Mouse fart 357 Mag pistol loads

[adamsredlines]

You mean .357 Minimum?

 

[MacFromOK]

You mean .357 Minimum?

Lol, or maybe .357 Minimag...

 

[Uncle TK]

What you are doing is not safe.
The primer starts the bullet down the barrel and then the powder explodes.
Trail Boss Powder was designed for large cases and small powder charges.
(Cowboy Action had a lot on guns explode using very light loads of bullseye)

Use fast draw wax bullets if you want to shoot indoors (Powered with shotgun primers) (Case drill out)

 

[swampratt]

I appreciate your concern Uncle TK.
I have never had any issues with Bullseye and light/very light charges.
I have shot powder puff loads many hundreds of times..I feel it is a double charge that bit the person that broke their gun...but it may happen.
That is why I said safe in my gun.

Now the theory you put out there about the primer sending the bullet down the barrel I have never had that happen.
I have actually primed quite a few cases and added no powder on purpose and seated a bullet with NO crimp..just iron out the case mouth flare.
I do that with the lee carbide crimp die.

Now for educational purposes I took the same case I have been shooting in this mouse fart test and primed it with another CCI500 primer and NO powder and seated the bullet.
I went and fired it and NO pop ..Nothing but a slightly backed out primer and bullet that has NOT moved even .001"
Here is a picture.

I will pull this bullet now and try to do it and record the pressure it takes to pull it.

If the primer actually sent the bullet down the barrel and THEN the powder exploded in a revolver you would have a huge flash of smoke and powder come out from between the cylinder and forcing cone and more than likely soot the crap out of the brass.
Scientifically speaking.

 

[swampratt]

Well I got to 145 lbs of pull and the bullet did not budge but the string I had passed through a hole I drilled in the bullet pulled through the bullet.
I hate trying to remove these powder coated bullets. They stick like glue.
For reference a Lapua .308 case that I load takes 80-85 psi to pull the bullets out .308 Winchester annealed cases take 45 psi.

Here is the bullet that does not play nice.
Next up is a 550 magnum primer to see if it unseats a powder coated bullet in a 357 case.
Ok I did just that and it pushed the bullet forward .020"
Here is the bullet I tried to pull that the string cut through the lead at 145 PSI

 

[swampratt]

I chronographed my .4 gr load with Bullseye powder and the powder coated lead bullet and got 204 FPS.
I then doubled the charge to .8 gr and tested it and it was 306.9 FPS.

At .2 gr I stuck 1 bullet as I shot 5 of them trying to get a chrony reading.
Kept getting errors. I think my height or angle was off.
I feel 204 fps at .4 gr is about as low as I want to go with my gun because it hits where I aim.
I did not try any loads between .4 and .8 gr.
I should be able to dispatch a yard critter with that load with no worries.

Again these loads are safe in my gun.

 

[turkeyrun]

I loaded down to 1.7 gr of Clay's with a 95gr LRN powder coated bullet in .357.
After tapping the case to set the powder on the bottom, I added 8 gr of cornmeal. This held the powder down against the primer.

2.0 gr loads shot very well
1.8 gr loads were accurate and consistent
1.7 gr loads were barely clearing the barrel.
I could see the bullets in flight, before striking the 10 yard targets. 2 bullets did not clear the barrel, though both were at the end of the 4.62 inch barrel.

I now load a minimum charge of 2.0 gr.
A nearby shooter commented that he could smell cornbread.

 

[swampratt]

Nice turkeyrun.
Funny the guy said that makes me want to load cornmeal

Good on you for finding what your gun will work with.

 

[turkeyrun]

I was smelling burnt cornbread, when ejecting spent brass. Didn't think about smell when shooting was carrying that far. It did give a nice, white puff of smoke, though.

 

[SoonerP226]

Adding some kind of wadding would be a good idea; I didn't see where you were doing this, but I could've missed it. Back in the '80s or '90s, I read an article about guns blowing up, and it came down to light powder loads. The light load had so little powder in it that it exposed the flash hole, so instead of the primer igniting a small amount of powder and that propagating out, it basically ignited the powder along the length of the cartridge, resulting in a detonation. They were using a wheelgun (.38Spl, IIRC) for the testing, and it blew the top of the cylinder off and peeled the topstrap forward. It was some baaaaad juju.