Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 41 magnum

these are from that slovenian mould 265 grain. They cast under that with the hollowpoint being the lightest, then powder coated.
i am going to run them through a 57, then a marlin lever to figure velocity with nine grains of unique.

i guess i should add i seated them to the crimping groove which gave them an overall length of 1.70. The almost at the end of the cylinder when loaded.
I want also to fire them through some milk jugs to see what the hollow, and others do, and as to penetration with the solid.

Beautiful revolver. I'll be interested in your chrono results for that Unique and 265 grains load.

L.W.

Very nice Ron...can hardly wait to get back down there and take a run out to the desert some time to shoot...

Just got done casting a bunch of these with the PentaPoint cavity. Not sure if I'll be running them with 21 grains of H110 or 9.0 of Unique...these will mainly for the Freedom Arms so probably the H110. Mine bare run 259 grains and 264 with gascheck and lube. Also bought the same mold in a solid nose no gascheck but have not cast any yet...





Bob

When you run the solid...make sure you use at least 8 jugs and a couple of pieces of plywood behind them if you want a chance of catching one...

mine don't have the gascheck, and i did use 9grains of unique.
I have about 30 gallon jugs to fill with water. Last fall when i was doing that with a 310graine powdercoated lee bullet it went through ten and bounced off the plywood. 44 magnum.
You should reconize the pistol, enabler, which i don't regret AT all. I couldn't sleep that night after seeing it, was down there the next day.
i am also curious as to velocity.
Next cast i will put the pentad pin there for some of those.
i put a lot of lead free solder in the mix, which makes them cast lighter. or lynotype.
i need to run a tester on one of them for hardness. Part of the powdercoating process is to bake them at 400degrees for a while. I believe that would increase the hardness. I figured with the powdercoating i would not need the gascheck design.

9.0 grains of Unique with a 212 grain MeHic Keith HP gets 1100 fps. 10.0 gets 1180 with a 214 PentaPoint in a 4" barrel. I ran them into water and the nose explodes in the carton and first jug and then the shank of the bullet went through three more jugs and then stopped at the vest insert. Kinda the best of both worlds...expansion and penetration. My guess you will get in the area of 1075 with the 6" and heavier bullet.

8.0







9.0







10.0

21gr H110 sounds like a fairly stout charge?

I think I'm running 16gr in my 57 with 220's, but I'd have to check my notes to verify that.

I bought a 357PD from a relative. This one is the 4" scandium frame gun, like the 329, but in 41 mag instead of 44.

It also came with a bunch of 250gr Cast Performance BFN bullets. I'm not terribly excited about shooting them in it.

I'm kind of jacking around with some of these projectiles. I load 41 for quite a variety of handgun/rifles. most are the standard 200/210grain pill a head of 8grains of unique.
I think any of those at about 1000fps really suffices for most anything.
I do know this a 210grain golddot at the top end puts the lights out on an elk pretty darn quick.

bob
as usual i think you have already done the work for me.
that is cool as all get out of the projectile breaking on contact and the shank penetrating through. Couldn't ask for better.
that would be applicable also i think to the 45colt version.
I wish now i had the 38/357 version.

I tried all sorts of tests with bullets, cast and jacketed. At the end of the day, I shoot nothing but hard cast bullets in my 41. Unless you do your testing at around 80 yards, you really won't replicate the actual performance a bullet has in a hunting situation. I never found any jacketed bullets that would outperform cast bullets under these circumstances. Hollow points seem ineffective at that distance as well, so a good hardcast bullet with a flat meplat will work consistently and adequately to use in a hunting situation.

I have killed deer, antelope and all sorts of small game with it and everything seemed to die with a good shot. A gopher at 15 yards may be deader with a hollow point, but I noticed the shot has to be close for you to benefit with a hollow point...

Nice looking bullets and handgun RoninPhx!! I run 265 GC Cast Performance bullets in my 357PD and use 8.0 grains of unique - ALOT more comfortable to shoot (more "pushing" than the quick "snap" of lighter bullets/factory loads that often jump crimp!) and do not think I am loosing anything to 210 grain bullets at max. velocity .

PennDog

Have to agree with shrapnel...out past 50 yards most handgun bullets become nothing more than a hole punch...but since most of my deer shooting is under 50 yards it is interesting to play with home cast HPs...

tdd...I have a simple formula for H110 powder...fill the case till the bullet just rests on the top of the powder charge. Gets the lowest Standard Deviation, best accuracy and highest safe velocity...works for jacketed and cast. A Cast Performance 255 LBT will take 22.0 grains and get mid-1400s. A 250 CP LBT has a longer shank and shorter nose and will only take 20 grains of powder... And when shot out of my S&W revolvers the cases all eject smoothly... I would not do it with a .45 Colt but works fine in any of the Magnums...

Ron...any MeHic mold you are looking for send him PM over on the CastBoolit forums...he often has over-runs for sale. I've bought two from him that way.

Did a bunch of selling and trading last month... Finally decided I just didn't want to shoot the 357PD and 357NG anymore and sold them both...they were just unpleasant to shoot with the grips that fit my hand. Then picked up a 8 3/8" Model 57 made in 1964 to complete my collection of First Year of Production guns...so I sold off a 657 8 3/8" that I hardly ever shot and it brought almost as much as I paid for the 57...so it has been a good year...

58, 4" 57, 5" 57, 6" 57 with new 8 3/8" 57...

Interesting formula. I've been reloading a while, but I'm trying to envision how to figure the charge to do that...?

Could be that my brain isn't functioning, though. It's Monday, after all.

Hey Ron, I have a 170gr slovenian mold w/pins

well you do and don't, i am aware of where that mould is at the moment. I have a bunch of moulds for that caliber but not that mould. I mail have to email the guy in slovenia.

Rjm
another project with the 41, i dug a box of the sierra 170 grain JHC hollowpoints out of the stash.
I was looking at 2400 at 21.2 to 21.6 for between 1400 and 1450fps. Have you ever used any of these?
i read long time ago somebody loading these to pop cast iron frying pans with. Supposedly really shatters them.
Got to find out.

SAY WHAT????

There was a 5" M57? or was it modified by a gunsmith?

rjm is my enabler, i do not have an example of that one on the far right. come to think of it, i also don't have first year of production. It is humbling

Are you casting those hard or soft. Was it me I might try some with pure of nearly pure lead.

Today I loaded 15 of the 280 gr penta points from a mold much like yours and 18 of the 350 gr from the NEI mold. I home to test them next week.

I also found 130 45 auto rim and have them in the tumbler. They might be fun in the Colt for some 45 ACP range loads.