Yeah, it hurt to buy store bought when I've been casting since 1976. But this .38-55 needs some figuring out. Groove diameters traditionally have been all over the place, from .377" up to .380" or even more whereas this High Wall is .375" on the money (.3751" to be exact). Standard Lee, RCBS or Lyman molds for the .38-55 tend to throw bullets in the .378-.380" range. Those will certainly work in a .375" bore but IME about .001" over groove diameter is where you want to be in a rifle. With a good fit to the bore and #2 alloy I'm thinking 1600-1700 fps or more is doable with plain base bullets without leading. However, trying to size down 15 BHN bullets .002 or more from as cast diameter gets to be detrimental.
Plus load data is not as readily available as for something like a .30-06, so I needed to run some powder increments over a chronograph to get an idea of where my velocities will be. Wanted to try some Missouri plain base bullets but the on-line retailers are all out of 100 packs. Guess I'll bite the bullet (no pun intended) and order some straight from the source sized to .376". Have to get a minimum of 250 for custom sizing, though.
Once I get an idea of how fast a plain base can go I can order an Accurate mold in a suitable design to throw bullets right at .376 or .377 with my #2 alloy, then start cranking out some good steel ringing loads.
Anyway, this first batch of 100 is just to get something to go bang as a first step. This whole project is "interesting" which means fun in my book, in that it's not just take it out of the box and go shooting, but instead have to play with a bit to get things all optimized.
