Cast .357 Magnum Loads

Discussion on reloading the 9x18 and any other cartridge
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juniustaylor
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Cast .357 Magnum Loads

Post by juniustaylor »

I got 50# of lead in the other day. I paid a little over a dollar a pound which really isn't that bad. I don't bother checking the tire shops as a lot of other folks around here cast and already have dibs. So, I went with an option on eBay. The lead was reclaimed bullet lead from a shooting range. Reclaimed bullet has no real associated hardness because it is anything/everything for alloy mix. On inspection of the ingots they seemed somewhat soft as I could put a small surface scratch using my fingernail.

So, I threw a few random pieces of bullet lead from other cast bullets I had found and 2 ingots in my Lee 4# furnace. I cast them using a Lee micro-band type mold and dropped them in water to water-quench them hoping for increased hardness. I got through about 100+ bullets until I was about out of lead in the pot and it was getting difficult to get it into my ladle. I looked them over and they were AWFUL!!! Wrinkles galore... the pot was not hot enough so the lead was cooling fast as it went into the mold cavities. So, I had to take all of them out of the water, and throw them back into the pot to melt them down. This time I turned the control from 5.5 up to 7.5. Got them re-cast and they turned out much better. Some were a tad frosted in places but looked good otherwise. They were water-quenched as well. I threw them in a container with some Lee Liquid Alox and let them dry on wax paper for the night.

Woke up this morning and got my Lee .358" sizing die out and ran them all through. Got out a couple load manuals to study the various powders that could be used and I settled on Bullseye because "a little goes a long way". Charges of Bullseye were mixed in the load manuals... some said 4.2 grains min and 4.8 grains max and others showed the minimum as 4.8 grains. So, I figured I'd just do it how I wanted and I settled on 4.7 grains. I seated the bullets to 1.590" which took up the entire bullet. I wiped off the excess Alox from the bullets after all had been seated so they would be nice and shiny. Hardness seemed pretty good, I couldn't get any scratch in the surface of the completed bullet with my fingernail.

I was very pleased at the range. They performed very well in my opinion. I shot it at 7, 15, 25, and 50 yards. All shots at 7, 15, and 25 yards were fired from a standing, unsupported position. 25 yard shots didn't make it on the paper for some reason, not sure if they were shooting farther left and if it were my fault. The shots at 7 and 15 are a bit left but when I shot the gun at 50 yards from the bench semi-supported, I was hitting relatively straight. Hit a pop can a few times after I figured out a good sight picture to compensate for the bullet drop.

Anyway, time for pictures...
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juniustaylor
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Re: Cast .357 Magnum Loads

Post by juniustaylor »

Cleaned the revolver up tonight before bed. It is a Ruger NM Vaquero. Cleanup did not seem that bad. Initial inspection did show there were some lead streaks in the barrel but it did not look too bad. I sprayed some Rem-Oil in the bore, ran a bronze brush through 10 passes, followed up with a patch with some old Outer's solvent. Repeated this process again and the lead was gone.

I found it actually took the same amount of time had I shot jacketed bullets through it. When I clean a gun after jacketed bullets, it is usually highly sooty and it seems to take a lot of passes with patches to get it clean. I noticed little soot with these cast bullets. Either the lead does a good job cleaning the barrel each shot, the Lee Alox helps, or Bullseye powder isn't too sooty. I'm glad it all cleaned up nicely and it's ready for another outing after I load up some more of these!!!

I did tap on the front sight a bit because it appeared to be cocked right which would cause the gun to shoot to the left as the shooter would move the barrel left to get the top of the front sight to line up. It seems fairly straight now. Will have to see if it improves the bullet impact next time.
US Air Force Veteran - OEF/OIF
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