there are ~50 other pistol powders that would work well
^this^
I would say, get what will do what you want for .45 and use the same powder in .38...
....but it might be the same list.
there are ~50 other pistol powders that would work well
Boy I can relate to that, I've gone to get powder thinking I'll try something new only to get home with the same old powderWhen I started reloading the only powder I could find was titegroup.
It works well so I've stuck with it.
I would not start out trying to seat the bullet and crimp the case mouth in one step.
I would seat the bullets with the seater die up high and the seating stem down low.
Then I would crimp the case mouth into the bullet with the die adjusted down low and the seating stem adjusted up high
I got two coworkers with 38/357 revolvers and thinking about reloading for them (I got about 1000 cases saved up).I load using a single stage press - low and slow
Herco seems to perform identical to WSF, but Herco is a medium-large flake powder (about like Unique) and WSF is ball powder (like 231.) Herco fills the case better than WSF (this can be a bad thing with very small cases, there's not enough room for the full powder charge) and WSF meters better. Both are slower than Unique, faster than Power Pistol, and considerably faster than Blue Dot.How does Herco compare to WSF/Power Pistol/Unique?
Modern guns are usually well made to close tolerances so their barrel and throat are usually uniform so the "general rule" is use a .357" jacketed bullet and a .358" lead bullet in the .38 Special.When ordering some bullets tomorrow, what diameter would you recommend for 158gr (.357, .358, .359)? I don't know my barrel diameter. These will be digested by my Ruger SP101, so if any of you fellow SP101 owners could tell me the best way to go that'd be great.
I have a Redding model 3 powder throw with a micro pistol meter charge tube, it's aperture is about .30" it will throw inconsistent charges of Trail Boss down to one forth of the intended charge. This powder throw does not like large flake powders either such as 700x, Unique and Blue Dot for example if I were trying to meter 3.0gr of 700x it may throw a light 2.9 to a heavy 3.1gr with Unique the same deal, looking for 5gr might give 4.8 or 5.3. Powders such as Bullseye it will throw down to 1.3gr every time.Trail Boss can bridge over in many powder measure drop tubes,