[blindhari]

I am in need of nice quiet loads for my 357 levergun.(winchester trapper) Any help with keeping the noise level down and accuracy high would be appreciated. Currrently I load with my brother in law and I am looking for some low volume 357/38 load recipes for varmint and plinking.
Thanks for your time

blindhari

[W Turner]

I just use my target .38spl. load for this application...

158gr. LSWC over 3.6gr. of Accurate Arms #2 in mixed brass.

Very accurate, quiet for a centerfire handgun round and recoils like a .22lr.

W

[MCgunner]

My .22 equivalent (Rossi 92 20" barrel) is 2.3 grains of Bullseye and a 105 grain cast SWC from a Lee mold. It fires at 900 fps and is 1.5" at 50 yards accurate.

[PO2Hammer]

The faster the powder, the quieter in general.

Lead bullets use less powder and are generally quieter than jacketed loads.

My load is 3.9 grains of Titegroup under a Hornady 140 grain lead flat point. COL: 1.580". It is accurate in my Marlin and all my .357 handguns.

The Hornady lead bullets are swaged instead of cast and are the most accurate lead bullets I've tried. With soft/swaged bullets, velocity should be kept under 1,000 fps.

Bullseye, Unique, Red Dot, Clays are some other good powders for light loads in .357 magnum.

[blindhari]

I learned long ago to take advice. Years ago I bought Armscor 357 at an unbeleivable price. I saved the brass and now intend to reload for plinking. I have Buffalo bore for hunting and it feels and sounds like 30-06 going off. What I am looking for is something inexpensive that would fold up anything up to a coyote/feral dog. I am now in the old geezer business according to our daughter. That means a doughnut. a cup of coffe for breakfast, NO OVERNIGHTS in the wild and a nice warm bed at night. I appreciate the information from someone who knows where to go to find good coffee at a fair price. Come to think of it if you are going to be in Az. email me. I make a nice mellow cup of coffee and my wife's hot choclate chip cookies are not to be missed. If you too are a geezer we can set around the kitchen table with coffee and cookies swapping stories that our wives and chidren have heard too many times.
blindhari
thanx again

[MCgunner]

I appreciate the information from someone who knows where to go to find good coffee at a fair price.

Hint, don't bother with Starbucks. :D

The load I gave you is my .22 mimic load, use for anything I'd use a .22 for. I think I'd want a little more zip for shooting coyotes and feral dogs, though I've killed 'em quite dead with a .22 handgun, let alone rifle (feral dogs, anyway). While my load only packs about 180 or so ft lbs, it is doing that with a .38 caliber bullet weighing 105 grains, a little advantage over a .22, I guess. Range is limited to 50 yards, though, as it drops like a rock after that.

I relate to your situation, but I still sleep out in the wild occasionally. :D I ain't quite a geezer, yet, but the kid's gone and married off and out of college and has a job and I'm retired from punching the clock (a little early, but I don't like working, gets in the way of hunting and fishing) and do what I danged well please. :D Don't let 'em give you grief. You've been there, done that, now it's time to do what you like and if that's drinkin' cheap coffee, so be it. LOL!

BTW, Great Value coffee at Walmart. I'm a cheap SOB. :D

[blindhari]

I don't look for cheap coffee. I look for GOOD cheap coffee. Folgers in a 1930s double stack stainless steel copper bottom drip works just fine. I was raised in a restraunt by Mom and Dad taught me to be a mechanic. I am one hell of a cook. My wife and I taught a lot of Boy Scouts. Thank you for the information. If your ever in this part of Az. the coffees on me and the hot choclate chip cookies are on my wife.

Geezer and Fogie are names I've earned and I wear them with pride.
blindhari

[VegasOPM]

I make a plinking load- 3.2 gr of Clays over 125 gr Lasercast. It is quiet enough and accurate enough for me.

[Black Dime]

Replica Winchester 1873, .38 cal 105 gr cast bullet over 3.2 grs of American Select. 795 fps out of a 4 3/4" Ruger 3-screw and probably 900 fps from the 22" rifle barrel.

[jjohnson]

Right... wadcutters will cause you more trouble than they'd be worth.

The "cowboy action" shooters often use bullets of minimal weight that work fine for plinking and the occasional varmint. Most of 'em are roundnose- haven't seen much in the way of semiwadcutters.

You might want to look at some of the casters that sell lightweight bullets that many use for reloading .380 - some of those round nose or conical shape can be "sized up" to work in 38/357. Mike at mastcastbullets.com can do it, too - I just ordered some from him and they work just fine - I had him take his standard .380 bullet and size it as big as he could - at .3575" the little 95-gr round nose feeds in my '92 Puma carbine. With a few grains of Red Dot behind them, they are pretty quiet indeed. I've loaded mine with Red Dot and with Titegroup, and both do just fine, kinda like a big .22 LR. If all you have is .357 brass, no problem, the same loads will work as long as you don't load them DOWN below the minimum (you could get a stuck bullet from a squib load - NOT good. If you're loading a plinking round in .357, I wouldn't bother with mag primers, either.