Unique Find

My chronograph got stolen last fall when some crack head decided the little shed next to my backyard range was a treasure chest. It was actually a junk collecting building for a hording 90 year old mother and what he did was just scatter junk out in the yard. I'm sure he had no clue what the chronograph was and it probably got thrown out when he could not figure out what he had. I will be getting another one very soon and am looking forward to playing with some loads to see if there is any real difference in velocity from my 8 3/8 inch guns to the 12 inch. So far, I shot it yesterday and today and everything I've shot in it so far is .38 special. Next trip I plan on running so full bore .357 loads through it to see how it acts. It is certainly not a collectable although it is somewhat rare, but I'm having a ball with it right now. Just something new to play with. As my ex wife always said the only difference in men and boys is the size of their toys!

SwampWolf said:

No surprise she's your ex...

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She's my ex because she graded on size of wallet not toys!!!!

Kp321 said:

On a serious note, use caution with light HBWC loads in a barrel that long. They have been known to not make it out of revolver barrels. Would hate to see several stacked up in that twelve incher. Just last year, I had to drill 5 out of a 7" barrel.

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That's why I quit using plated bullets from Berrys and XTreme. They create so much friction, you have to use more powder to get the same velocity of a lead bullet. I normally use HyTek Coated bullets when shooting lead because they are just as clean as plated, cheaper and every bit as accurate. I only use Lead when shooting HBWC's. I had to remove some just like you did, but thankfully only one at a time. I was using Plated DEWC's and they shot fine out of a 4" revolver. I had not chronographed them but they were shooting close to the same point of aim as lead bullets so I assumed I was getting about the same velocity. When I tried the same bullets with a 8 3/8" revolver, the 2nd one was a squib. After removing the bullet, as I continued to shoot, about 1 out of 5 was a squib and the accuracy was way off. I assumed that when I loaded them I had a powder drop problem and didn't catch it. I went back home and pulled about 30 bullets but all had powder. Of course it was hard to measure using a puller. It set me back for a few minutes trying to figure what was going on and I started researching and that's when I discovered that plated run a lot slower than lead. Got out the chronograph and there was a huge difference mainly in the low velocity target loads around 800fps for lead was giving me 700-750 for plated in a 4". I didn't see as much difference in the loads I shot at 75-100 yards that were pushing 1000-1100 fps. No more plated for me. Especially out of long barrels. I couldn't imagine having to remove one out of a 12"