WSF is not in Quickloads yet. I believe that is a relatively new powder.
The other three PowerPistol, Blue Dot and Longshot are.
38 Special Brass with OAL of 1.62-inch with your 215gr bullet with a pressure limit of 20 KPSI
BLUE DOT 6.8gr, 796 fps, 80.1% burn in a 4-inch barrel
POWER PISTOL 5.2gr, 795 fps, 90.8% burn in a 4-inch barrel
Longshot 5.2gr, 768 fps, 97.3% burn in a 4-inch barrel
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I finally got to the range for a long afternoon on Wednesday and was pleased to find that after a few years neglected in it's box in the garage, my chrono still worked (although it's Bluetooth transmitter will no longer talk to my phone, so data recording was slow and manual). All of these were in once-fired Starline .38 Special brass with S&B standard pistol primers, fired from a S&W Model 19-3 with 6" barrel.
For the highest loads I tried, here are the numbers with the 358627 bullets:
5.2 grains Longshot (9 rounds recorded) mean = 765 fps, SD = 22, ES = 70
5.2 grains Power Pistol (12 rounds) mean = 783 fps, SD = 14, ES =36
Interestingly, the extra 2" of barrel didn't give any velocity over the 4" prediction for these. I was having trouble with all groups (except .22LR) with vertical stringing, which I think indicates that my technique shooting off an improvised rest (an old towel rolled up and stuffed in a detached pant leg) was inconsistent. Laterally, the Power Pistol group was the best I had all day, and I'll probably repeat those for general use with this bullet.
Out of curiosity, I may repeat a few rounds with Longshot and magnum primers, or go up a few tenths more in the charge, to see if those changes make it any more consistent. However, Power Pistol seems to meter better for me than Longshot, and I don't really want to weigh every charge...
I was also kindly given some Quickload calculations for the classic Keith 358429 bullet (which should probably get it's own thread, but I'm putting it here because I'm lazy, and I like to see all the numbers with these two powders in one place). In my 6" barrel, all of these picked up around 50 fps over the prediction for a 4" barrel, except the higher charge of Power Pistol which came in exactly at the 4" prediction.
20 KPSI predicted loads:
6.0 grains Longshot (9 rounds) mean = 930 fps, SD = 25, ES = 78
6.1 grains Power Pistol (9 rounds) mean = 957 fps, SD = 17, ES = 56
The group above with Longshot was pretty good. Power Pistol not so much, but that's maybe my spastic technique.
25 KPSI predicted loads (WARNING, this is +P+ in .38 Special, do not do this!):
6.5 grains Longshot (15 rounds) mean = 1017 fps, SD = 12, ES = 35
6.5 grains Power Pistol (11 rounds) mean = 1007 fps, SD = 21, ES = 65
Both of these groups were fairly promising. Drawing any conclusions from such small data sets would be a mistake, but it does look like Longshot with this bullet at the higher pressure could be a keeper.
GeoDudeFlorida kindly gave me some extra .357 brass, so it would be interesting to see if I can get to the same pressure level and nice behavior with Longshot in the "proper" case without it getting too loud and kicky or going supersonic, for all the difference that makes (probably none?). I wasted half that gift filling them with Xtreme plated 158 grain SWCs which did not show any accuracy that was gratifying. Gotta blaze through the rest of those so I can reload them with something better.
I should make up some bigger batches of a couple of these loads and try shooting more standing on my hind legs to see if I can do them justice.
