N310 -- 38 Special -- Snubnose

[willchris]

Am looking to try N310 for 38 Special with Berry's 125 gr plated hollow point. Have a good half pound of N310 left from reloading 380 ACP, and thought this fast-burning powder would make a nice clean PRACTICE load for a snub nose revolver.

Have found data for Bullseye in this bullet weight (which I don't have), but nothing for this powder.

Anyone tried it?

 

[Walkalong]

N310 works just fine in .38 Spl with 125 Gr bullets. Vihtavuori doesn't show data on the PDF's on their website, but I used other very fast power data to interpolate a starting load and worked up to a sane velocity.

Welcome to THR

 

[RandyP]

I suggest for safety's sake that if there are no loads for a given powder in a VERY popular caliber? There might be a very good reason?

Why risk life, limb and a perfectly good firearm fiddling around and 'guessing' on what might be safe?

Just old chicken me and my views.

 

[RidgwayCO]

According to QuickLOAD, I'd start at 3.0gr and work up in 0.1gr increments. N310 is very quick so I wouldn't be in a hurry to push the limits. 750 fps from a 2" barrel might be the most you can expect. It'll burn clean though...

I also like N310 in the .380 Auto with 95gr lead bullets.

 

[Walkalong]

3.0 Grs of N310 won't get 700 FPS with that bullet, even from a 4" barrel. I have shot that bullet with N310 & it will take a good bit more. (Under 4 Grs though).

But you are right, it's very quick. Start low and work up .1 Gr at a time.

 

[willchris]

Thanks for the replies. From a little web research -- it looks like Vihtavouri used to publish more loads for N310 in their older reloading guides.

I ran across some german reloading (wiederladen) data that puts the starting load right at 3.5 grains for lead round nose.

Will post the results when I get a trials done.

 

[jfh]

willchris: got a link to the German data?

Jim H.

 

[Black_Talon]

As an aside, anyone notice that the 2004 and 2008 VV loading manuals have N310 data for 357 Mag, using light bullets?

And, in the FWIW category, I've been using N310 in my 38 Spl-148-HBWC target loads for several years now*. My standard load is 2.7gr, which gives me velocities in the range of 750fps out of 6" K38s. Highest I've gone is 2.9gr which still doesn't show any pressure signs, but is running right at 800fps (which is starting to push it for HBWC velocity) and is no more accurate than the slower 2.7gr loads. Extrapolating this, I'd think that 3.5-ish gr would be a fine place to start from using a 125gr bullet. Having a chronograph for these types of experiments is very useful.


*and, IIRC, I only started playing with it because of some older published VV data that I can not find right now.