Question about hand loading Wadcutters

cfullgraf said:

For paper punching, no.

You do not want to push hollow base wadcutters. You risk blowing off the skirt of the bullet and having an obstruction in the barrel. Things will not end well if you fire the next round with a skirt lodged in the barrel. Stick with target level loads with hollow base wadcutters.

Solid base wadcutters could be driven faster than target level loads but at some point they may become unstable due to their poor aerodynamic shape. I do not know what the limits are.

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I generally agree but there is a problem with light loads being dirtier when burning. It’s true that you can easily blow the skirts off, but you also don’t want a sooty mess. I would advise to push a bullet faster to a point where it burns clean. For wadcutters I would absolutely stop once I got a clean burn.

WestKentucky said:

I generally agree but there is a problem with light loads being dirtier when burning. It’s true that you can easily blow the skirts off, but you also don’t want a sooty mess. I would advise to push a bullet faster to a point where it burns clean. For wadcutters I would absolutely stop once I got a clean burn.

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There is a lot of data out there for target loads for hollow base wadcutters. I'm sure they are "clean burning". I would not push the limits on hollow base wadcutters just to get "clean burning" loads. There is too much hazard to do so.

Solid base wadcutters are a different animal.

I've never found 2.7 grains or so of Bullseye with hollow point wadcutters to be "dirty" and they have excellent accuracy in my 38 Special revolvers. The charge is low enough to not worry about a barrel obstruction from a blown skirt.

Besides, in my opinion this obsession with "clean burning" ammunition is just that, an obsession. You have to clean the firearm once in a while anyway and it will never be clean enough to eat off of anyway.

cfullgraf said:

There is a lot of data out there for target loads for hollow base wadcutters. I'm sure they are "clean burning". I would not push the limits on hollow base wadcutters just to get "clean burning" loads. Thee is too much hazard to do so.

Solid base wadcutters are a different animal.

I've never found 2.7 grains or so of Bullseye with hollow point wadcutters to be "dirty" and they have excellent accuracy in my 38 Special revolvers. The charge is low enough to not worry about a barrel obstruction from a blown skirt.

Besides, in my opinion this obsession with "clean burning" ammunition is just that, an obsession. You have to clean the firearm once in a while anyway and it will never be clean enough to eat off of anyway.

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Yup. And yup. 2-1/2gr of Bullseye has been the most popular wadcutter load in.38Spl for long enough that Lee made a special double-sided .020cid dipper for the .38Spl Lee Loader kit. The topside was about 3gr of Bullseye, but the bottomside was exactly 2-1/2gr of Bullseye. The instructions informed the user as such that it was for wadcutter target loads.
I use a more stout 3-1/2gr for DEWCs

cfullgraf said:

There is a lot of data out there for target loads for hollow base wadcutters. I'm sure they are "clean burning". I would not push the limits on hollow base wadcutters just to get "clean burning" loads. Thee is too much hazard to do so.

Solid base wadcutters are a different animal.

I've never found 2.7 grains or so of Bullseye with hollow point wadcutters to be "dirty" and they have excellent accuracy in my 38 Special revolvers. The charge is low enough to not worry about a barrel obstruction from a blown skirt.

Besides, in my opinion this obsession with "clean burning" ammunition is just that, an obsession. You have to clean the firearm once in a while anyway and it will never be clean enough to eat off of anyway.

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OP didn’t mention powders on hand. Wadcutters are generally shot very low pressure. Very low pressure with a huge portion of the powders available shoots very dirty. There have been reports of guns shooting as little as a couple cylinders worth and fouling binding the gun up between the cylinder and forcing cone.

If it’s dirty then something is wrong and that something is generally that the load is too light. Either change powders or bump it a bit until it shoots clean. It doesn’t take much to go from filthy burning to pretty clean, and if it’s dirty it doesn’t take much to bind up a gun with a .002 B/C gap.

Pat Riot said:

I went online looking for that double Bullseye powder measure. Apparently Lee no longer makes that one. Doing that search reminded me that I have their complete powder measure dipper kit. I have never used it.
During my search I found their VMD Chart for using their powder measures. That chart didn’t come with my kit. I am going to have to try it out now.
I dreaded trying to figure out what dippers to use for various loads so I just didn’t bother with them.
Here is the chart I was referring to:
https://leeprecision.com/files/instruct/VMD.pdf

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You can still buy the Red/Black CID dippers individually or in kits. I have two sets plus some of the old Lee Loader kits that came with those dippers. If you get the feel for it, you can throw +/- .1gr. loads consistently. You're just dong by hand the same thing a drum or rotor powder measure does mechanically. Here's the spreadsheet I built for the powders I use with dippers (Red/Black CID and Yellow CC). Hope it helps.

i agree that you are crimping way too much. you should barely see the crimp right at the very edge of the case mouth. you may also want to trim all cases to the same length.

luck,

murf

Pat Riot said:

That is a neat spreadsheet. Thank you. I saved it for future reference.

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Thanks. The 0.4CC is a 0.5CC dipper with 0.1CC of filler pressed into the cup and the 0.6CC is a 0.7CC dipper with 0.1CC of filler pressed into the cup. I use compressed vegetable card wads - 36 and 44 caliber respectively - as filler. I also have some yellow CC dippers customized for specific loads but those are marked on the handles so I didn’t bother putting them on the spreadsheet. Enjoy and feel free to pass it along.

If you load a lot of 38 plinking rounds i suggest you get a taper crimp die. You can then apply any amount of taper you want without roll crimping.

Walkalong said:

DEWCs loaded the same way.
View attachment 998145

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I was wondering how you got a picture of one of my ammo cans. Lol. If my closet floor had the same pattern, I would have gotten up to check. Nice!

Pat you will like it but holy cow June 3rd. I figured Amazon in your neck of the woods would be next day at the most.

I usually get WC that have grooves in them and crimp slightly in the first ring from the top for 38 SPL loads. With 357 I use a heavier crimp to stop the bullets from moving under recoil. Lots of Promo through my revolvers.

Roll crimping may be overrated in all but the hottest 357 mag loads. Just started thinking when I opened my box of rmr 9mm bullets I just got. The bullets have no groove and I push them way faster 38's with only a taper crimp. Wc's have way more bearing surface. Just thinking out load I guess.

I like to seat my wadcutters perfectly flush with not that much crimp. I only put a few grains of trail boss in under it myself.