jacket separation with semi-jacketed bullets and light loads

I have some of those same bullets in .41, they are great. I don't believe the design of the bullet, with the cannelure, would lend itself to shedding the jacket in the bore... more likely just sticking from an under-powered load.

I also used to shoot boxes of those Speer half-jackets in .41, I always thought they were good bullets... but this was before I had heard about the jackets sticking. Thinking about that particular bullet, I still don't understand how they can shed a jacket at low velocity.

Walkalong said:

The bullet at the top

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AH! The good old Speer #11 Manual! My first reloading manual, and still one of my favorites...

It's probably been discussed before, my googelfu is weak, but I would be curious to see a cross-section of the Speer half-jacket cup. I would almost be willing to bet it has a groove in the jacket somewhere to hold the core in... it just may not be enough.

If you don't load light, you shouldn't have a problem. If you have the same experiences I've had with that bullet in the .41, you will fall in love.

I sure would not load those bullets with light loads of Trail Boss. That would seem to be a recipe for sticking a bullet in the bore.

I used a lot of those style Speer bullets in my 44 Magnums many years ago, with data from my Speer #11. But I just noticed in my Speer #13 all the powders listed for the semi-jacketed 225 gr bullet are slower powders,with the "fastest" being 2400. I wonder if the data for 2400 to IMR 4227 or H110 was in an effort to reduce possibilities of lighter loads and sticking jackets?

The old Speer semi-jackets were crimped at the front of the jacket into the lead core. The risk at very low velocities was that if the bullet started to slow down in the barrel, jacket friction could cause the jacket to stick in the bore while the heavy lead core exited the barrel. The shooter would thus not be aware that a jacket blocked the bore and firing another shot could cause “problems“. The risk was apparently high enough that Speer warned about it for years.



Sorry for the poor image quality.


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If Hodgdon's directions are followed, SJHPs can be safely used with Trail Boss. If, though, by "light" we are talking about going below Hodgdon's minimum, then all bets are off.

If we are talking about revolvers instead of rifles Hodgdon still says lead bullets in pistol cartridges and lead and jacketed bullets in rifle cartridges. The issue is sticking the bullet. Note in the quote from Hodgdon below it says lead bullets in pistol cartridges.

"As noted in the powder description section, Trail Boss was designed primarily for reduced loads using lead bullets in pistol cartridges. However, Trail Boss offers superb versatility in rifle cartridges producing reduced loads using lead or jacketed bullets."

I would not try the bullets being discussed in this thread in a revolver with Trail Boss,

Bill M. said:

If we are talking about revolvers instead of rifles Hodgdon still says lead bullets in pistol cartridges and lead and jacketed bullets in rifle cartridges.

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Are you talking about the minumum 70% of case capacity with TrailBoss? As per a e-mail to Hodgdon, their response assured me that this formula also works well with handgun calibers and jacketed bullets.

How about sharing the content of that email with us. My quote came from the reduced load section of Hodgdon website. And all the data they listed for jacketed bullets was for rifles. In the past there have been reports of Hodgdon saying on the phone and in emails that the trail boss was not for jacketed bullets in handguns.

I would like to find out that it is okay for jacketed bullets in revolvers but so far I have seen nothing printed or written by Hodgdon that says it is okay.

Bill M. said:

How about sharing the content of that email with us. My quote came from the reduced load section of Hodgdon website. And all the data they listed for jacketed bullets was for rifles. .

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That e-mail would have been deleted many years ago from my computer as the question was asked many years ago. The reason the question was asked was because of the vagueness in the web page. If you doubt me, you are free to e-mail Hodgdon yourself and share what reply you get with us. In the reply I got, it was stated that one should not go below the minimum of 70% of case capacity. I've shot .357 mags, .44 mags and .460 mags, all with jacketed bullets using TrailBoss and never had an issue, other than performance was only decent when 90% or more of case capacity was used. Many of those loads chronoed similar to low loads with Unique.

If I'm correct, the subject is the half/semi-jacket Speer bullets separating from the lead core in the barrel. Big difference than under powered bullets not exiting the barrel...

...learn something new everyday.

From the OP.

"I saw a post on another forum, The Firing Line, where someone wants to load some old semi-jacketed soft points he found, and wanted to load them really light with Trail boss. "

My contention is still not to do that.