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Adventures with Hot Lead

To be certain I would have to go back and see what I Used, but as I recall it was 3.2 grains of Hodgdon clays.

That was getting me 760 to 780 FPS from the evil roy.

The revolver doesn't care how short I load those bullets but for the lever gun to feed correctly I have to make them as long as a typical 357 Magnum cartridge.

The nose shape doesn't seem to matter too much on this gun but it wants the overall length and the weight of the bullet to be correct.

It's supposed to shoot 158 grain but the ones I cast average 154 grains.
 
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I fully understand the reason for seating them long for functioning in the lever gun. I would do the same. My comment was that the pressure/velocity of those loads might have been very very low. Unless you compensated for that with more powder using an unpublished charge.
 
I used a medium charge for that weight of bullet, and then made a couple of more steps in 0.2 grain increments. I didn't get to shoot them all yet, but I think the hottest load was 6.4 grains with HS-6 or 3.2 grains of Clays.
 
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Cool thing about the 100-yard drop with those big wadcutter .38s is when comparing against match subsonic .22LR ammo at similar range: rimfire .22 also has a large drop from line of sight once you start reaching out. The .22LR at 50-yards with subsonic ammo is unremarkable in trajectory but get out to 100 and it's really dropping.

So what am I getting at? I think what is cool about your Henry Lever Gun is that you can shoot rounds for almost the same cost as rimfire, with similar trajectory, with almost no noise, and they hit with a real THUMP!!!!

Hell, you can probably recover your almost-intact cast bullets to smelt and cast all over again. To quote Alton Brown, "And that my friends, is GOOD EATS."
 
And....

Load some 158-gr cast LSWCs with some Alliant 2400 (or h110.W296.AA9 having adjusted for making "The Load") and you don't have to worry about any drop. Might add two pennies to your cost per round.

Skeeter Skelton's recipe used 12.0 grains of 2400 loaded in a .38-spl case BTW with a lubed and gas-checked 158-gr LSWC.

http://www.darkcanyon.net/A Letter From Skeeter Skelton.htm

These are for STRONG revolvers ONLY. He did this with .38-44 HD guns and later with other N-Frames. But your Henry won't care a bit.
 
Gentleman I have been away from the casting bench (not to be confused with the casting couch) for some two years now and today I fired up the Lee hot pot and made my first shotgun slugs.

I made them for a friend who gave me the molds. Unfortunately he took the slugs home before I could take photographs so I have no official photo webevidence....

Anyhow I used the lee key drive 12 gauge 1 oz & 7/8 oz slug molds. It takes a little while to get everything hot enough to make good ones but I made about a dozen good ones.

I'm really happy that I only had to throw away about 8 or 9 before I started getting really good ones. I wasn't lucky with the .38 wadcutters.

This time I did the casting indoors but I think the real secret is you need to have a little stove that insulates the whole business from the rest of the world. Otherwise things just cool off fast from radiation and random air currents.

When I did the 38s I set up some sheet metal barricades to keep the wind off of everything & that worked okay because it wasn't windy at all
 
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CaddmannQ said:
Gentleman I have been away from the casting bench (not to be confused with the casting couch) for some two years now and today I fired up the and made my first shotgun slugs.

I made them for a friend who gave me the molds. Unfortunately he took the slugs home before I could take photographs so I have no official photo webevidence....

Anyhow I used the lee key drive 12 gauge 1 oz & 7/8 oz slug molds. It takes a little while to get everything hot enough to make good ones but I made about a dozen good ones.

I'm really happy that I only had to throw away about 8 or 9 before I started getting really good ones. I wasn't lucky with the .38 wadcutters.

This time I did the casting indoors but I think the real secret is you need to have a little stove that insulates the whole business from the rest of the world. Otherwise things just cool off fast from radiation and random air currents.

When I did the 38s I set up some sheet metal barricades to keep the wind off of everything & that worked okay because it wasn't windy at all
Click to expand...

Cadd, I just got my press and casting bench ready for the 38spl cases and mold when they comes in. I will get 357 cases later. I look forward to the change from 9mm and 45acp and the brass I have to pickup. My back and knees just say no. I converted the press from 223 to 38/357, and later I will get the conversion kit for the 9mm stuff. My new revolver will shoot 38/357 and it comes with a 9mm cylinder. It is fun when things workout...mechanical wise, which I aint. But this time I snuck by.
 
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