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Old September 7, 2013, 06:13 PM   #1
Nick_C_S
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Jacketed Semi-Wadcutters?

Does anybody know of any company manufacturing 38/357 (.358) Jacketed Semi-Wadcutters any more?

I miss those.

Sometimes (often) I want to shoot a full-house round that still cuts a nice hole in my paper-cardboard target (and not leave half the slug melted in my barrel grooves). Am I the only one? I use to buy/shoot them all the time. Sometimes I swear, once a company finds out I like a product, they discontinue it. I can hear the boardroom meeting now: "Yes, Nick likes these JSWC's. We're definitely going to have get those out of our product line - immediately."
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Old September 7, 2013, 07:30 PM   #2
res45
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I miss those Speer half jacket bullets,my Ruger BH loved those bullets. Sadly nobody make those for commercial sale anymore that I know of.

I stumbled on a partial box of the 158 gr. bullets several years ago but haven't loaded any up as of yet,I still have a good supply of loaded 158 gr. XTP's stashed back.

The hard cast SWC bullets cut nice neat hold in your targets,way back when before I started casting my own bullets I shot the Oregon Trial 158 gr. SWC with full house loads out of my Ruger BH and had no leading issues at all. Those bullets are fairly hard at around 20+ BHN and as long as they fit your cylinder throats you should be able to shoot them without issues.

I only have one 357 mag that gave me any leading problems with plain base cast bullets due to being new an a slightly rough bore from the tooling marks. I solved that problem by using my gas check bullets till I get some rds. through it and it smooths out.
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Old September 7, 2013, 08:00 PM   #3
Nick_C_S
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If I had to guess, they were discontinued by their lawyers.

If they were underloaded, a unique (and very rare) condition where the lead slug could detach from the copper jacket "cup," and the lead would leave the barrel, but the cup would remain in the barrel. The shooter would have the impression that the bullet left the barrel, but the copper cup was still lodged in it.

Common sense would tell you to load them hot - which is exactly what they were for. Otherwise, just shoot lead.
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Old September 7, 2013, 10:51 PM   #4
rwsmith
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Speer HAD one

Speer had a straight jacketed HP that was essentially an SWC but always had a warning not to load lightly because the jacket would stay in the barrel. I don't see any such animal in their #14 reloading manual and I'll bet any such bullet would be hard to find and then probably old stock.
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Old September 8, 2013, 08:07 AM   #5
Brutus
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I believe those are still available in .44 don't know why the .357's were discontinued. Shame to, loaded with 13.5 gr. of 2400 my Python would deliver 1 hole groups. I still have 50 of them left but I just can't bring myself to use them. Guess they've become antiques for others to envy me for.
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