38 Spl rifle load...

[lefteye42]

Need load data for 38 Spl, to be fired in Winchester 94, chambered for 357 Magnum. All my manuals show data for pistol, but I think the rifle-length barrel would make a difference. Appreciate advice.
Happy Thanksgiving, All.

 

[kingmt]

Rifle would add speed to the bullet in most cases. Slower powder benefits from a long barrel also giving you more fps.

 

[forrest r]

A lot depends on the powder you use to reload with. The slower the powder the better the performance in the longer tubes. Typically the 38spl's velocity drops in anything longer than 12" to 14" bbl's.

A website that does testing with different bbl lengths, here's their results from their 38spl tests.
http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com/38special.html

 

[quaid]

The powder that gives you the fastest fps in a pistol will also give you the fastest fps in a rifle.

But if you're shooting 38 spl out of your 357 mag rifle? Sounds like you're interested in cheap fun plinking. I'd be looking at components that burn clean, consistent, and don't lead to prolong the fun and not the cleaning. Maybe coated bullets? Bullet profile may affect feeding too in that shorter cartridge.

 

[Ohen Cepel]

I would go to push them faster rather than slower. I learned that the hard way with plated wadcutters over 2.6gr of Bullseye (from memory and not a recommendation) out of a 16.5in Handi Rifle. The rounds are fine out of a revolver but about 1 in every 50 would not leave the barrel. Had the same issue with a factory 158gr load. At first I thought the rifle was piercing primers and creating the issue. So, spent $$ at the gunsmith to fix that only to find out my loads were simply too weak.

I was wanting mild and quite but gave up on that in order to get a more reliable load for the rifle.

I wouldn't do wadcutters since I'm not sure they would feed well. Think I would load them to the higher side of the load data to make sure you don't run into the issues I ran into. A bit more powder it worth it in this case.

If .38 length is an issue for your rifle to feed you may be as well served to load up the .357's light and go that path. Should be .357 rifle data out there, worth looking at for a learning point if nothing else.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

A good .38 Special load is good in both handguns and a Carbine. Unless you are making very light .38 Special loads where you are worried the bullet won't leave the longer barrel there is no reason to change your load.

One of my two favorite .38 Special loads is a 158gr LSWC over 4.0gr W231 and that load works well in both handguns and my levergun on the rare occasion I shoot a .38 Special in a .357 Magnum levergun. While my levergun shoots .38 Special brass well not all leverguns will reliably feed them.

 

[RealGun]

Need load data for 38 Spl, to be fired in Winchester 94, chambered for 357 Magnum. All my manuals show data for pistol, but I think the rifle-length barrel would make a difference. Appreciate advice.
Happy Thanksgiving, All.

If I was really concerned about that, I would use 357 brass. I have a Uberti Lightning pump rifle in 357 and do not care for what a powerful load does to my shoulder. I would like to carry and shoot without an ugly pad on a beautiful gun. There is a whole world of loads available, some by interpretation, trial and error, between 38 +p maximum and 357 Magnum minimum, same bullet and powder.

 

[RugerBob]

Trail Boss is another good powder to look at.

 

[Wildfire]

With Factory Remington .38 special + P loads we saw 28FPS gain in an 18.5" rifle barrel per inch of barrel.
And about 30 FPS gain per inch of barrel from .357 magnum loads. These were factory loads.
In my .45 Colt I get about 20 FPS per inch of barrel. 8" barrel vs 24" rifle barrel.
Yes, powders can change things.
Good magnum powders {For Mag loads} will push a tad longer and give better gains per inch of barrel.
Hope this helps some.

 

[Swampman]

Cartridge overall length is more likely to be a problem than bullet profile in my experience.

I've never loaded .38 Special for a '94, but I've had feeding issues with them in a couple of Model 92 clones.

I remember I ended up getting a mold with dual crimping grooves that allowed me to seat the bullets out so the overall length of my .38 Special loads was the same as a .357 Magnum round. That pretty much solved my feeding problems.

Unfortunately, I traded the mold off many years ago and I can't even recall the manufacturer, let alone the cherri number.

 

[Wildfire]

We use a Ruger 77/.357 and it has an 18.5" barrel. The numbers I showed you in post #9 were from that rifle.
Factory .38+P Rem. 125s ran 1240 ish.
Factory Remington 158s Jacketed ran at 1629 from that 18.5" Barrel.
Out to 50 yards they both hit the same point of aim. After that it changes.
I did find that the 18.5" barrel did not like .357 magnum loads with hard cast bullets. make them softer and they shoot good. At a hardness of around 10 they did rather well. At 18 they will not group in our rifle. All jacked rounds did well.
My .45 colt w/24" barrel fires a cut down cast bullet of 237 grains rather nice. These are cut down from a 255.
The 200 grain CCI Blazer hits dead on and groups are amazing. But, they do not like going into the side loading gate. Those ran right at about 1050 to 1100 fps.
We found that all of the lead rounds feed right and most Jacketed rounds would have some sort of issue feeding.

 

[nitesite]

Trail Boss is another good powder to look at.

May I ask why it would be good for the OPs need? Thank you.

 

[Wildfire]

The OP would need to know about how fast these were running to determine if they would work in a 94 or not. He had already seen loading info from others. But few if any speeds. I gave some speed reading so he could calculate where a .38 special may fall in knowing where they run in a hand gun.
My loads always seem to be a tad different than most others. Not good nor bad. I use a lot of Unique and with .38s I use 4.7 grains with a CCI500 primer. From a handgun 5.5 to 6" they run around 870 FPS. If we add the gain in velocity using a rifle from what I found in mine we can then see if they would be any good in a rifle.
In post #9 I showed the gains in speed from 6" to an 18.5: barrel. It can give an idea of what to expect from a longer barrel. At 28 fps gain per inch he can then calculate where he wants to be. Too slow a .38 will stick in a bore. Too fast and one would have to be careful using them in a .38 revolver.
>38s built on the warm side always showed me a velocity gain in longer barrels. I did not chop barrels to see where this gain falls off.
There are test results showing gains per inch and when they do fall off. At 4.7 grains of Unique we have never seen an issue when fired from an 18.5" rifle barrel. Some lever guns may show issues with feeding them but my bolt rifle does not.
Bullseye may not be a good rifle powder. I may want something with a tad slower burn rate. The again it may work OK.

 

[RugerBob]

@nitesite- Trail Boss is a good 38 spl powder used by many. I see many use it in 38/357 leverguns. I cannot quote loads and I only use 45lc leverguns.
Thought since he was looking for loads he could check out TB.

 

[phonejack]

I won't give you my load however, the only powders that work accuracy wise in my 357 are the "slow" powders. 158 grain bullets are more accurate than the lighter ones also. If you search long enough you will find reliable slow powder charges for 38 special. I use 158 XTP'S and 2400 in 357 cases.

 

[Hondo 60]

lefteye42, do you have a favorite .38 Special load for a handgun?
If so, contact the powder manufacturer & ask if it would work in a rifle.

While 99.9% of us mean well, I would NOT trust data from the internet.
I might misquote data, or some "joker" may think it's funny to post data that's 2 or 3x more than a safe load.

Please stay safe & use published data.

 

[Wildfire]

My old Speer #12 manual shows 4.3 for a starting load of Unique and 4.7 for a max load.
4.3 showed a speed of 853 fps.
4.7 shows a speed of 913 Fps .
Both fired from a 6" barrel.
Both with a 158 grain lead bullet. Speer lead bullets are soft lead. A cast bullet of say 10 would handle both of these loads with no issues.
Even with a +P load that manual does not show a 158 grain Jacketed bullet.
My reason for showing you this is so you can see the velocity gains we found per inch of barrel when using these loads in a 18.5" barrel.
The 18.5" barrel has 12.5" more tube and shows an average of 28 FPS gain per inch of barrel.
Simple. 28 X 12.5" = 350 FPS gain in the longer barrel. That would then give you an average of 1263 FPS from that .38 special load.
This is darn close to what we saw going over my Chrono.
We saw 1246 for an average.
This does not mean I am saying you should use Unique. I am saying you can see and assume an average speed from velocity gains per inch of barrel.
Not all barrels will perform exactly the same we all know that. But it would put you in the ball park as to what load would actually end up coming out the end of a longer barrel vs sticking a soft round in a longer tube.
At 1000 plus feet per second you should not stick a bullet in a longer barrel.
Extremely fast burning powders would not be a reasonable choice for a long gun. The slower burn rates do much better.
In any magnums {.357} as Post #15 said 2400 works way to well to ignore. W296 is another that performs very nice. AA#9 also works well.
These are famous magnum pistol powders and it will take a long time to beat them.
As far as Jacketed and hard cast, I class them the same and load the same specs.

Swampman has the best point in here. .38 specials do not like feeding in lever guns made for .357s.
Our 77/357 has next to zero recoil with full house .357s.
My 1892 lever in .45 Colt with a 24" barrel tossing 255 grain bullets hotter than my handguns will take has a curved steel butt plate and still little to no recoil.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

I'm at loss here. Why are so many here thinking you need to change your .38 Special load when shot in a levergun? If there were a real difference the commercial ammo manufacturers would be selling different handgun ammo loads for rifles. As long as your handload has enough energy to push the bullet out if the barrel you are good to go.

To make my point, go to the Hodgdon Load Data Site and look at the .357 Magnum under both the handgun section and rifle section. You will see the powders and charge weights are identical in both sections and only the velocity entries are different. The loads are not different at all.

 

[RealGun]

I'm at pass here. Why are so many here thinking you need to change your .38 Special load when shot in a levergun? If there were a real difference the commercial ammo manufacturers would be selling different handgun ammo loads for rifles. As long as your handload has enough energy to push the bullet out if the barrel you are good to go.

To make my point, go to the Hodgdon Load Data Site and look at the .357 Magnum under both the handgun section and rifle section. You will see the powders and charge weights are identical in both sections and only the velocity entries are different. The loads are not different at all.

If there were 38 Special rifles instead of 357 Magnums shooting 38s, the commercial ammo makers might be interested. In any case, if I was going to push 38 Special hard, I would look for +p brass or buy +p ammo.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

If there were 38 Special rifles instead of 357 Magnums shooting 38s, the commercial ammo makers might be interested. In any case, if I was going to push 38 Special hard, I would look for +p brass or buy +p ammo.

There is no difference between standard .38 Special brass that the brass marked +P so no need to use +P brass. I try to just in case someone other than me gets a hold of the ammo sometime in the future when I'm no longer around.

 

[RealGun]

There is no difference between standard .38 Special brass that the brass marked +P so no need to use +P brass. I try to just in case someone other than me gets a hold of the ammo sometime in the future when I'm no longer around.

I would use +p brass anyway, because it identifies the load in case of any confusion and what to avoid shooting in a handgun unless up for it.

 

[bluetopper]

For a nice lever gun load with 38 cases, fill the brass up with 2400 powder up to where the bottom of the bullet will be seated.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

lefteye42 "Need load data for 38 Spl, to be fired in Winchester 94, chambered for 357 Magnum."

It is not clear to me if the OP wants .38 Spl load data or .357 Mag level load data for a 94 using .38 Spl cases.

I use factory ammo and handload for my .357 Ruger Security Six (4" barrel) and .357 Rossi LSI Puma (20" barrel);
From the rifle, factory .357 Mag that would splat on my swinger target when fired from the revolver, when fired from the carbine they crater the face and show a bulge on the back. .38 Spl does not show me a dramatic increase in velocity like that, but there is some increase.

I know the temptation to use my huge cache of .38 Spl brass for more powerful loads for my .357 revolver and carbine. I have fewer .38 Spl +P and .357 Mag brass. I have learned to use brass marked ".38 Spl" for mild .38 Spl loads only; I have J frame size .38s I do not want to stretch. I reserve brass marked ".38 Spl P+" and ".357 Mag" for loads beyond standard .38 Spl and I label the boxes for all the handloads with bullet, powder, charge, and primer info. I plan on using .357 Mag brass only for any rifle load development.

 

[WelshShooter]

In my Marlin I shoot 158gr Lead Truncated Cone bullets using Ramshot True Blue in .357 magnum cases. I used the load data from Ramshot's website for a .38spl, but in a .357mag case to keep within range limitations for velocity. I've fired almost a fully pound of this powder (at 5.0gr that's 1,400 rounds per pound) with zero "squibs" whereby the bullet did not leave the barrel. Accuracy is excellent too, one ragged hole at 25m.

 

[RealGun]

For a nice lever gun load with 38 cases, fill the brass up with 2400 powder up to where the bottom of the bullet will be seated.

No thanks. Too much of a SWAG and way beyond what 38 was meant to do from what I see. Is there performance data for this? I tried what you suggest, eyeballing a 38 case and bullet, and got at least 11.2 gr, which is within range of the minimum 357 Magnum load. The only load published by Alliant that I found was 7.1 gr for a 200 gr bullet, which I suppose might be about 8 gr for a 158 bullet at similar pressure.