how low can you go?

[skizzums]

my partner at work lives in a neighborhood where his neighbor are cool with us going there on our breaks and shooting the 22 in the back yard, nothing big and loud, but 22s, right? so we noticed the other day that the lever action 357 is mighty quiet shooting lead 38s, almost as quiet as the 22, so i spent all day trying to make the quietest round possible for plinking at his house, i started at the norm 3gr under a 158gr SWC and just kkept dropping it until it wouldnt make it outta the barrel, the results amazed me
O NOT TRY THESE LOADS, THESE ARE WAY UNDER PUBLISHED mIN LOAD:
i would load a round and shoot it, lower the charge, load a round and shoot it, this went on for hours, i finally stopped dropping the charge(not because it would get stuck, just no need to go lower)


so i am at 1gr of hp38 in 38spl case out of a 20in barrell with a heavy crimp, i am actually having better accuracy than my goto load of 3gr at 40yards, still able to hit juice boxes, cans and whatever, just how low can you take a charge? i am sure the longer barrel helps and the heavier crimp too


and even after all that distance, it still has enough velocity to blow through the cedar fence and lodge into the trees behind it

[skizzums]

not sure the point i am making, just amazed that 1gr of powder can make a nice shooting bullet, and curious as to how low have you gone? obviously i could go under a grain if i wanted to stay at it

purely educational, not recommended

[rclark]

purely educational, not recommended

Why not? All you are developing is 'gallery' loads. As long as they get out the end of the barrel your fine. If they don't, pound 'em out as you went to low . Not sure if the heavy crimp is buying you anything except shorter case life. The crimp really is intended to not allow the bullet to move in the case under 'heavy' recoil. Case tention on the bullet is suffiecent. Might want to do some 'testing' while you are at it .

[skizzums]

well, i figured the crimp may give me a little bit more initial pressure to get it started, purely speculative of course

[Wreck-n-Crew]

I have had bullets leave the barrel in a 9mm on more than one occasion with no powder at all. . What did surprise me was that the bullet had enough energy (the one you shot) to go through the board in the fence like it did. But it also goes to show how a heavier bullet fairs with so little velocity.

I was at the range yesterday with a friend who moved into town from THR and he had some powder puff loads he was shooting in his 45 LC. Heck you could see the bullet moving @ 650 FPS because the bullet was shiny, big and glimmering off of the sun.

[nemesiss45]

I remember seeing a .22 LR round advertised as extremely quiet, which had no powder, only prime compound.... never tried them though

Edit: aguila colibi... I looked it up

[ghbucky01]

I remember seeing a .22 LR round advertised as extremely quiet, which had no powder, only prime compound.... never tried them though

Edit: aguila colibi... I looked it up

I've seen people claim on forums that they used those powderless rounds to practice in their basement.

Not this kid!!!!!!!!

[Nick_C_S]

Pretty neat read. Interesting. It just goes to show how easily lead slides through barrels (as opposed to jacketed). I would have never guessed. I would still rather doubt those loads would clear a long barreled revolver - or maybe even a short one, for that matter. The barrel/cylinder gap would bleed off a critical amount of gas.

I'm with rclark on the crimp. The heavy roll crimp is serving only to shorten your brass life. Ideally, you should go with a light-medium taper crimp. I know I'm drifting off the subject, but I recommend a taper crimp die for anybody loads a lot of lead 38's. A TCD not necessarily the right crimp for every 38 lead loading, but it works well for a lot of situations.

[Clark]

I have been working on quiet guns for 20 years.

To get BB gun quiet:
1) CB short in 22 rifle with 24" barrel.
2) 22 sub sonic in 22 rifle with 48" barrel made with two barrels in series
3) 45/70 with 1 gr powder and bullet seated deep in the case to compress the powder
4) 45/70 with 1 gr powder and case filled with metal except long flash hole. This allows bullet to be jammed into rifling for better gas seal and better accuracy.
5) 50CB wildcat based on 56/50 brass cut down to 0.45" long with 24" barrel.
6) 50CB wildcat with 48" barrel made with two barrels.



Gotta have that compressed powder for the large expansion ratio efficiency and high peak pressure.

That means no air in the case.

[ATPBULLETS]

Amazing....thru the fence and lodged in the tree...out of 1gr of powder...

[gunslinger2000]

It has been 20 years since I did any serious reloading and this thread raises a question. Back then we were constantly warned that squib loads would produce excessive pressures. Is this still an issue? I solved the problem for myself by using black powder. LOL. Gunslinger

[bedbugbilly]

Interesting post! It makes you wonder how low you could go before you got squibs? I know from experience (don't ask ) that a standard pistol primer had enough 'oomph" to seat a 148 gr WC in the barrel of my Smith 36 just past the forcing cone. (Yep . . I got interrupted and forgot to drop a charge so had one loaded without powder - taught me a valuable lesson).

I didn't see a mention of what primer you were using? Standard or Magnum? If standard, I'm wondering if switching to a Magnum would give you more pressure - even maybe drop the load more? I'm not advocating that . . just crossed my mind in regards to the primers you were using?

[skizzums]

standard wolf primer, did a little more testing today, went down to 0,8gr and shot into stack of wood flooring, it went fives sheets of wood deep on less than one grain from 30yards, ill give ya some pics soon, raaining now

btw, the bullets have almost zero deformity, but stll had impressive penetration, apparently 1pound of hp38 can last for seven thousand bullets(it must be a conspiracy)

[Clark]

A lead ball will not get stuck in the bore with just the primer and no powder IF the ball is pushed down to the case web when seated.


This is still way too loud in a 1911, because the barrel volume is too low.

[Salmoneye]

I am NOT recommending this for anyone, but am simply relaying something I have done...

The lowest I have been is 1gr Red Dot in an unresized .30-30 case with a .310" round ball...Tap the ball in sprue up till flush, and then slather on some LLA to seal and lube...My normal load is 2gr Red Dot in the .30-30, and 3gr in the .30-06...



From my 26" barreled Marlin 1893 I can hit a 9" skillet all day at 60 yards...

The divot in the metal is deeper than from a .22LR standard velocity 40 grain bullet...

Stone kills rabbits and woodchucks in the garden, with about the same report as a .22 Short from a rifle...

[Sevens]

From my 26" barreled Marlin 1893 I can hit a 9" skillet all day at 60 yards...

The divot in the metal is deeper than from a .22LR standard velocity 40 grain bullet...

Stone kills rabbits and woodchucks in the garden, with about the same report as a .22 Short from a rifle...

Love it! Terrific idea and implementation of it.

[Wreck-n-Crew]

. Is this sIt has been 20 years since I did any serious reloading and this thread raises a question. Back then we were constantly warned that squib loads would produce excessive pressurestill an issue?

Only if you shoot another bullet into the squibbed barrel!

[reloader28]

I loaded some 100gr cast in 38spl from a 357 pistol with (I think) a little over 1gr of Bullseye.
The bullet bounced of the target and I didnt go any lower. Shot pretty accurate though.

[Jeff2131]

Hey skizzums...just curious, does that rossi have issues feeding 357? Does it require you to baby the round into place or does the action work smooth and.flawlessly?

[Unclenick]

As rclark said, these are basically gallery loads. The same load levels are used by many for firelapping barrels.

As to apparent high pressure events, this actually can be a concern with enough case volume. It's rare, though. It seems to be more prone to happen with tiny charges of slow rifle powders in very large case volumes. Getting below about 60% case fill with slow powders has been reported to cause pressure irregularities for some powders. You can see this happening at more like 30% fill for IMR3031 in Dr. Lloyd Brownell's work under a DuPont grant in the 1960's (pages 53 and 54 as numbered in the publication; pages 64 and 65 as Acrobat reader counts them). In that instance the peak irregularity was not dangerous in any way, but you sure wouldn't want to try to get accuracy out of the load.

Fast pistol powders seldom garner such damage reports. I'm only aware of two reported pistol powder issues, and the first proved to be false. It was called "Bullseye Surprise". Bullseye Surprise was the name resulting from reports of guns blown up by standard 2.5-3.0 grain Bullseye charges in .38 Special wadcutter loads. Thorough investigation proved accidental double charges coupled with handloaders in denial about their ability to make an accidental double charge that was the real problem.

The other is a report of a single incident at the Finnish Gunwriter's site, where there is a description of a .308 Winchester bolt rifle blown apart by a 0.2 gram (3.1 grain) charge of VV N320, which is a pistol powder between Bullseye and Hodgdon Universal in relative burn rate. This is a case in which a double charge would do no harm and therefore does not explain the issue, as the case is large enough and the peak pressure rating high enough that you'd need to quintuple that throw weight just to approach normal peak pressure.

I've seen several theoretical explanations for why such an event is even possible. The most common involve detonation. If that were to happen to the whole powder mass collected at one place, a tiny crack could be started adjacent to the powder mass in the steel. Once you have such a crack, it takes relatively little pressure to propagate it, which explains why such a small volume of propellant gas could have this effect at all. However, this is a rare event and not reliably reproducible in any way I am aware of. The load density usually is under 20% when it is reported for rifle powders, and that N320 load was about 11% fill.

The general solution suggested to avoid the large case problem is to stuff some polyester pillow ticking or other filler down into the case to hold the powder against the flashhole and thus get it to light normally. Or do as Clark suggested for round ball, and seat the projectile down to where the powder space is small, which also raises peak pressure to help get the ball rolling, so to speak. Flush seated wadcutters do exactly that in the .38 Special. With a flush seated wadcutter even 1.0 grain of Bullseye is at about 20% fill. Also, you can go from Bullseye to Trail Boss, which not only burns cleaner, but has twice the bulk of Bullseye. QuickLOAD thinks about 1.2 grains of Trail Boss will produce about the same muzzle pressure as 1.0 grain of Bullseye (TB has lower energy content) and will will occupy 46% of the space under a flush seated 148 grain LWC in a .38 Special case, and about 33% seated flush in a .357 case.

You could also run in the other direction. In QuickLOAD, a faster powder, Hodgdon Clays, shows 1 grain under the wadcutter producing the same muzzle pressure in a 20" barrel as 1.0 grain of Bullseye (in other words, it should make the same noise), but it gives you higher peak pressure and cleaner burning and about 20% more case fill (depending on exact bullet make) and about 20% more velocity without additional noise. Just something to consider.

[skizzums]

no jeff, this rossi has been fantastic, i have already put about 500 through it without a single jam, it will even feed the wadcutters as long as it has the silght hump in it

no probs with any 357, pointy, flat, or round

no probs with any 38s, coulda just got lucky, but i always just slam them in

[shooterbob]

I'm going to have to try the 30-30 round ball idea in my contender. 12 in bull barrel. That ought to be a blast. Might have to buy a 357 barrel to try it in also.

[Woodslab]

"The lobber"
357 mag case
125 grain lead fn
2.2 grns titegroup 270 ft/s. Have loaded down to 1.9 and had some squibs we're talking under 200 ft/s. 2.5 grns titegroup 470 ft/s.
6" revolver chrono

[skizzums]

yeah, id be worried to any of this in the revolver, i think i can go down to a gr because of the barrel length