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Old September 25, 2010, 10:49 PM   #1
3leggeddog
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Powder for a .357

My Lyman #55 powder measuer doesnt consistently drop the same gr. of powder with Unique,but does good with Bullseye. My question is what other powders are "Ball Powder" that will work good for a .357 and .38 special ???
Or what will measuer consistently for me ?? Thanks for your help...
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Old September 25, 2010, 11:14 PM   #2
Mike Irwin
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WW 231 is fantastic for .38 Special and for mid-power .357 loads.

For full power .357 I use WW 296.

Other powders that will work equally well are HP38 and H110, AAs 2, 5, 7, and 9, and I suspect that Hodgdon Universal or Clays would also be a good choice.

I recently started loading 7.5 grains of Universal in my .45 Long Colt and am very pleased with the results.
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Old September 26, 2010, 12:11 AM   #3
Sport45
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My Lyman 55 works very well with extruded rifle powders but choked big-time on TAC. I haven't tried it with handgun powders. How bad is its repeatability with Unique? My experience is that +/- 0.2 gr of Unique gives me about the same accuracy spread as +/- 0.1gr of other pistol powders. When I set up the powder measure on my 550b with Unique I don't weigh single charges. I'll throw 5 or so into my powder pan and set the measure so the average of the throws is correct.
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Old September 26, 2010, 12:35 AM   #4
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If it works with Bullseye, it'll work with Power Pistol. They are the same powder except for the burn rate.

WSF is a good powder for both .357 and .38, but there's no published load data for it. You have to just use Herco load data and be careful.

AA#7 is one of my favorite powders for heavy loads in .357 with cast bullets. I haven't tried it in .38 because I know it's really too slow (about like Blue Dot) -- but it will work. AA#7 measures about like water.
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Old September 26, 2010, 12:46 AM   #5
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Winchester 231 (or Hodgdon HP38) is a great fast powder for light-medium loads in both cartridges. Hodgdon Universal is a medium burning flake but much smaller than those in Unique.

W296/H110 is also a ball powder, and on the slow end for the magnum loads.
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Old September 26, 2010, 01:19 AM   #6
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Alliant’s new 300MP meters better than any other pistol powder I have ever used. 21 grains behind a 125 grain JHP just fills the case with no compression. Impressive velocity too.
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