[Bullet]

I thought I saw something about loading between say 38 Special and 357 Mag or 44 Special and 44Mag. Could someone explain this?

[Sunray]

I'm not exactly sure what you're asking, but with either of these pairs, you can load the magnum case with the non-magnum loads. It's what is meant by 'loading down'. IE: 2.7 grains of Bullseye under a 148 grain wadcutter in a .357 case is a .38 Special target load and works just fine. Makes shooting them much more pleasant. It saves a bit of wear on the revolver and reduces cleaning time by not having a ring of gunk in the cylinder. The bullet has less of a jump to make when fired because it's closer to the barrel too. That what you mean?

[Bullet]

In the example with Bullseye the loading manuel lists the 148 Gr. LWC (not target) 38 Special at 2.8 Gr. Max. the same bullet in 357 Mag at 5.7 Gr. Max. What I'm asking is can you load in a Mag case anything inbetween the 2.8 Gr. and the 5.7 Gr. like 3.0 Gr.? Or another way of asking is does a 357 load begin at 2.9 Gr. using Bullseye? Some powders say not to reduce loads by more than 3% so I'm assuming down loading does not apply to them. To down load must you have a listed load in 38 Special and 357 Mag with the same bullet weight and powder? If this is right what determines which powders you can do this with? It seems that the slower powders are not down loadable is that right?

[BluesBear]

The minimum loads in the manuals are based on experience.
If the manual says x.y grains of 9876 powder with a certain bullt is the minimum that means that anything lower will most likely be erratic and inaccurate. Also small powder charges in large cases increase the possibility of double charges.

Slower burning powders don't do very well in large open spaces. The burnrate becomes sporatic.
Fast burning powders don't do well under compression because the pressure curve reaches it peak too rapidly.

I have loaded hundreds of thousands of 148gr wadcutters over 3.0 grains of Bullseye in both .38 special and .357 magnum cases with great results.

I load light "plinking" loads for all of my revolvers.

[Valkman]

You're on the right track, I think. :) I wouldn't mix the two loads, especially since I use W231 for 38 SPL and H110 for .357. You can't take H110 and download it down to a minimum .38SPL load. Most data I've seen says not to reduce H110 loads by more than 3%.