MachIVshooter
Member
As most here know, suppressors are my game (and my career), so naturally I'm always threading everything and trying to find good subsonic loads. The latter is easy with manual action guns, but a bit trickier for autoloaders if you want them to function-especially in calibers for which heavy bullet options don't exist!
The heaviest commercial pistol bullets in .312" .32 cal handgun diameter are 115 gr, which the .30 SC usually drives at around 1,150 FPS
Going heavier means trying to use rifle bullets, but of course they are far too long. After considering many options, I decided to order some Berry's .308" 150 gr. round shoulder bullets:
www.berrysmfg.com
As is, they still are too long, but taking .1" off the nose gives a pistol-bullet type profile at 140 grains, leaving enough room for a small powder charge without exceeding the 1.169 max OAL.
I'll have to find a more efficient way to do this, of course, but it only took about 15 minutes to truncate 50 bullets on the Hardinge HLV with a 6 jaw chuck, so works for now.
Next question was will the S&W Shield EZ stabilize the long, heavy, undersize bullets. The answer is yes, they actually proved to be quite accurate, and showed plenty of rifling engagement.
CAUTION: The following includes loading data that is not currently published for this cartridge and produces unknown pressure. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. Neither the writer, The High Road, nor the staff of THR assume any liability for any damage or injury resulting from use of this information.
Working up loads using heavy-for-caliber bullets that seriously encroach on case capacity is always a little unsettling, so I start pretty dang light. The first few I tried slower powder, Accurate #7. I'm not even going to bother with how much, as even the compressed charges still barely got 700 FPS and left a bunch of unburned powder in the suppressor.
Obviously getting into our 950-1,050 FPS target zone means faster powders. So next I tried Winchester 244 with charge weights and resulting average velocities as follows:
2.6 gr, 645 FPS
2.8 gr, 701 FPS
3.0 gr. 747 FPS
3.2 gr., 852 FPS
3.4 gr., 907 FPS
I stopped there for now, as the 3.4 gr load left primer cratering slightly in excess of what I see with the factory Federal 100 gr loads, so I'm going to evaluate my powder options and probably try something a little slower, as I do want to be around 1,000. ~1,000-1,020 would be equivalent to typical 9x19mm 147 gr loads in terms of muzzle energy.
Loading these bullets to an OAL of 1.155" did not cause any case bulging, which sometimes happens trying to stuff long, heavy bullets deep enough into straight wall pistol cases.
I will update this post as I develop different loads, but I wanted to go ahead and get this out there for those who may be looking for a heavy bullet option to develop their own sub loads. Yeah, it's a little bit of work, and would rather suck to try to shorten those bullets without a lathe, but it's doable, and the important part is that, at least in the S&W pistol, they do stabilize and shoot well!
The heaviest commercial pistol bullets in .312" .32 cal handgun diameter are 115 gr, which the .30 SC usually drives at around 1,150 FPS
Going heavier means trying to use rifle bullets, but of course they are far too long. After considering many options, I decided to order some Berry's .308" 150 gr. round shoulder bullets:
Bullets for 30-30 | 308 150 Grain Bullets for Reloading
These 30-30 150 Grain bullets are round shoulder bullets and are some of the best copper plated 308 bullets you can buy for consistency and precision.
www.berrysmfg.com
As is, they still are too long, but taking .1" off the nose gives a pistol-bullet type profile at 140 grains, leaving enough room for a small powder charge without exceeding the 1.169 max OAL.
I'll have to find a more efficient way to do this, of course, but it only took about 15 minutes to truncate 50 bullets on the Hardinge HLV with a 6 jaw chuck, so works for now.
Next question was will the S&W Shield EZ stabilize the long, heavy, undersize bullets. The answer is yes, they actually proved to be quite accurate, and showed plenty of rifling engagement.
CAUTION: The following includes loading data that is not currently published for this cartridge and produces unknown pressure. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. Neither the writer, The High Road, nor the staff of THR assume any liability for any damage or injury resulting from use of this information.
Working up loads using heavy-for-caliber bullets that seriously encroach on case capacity is always a little unsettling, so I start pretty dang light. The first few I tried slower powder, Accurate #7. I'm not even going to bother with how much, as even the compressed charges still barely got 700 FPS and left a bunch of unburned powder in the suppressor.
Obviously getting into our 950-1,050 FPS target zone means faster powders. So next I tried Winchester 244 with charge weights and resulting average velocities as follows:
2.6 gr, 645 FPS
2.8 gr, 701 FPS
3.0 gr. 747 FPS
3.2 gr., 852 FPS
3.4 gr., 907 FPS
I stopped there for now, as the 3.4 gr load left primer cratering slightly in excess of what I see with the factory Federal 100 gr loads, so I'm going to evaluate my powder options and probably try something a little slower, as I do want to be around 1,000. ~1,000-1,020 would be equivalent to typical 9x19mm 147 gr loads in terms of muzzle energy.
Loading these bullets to an OAL of 1.155" did not cause any case bulging, which sometimes happens trying to stuff long, heavy bullets deep enough into straight wall pistol cases.
I will update this post as I develop different loads, but I wanted to go ahead and get this out there for those who may be looking for a heavy bullet option to develop their own sub loads. Yeah, it's a little bit of work, and would rather suck to try to shorten those bullets without a lathe, but it's doable, and the important part is that, at least in the S&W pistol, they do stabilize and shoot well!
