. I've never loaded blanks and would sure appreciate any help. Just need something spitting out to pop balloons. And no blackpowder.
It is a cool sport. We are pretty close friends of Tammy Billinsley's family. She is the current reigning 2-time World Champion. http://tammybillingsley.com/
Grits for he projectile and Blue dot for powder... Haven't tried it, but this is what I have heard about, with a short stack of card stock wads and a waxed top wad, roll crimped. Not sure the load in grains.... A little trial and error?
“I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love, and it’s difficult to analyze love when you’re in it.” John Steinbeck
all the google foo I came up with suggested enlarging the primer flame hole as well. Something to do with primer's backing out, which seemed odd, but it's the internet.
Could be a good use for all the trail boss that turned out to be worthless for anything else.
Well, in my younger days I used to load 3.5 to 4 grains of Bullseye in .38 Special cases, stuff a cleaning patch into the case using a wood dowel, and give the case a good crimp in the hope of keeping it in. They went bang and functioned as poor man's blanks. A bit of hot glue or wax to seal the case mouth would have probably made them better.
Last edited by wildhobbybobby; 06/05/14.
Life is like a purple antelope on a field of tuna fish...
BillyGoatGruff; Good evening to you sir, I hope this finds you and yours doing well.
Somewhere in my reloading room I've got some plastic Speer Plastic Training bullets, which of course you don't want to use because you'd loose the projectiles - but my point is they work quite well fired with just a primer.
Again somewhere in the same place hiding in the reloading room or maybe the bookshelves is an article on shooting with wax bullets. A quick google of wax bullets led to this site. http://www.waxbullet.com/
They are running 209 primers and if memory serves the Speers ran Large Pistol - if I could find them I might confirm that, but I digress......
Anyway, even further in the back of my admittedly cluttered memory is the thought that I reloaded some .38Spl cases with a very small amount of WW231 and then just shoved the cases into a block of Paraffin wax.
I seem to recall they came out of the muzzle with gusto, but can't for the life of me recall if one could hit a balloon with one or not.
Bill Jordan wrote about doing his trick shooting with wax bullets too, but didn't share his handload recipe or if he did I don't remember.
Sorry that I've got a lot of "don't remember" going on tonight BGG, but maybe I've given you a couple ideas???
Good luck on your project whichever way you decide and all the best to you and yours for the rest of the summer.
Dwayne
Further research???
Last edited by BC30cal; 08/03/14. Reason: added info
BGG....send a PM to Mackay Sagebrush here on the Fire. His daughter shoots Mounted and I'm sure he could give you input on the rounds he loads up for her.....