I have been reloading for rifles over 40 years and started reloading fort pistol s about 15 years ago. Been running rifle loads over the chronograph for 25 of those years but never have chronographed any pistol loads until today.
Well today I loaded up some 38 Specials with some Lee 125 gr.- FN cast bullets that I casted from wheel weights. Loaded to max of 5.3 grains of Unique as per Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook. Book says I should be getting 944 FPS at the muzzle but the chronograph today says I am only getting 575 FPS. My pistolla only has a 2” snout rather than the 4” barrel Lyman used.
Have any of you chronographed your pistol reloads?
Do I add more Unique and work up to near spec velocity or do I live with what I am getting????

Just something to ponder while you develop your load, Quickload shows a difference of 340 fps between a 2 inch barrel and a 4 inch with the same load.

Thanks Mick.
I guess that would explain it. Sure is disappointing though. I just sold the only 4” barrel 357/38 I had and only have 2” snubbies left.
I think I will run a few of these 38 reloads through my M-94 Trapper rifle over the chronograph just for grins and see what it shows.

that sounds like fun.

I'd probably experiment with some other loads from other manuals first. Adding more Unique is only wasting powder in a snubbie imho. I'd have to look but you might have better luck with something like N120 or one of the other slightly faster powders than Unique .... although I love Unique in just about everything non-mag pistol.

You might actually get decent results with something like Trail Boss for your particular load although ... I dunno, with a snubbie ... I never try to do too much with a snubbie. My wife's AirLite is loaded with some WCs I rolled up for her, low recoil slow I wanna say 148 or 158 grain wad cutters from Missouri Bullet traveling at something like 700 fps ... accurate as heck but not super fast. It will be all she needs should the need arise hopefully. She's very confident with it. You gotta remember 700 fps is more than two football fields ... per second. It's gonna leave a mark and it's plenty in a snubbie. Muzzle flash and blast alone is going to make the bad guy soil his britches.

IRC quite some time ago someone on here did a fairly good comparison of shooting .357 loads in a 2" barrel .The conclusion was they were about 38 special velocities

Sorry guys, but I was busy all day and haven’t been able to post my latest findings over the chronograph. Apparently, I had the muzzle too close to the chronograph when I first fired the loads. Had it about 3 feet away when I originally fired the two and got the velocities I posted in my first post. I think the muzzle blast made the chronograph mis-read. Not sure but I do know that I DID NOT under-load the rounds I originally shot.
Yesterday I ran the same loads through my Winchester Model 94 Trapper. I fired from my shooting table and had the chronograph 7 feet away from the rifle’s muzzle. The velocities were in the 1100 FPS range. Then I decided to shoot the same loads from my snubbie 38 Spl. with the pistol resting on my rifle front rest which ensured me NOT shooting a hole in my chronograph. This made the muzzle roughly 7-8 feet away from the chronograph’s front end.
The velocities were in the high 700 to mid 800 fps range.
MUCH better than the first rounds!!!!

I kinda know what you mean about velocities out of a snubby. I sold a very nice Detective Special after I chrono-ed the ammo out of it. Out of a 4" Trooper, it chrono-ed 945 fps, and out of the Detective Special, it was only running about 735fps. This was a 125gr. factory HP load. That disturbed me a lot, that, and the POI was nowhere near the POA......I went back to carrying a 9mm instead of the Colt. In truth, it pretty well soured me on snubby .38s for a very long time.

Curdog ... which chrony are you using?

An actual Shooting Chrony? A Master ... is it green?

Some ARE affected if you're too close but I've never known a Shooting Chrony to be sensitive to muzzle blast inside of 3 or 4 feet.

I have several, so I was interested as-to which make and model you are using to chrony your loads.

I was using a ProChono DLX.
I have a green fold-up Shooting Chrony that I used for years until I read on the rag-writers forum how sorry and in-accurate they were.(laugh)
That’s when I bought the ProChrono. I have to admit that I do like the way the ProChono links to my phone and records all the shots as well as the electric diffusers which allow me to shoot indoors without sun light.
My Shooting Chrony always seemed to work but my diffusers got cracked over the years and I could never find anything suitable to replace them that worked worth a damn. Tried to contact the makers but no luck with that.......

So the lady that owned the company, I think she moved from NY to Canada and someone told me she passed away recently.

As far as being accurate ... I have a few different Chronies and they all compare about the same data wise although both of my newer ones are blue tooth controlled and synced .... but I still use my Master Shooting Chronie quite a bit.