.38 special bullet fit

[spacecoast]

I'm looking to order some 148 gr. DEWC bullets for my Model 686, looking for max. accuracy and repeatability for Bullseye shooting (very mild loads). I found another thread online that mentioned that the bullets should fit snugly in the barrel end of the cylinder for best results. I already have been reloading and shooting some locally-made DEWCs that are supposed to measure .357, but I cannot make them fit into the chambers of either gun, whereas all the .357 plated and JHP bullets I have do fit in snugly (these were ordered from both Berrys and Rocky Mountain Reloading).

Should I assume that the DEWCs I have are .358, and order some that are .357? I'm looking to order a couple thousand, so I'd like to get the right thing.

Thanks in advance...

[MissouriBullet]

Any cast bullet manufacturer should provide the exact sized-to diameter of the bullets they offer. If you have a stock barrel, the bullets you want should have a nominal .358 diameter.

[Edward429451]

You play a fun game of roulette when you load without calipers my friend...

Lead boolits are typivally sized .001 to .002 over nominal for best performance.

[Casimer]

Cast lead bullets tend to be larger than jacketed - .358 is typical. The rule of thumb is that they should be .001" over the bore's groove diameter.

Try swaged bullets if you're looking for BE level accuracy - http://magnusbullets.com/store/page11.html

[TXGunNut]

Precision Delta of Ruleville, MS used to make some very good swaged lead HBWC 38 bullets, suspect they still do. They make a bullet based on the old Star bullet. Good enough for Phillip Hemphill, good enough for me!

[spacecoast]

Thanks for the feedback, what I'm hearing is that cast bullets are sized slightly bigger than jacketed or plated, which makes sense given the malleability of soft lead.

From the manufacturers' web sites, I have the choice of buying either .357 or .358 WCs, what I'm trying to decide is which to buy given the information I have, which is that .357 jacketed or plated bullets fit snugly in the ends of the chambers, and that a .357 lead bullet (local commercial manufacturer) does not. I do not have precision calipers per se, but the ones I do have helped me confirm that the lead bullets have a slightly larger diameter than the jacketed ones, even though they both say .357 in the specs. The gun and barrel are stock.

Is there enough info to make a rational choice? I'm tempted to buy a thousand of each, see if one works better than the other and use the other for practice.

Added Note - saw that MissouriBullet commented that I should buy .358 for stock barrels, am planning to do that (from Missouri Bullet Co.)

[Casimer]

Is there enough info to make a rational choice? I'm tempted to buy a thousand of each, see if one works better than the other and use the other for practice.

That's not a bad idea.

If you really want to get into precision bullet matching, you're going to need to get precise measurements of your bore and chambers, specifically the throats. This will give you your ideal bullet size, and tell you whether the throat and bore diameters are compatible. These should all be the same size, ideally.