Range Report: Shooting Cast 380 bullets in a 38sp

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Anmut

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I originally cast these 104g bullets for a 380, but loaded them up in 38sp. to see how they shot. Load 104g cast RN over 4.4g Hodgen HP-38, CCI SPP. I used my 64-3 and shot from a rest at 15 yards.

One of the issues I ran into right away was I forgot my damn glasses. I'm nearsighted so at 15yds I was shooting at a pretty blurry target. I was able to use the lines on the target to line up my shots but I think with my glasses these would do better. Looks like best group was 2.5" (group 3) or 2.25" (group 4 if you don't count the one I have labeled as "jerked."

No obvious leading in the barrel. I'm going to load some more and take them out to the inlaws house to chrony them, but I'm guessing by the load data they're somewhere between 900-1100fps.

Please post your "***'s" and other comments below. :)
 

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what size are the cast bullets? ive seen cast bullets for .380/9mm being used at .360 inches.
 
They were supposed to cast at .356, but after lube most of them averaged .357.
 
Don't you know you simply can't shoot .380 pistol bullets in a .38 Special revolver???? :banghead:

Good thing you didn't read all the interweb expert advice before doing it so well! :D

rc
 
This was posted a couple years ago by me on the Cast Boolit Board. Sorry but the copy/paste of the URL doesn't let you enlarge the pictures

Ranch Dog .380 bullet /.38 spl
I love to test boundaries and try new things. I bought the RD 100 rnfp for my Keltec .380 and it works great there as it was designed to do. It also works great in my K-38 as a plinker/target bullet. Over the past week I shot it a lot indoors at 50' and was impressed with the accuracy. Benched indoors at 50' for 6 six shot groups it averaged 3/4". We warmed up today to 47 deg so I took it outside to try it at 50 yds. I shot 4 six shot groups that averaged 2.6"@ 50 yds and one 12 shot that went 2 1/4" at the same distance. It is a consistent 2-2.5" performer. I just grabbed 4.5/Bullseye out of the air as it works great with the Lee 120TC and RCBS TC which both shoot 2" or less at 50 yds. What was surprising was that velocity was almost 100 fps LESS with the 100 gr as opposed to the 120gr. Lee at only 848 FPS. There obviously isn't much bullet in the case for bullet pull with the little .380 bullet. It's probably halfway down the barrel from the primer! Ballistics were fairly uniform with a 56' ES and 18 SD, not great but fairly good. All in all a good day and thought I would share the results.

PS I use the clubs used .22 targets for my 50 yd group shooting, that's why the .22 holes in the target.


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LOL RCmodel, not really sure if yer fer it or again it, but it did shoot pretty well!
 
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