Your Favorite handloads?

[Admin]

Well, I bit the bullet (haha) and started down the slippery slope of "saving money" by handloading... (really surprising I didn't do it more earnestly years ago... but I had friends who did, and always got my ammo for component cost)

Right now, I'm starting to load for .45 acp, and the little .22 hornet (dang it OverKill, you talked me into getting one with your talk in the other thread)

I've got all my components for .45 down, still looking for small rifle primers for the hornet, NOBODY has them around town, or online.. yikes.

For the .45 I'm casting 200 gr SWC's and 225gr RN's

For the .22 hornet, I'm waiting on my mold to get here, and started making my own, so I have a little more flexibility.

Anybody have any suggestions for good handloads for either cartridge? or anybody want to share their favorite loads for other cartridges?

[OVERKILL]

 Primers are kinda rough to find right now (and bullets and powder) I'm giving serious thought to investing in a flintlock. A big flash, a quick sizzle, a loud boom, another flash and about 30 cubic feet of smoke (with a light load), what's not to love. I can walk through the yard after a good rain and find enough flint to last a year or  two, sounds like a good long term zombie survival game as well.

 I'll give you my favorite powders at least.
In 45 ACP I like Bullseye and Red Dot (both produced by Alliant/ATK). Before lead shot got really expensive (thankfully it's started to drop a little bit) I used to shoot a lot of clays and kept Red Dot around as it is a very good powder for light 12 GA shells up to 1 1/8 oz and uses fairly low charge weights. When I first started loading 45 ACP that and Accurate #2 were the only suitable powders I had on hand. I had a huge amount of Red Dot so I decided to burn a little up with 230 FMJ's. The load was simple, the .7cc dipper that came with my LEE dies (claimed 5.0 grains but threw more like 4., a quick look at a calculator says at 5 grains per load you can load 1400 rounds with a pound of powder, so imagine how long an 8lb keg would last. Listed velocity was 910 FPS with 5.0 grains (Per LEE's modern reloading and Alliant's old data before SPEER/ATK changed it all), I didn't have a chronograph at the time, but don't think mine were going that fast, probably no more than 850, but maybe that gives me an excuse to load a few and test 'em. The load was cheap, powerful, accurate and cycled through every gun I put them through, and anybody who had a 45 ACP and would let me shoot it had a few put through it, 3 1911's, a Hi Point and an H&K (of course the SAA clone didn't jam with them .
 Another favorite was Bullseye. I used it with the LEE TL452-230-2R cast bullet. Charge was again 5.0 grains, but the .5cc dipper is used for this powder. Somewhere around here I do have chrono data for this load ( the book claims 905, but velocities were only a shade over 800 if I remember correctly, virtually identical from the 5.5" barrel of an EMF New Dakota [SAA clone] and the 4.5" barrel of a Hi Point).

 On the 22 Hornet front, I've sadly only used one load thus far. I bought a few Sierra 45 gr bullets (made especially for the sweet little Hornet) and a few 30 gr Hornady's (made for the 22 WMR but sold as blemished bullets from MidwayUSA), but the only ones I've used are some Hornady 55 gr FMJBT's I bought at a really good price. I loaded a few in front of 12.0 grains of Hodgdon's Lil' Gun to see if they'd even stabilize in my NEF, they did so good I haven't tried any of the other bullets yet or different powders, sadly out of pure laziness I haven't chronoed these yet either, but Hodgdon's 2008 manual lists them at 2551 fps (and that's the startin load!), my barrel is a couple inches shorter than the 24" barrel listed to gather the data, but I need to see how fast mine are going. Lil' Gun has been excellent in the 410 in both 2 1/2 and 3" loads, 357 Magnum, 44 Magnum and my absolute favorite with any bullet in the 32 H&R Magnum.
 Well I've rambled on too long, hope some of this helps.

[Admin]

Hey OverKill,

Thanks for the load ideas!

I'll have to look at the .45 acp stuff a little harder, the .22 hornet is what I'm really wanting to focus on for the moment though... I need to find some hodgdon's lil'gun, it seems to be the bee's knee's for this little cartridge from everything I keep reading. even at 14 grns, I'd be getting 500 shots per pound, and from everything I can tell, the gun should be pretty happy with as much powder as I can stuff in a case, and have no pressure problems!

I ordered a bullet mold for the hornet, but I'm not sure it's gonna stabilize in my twist. The Stevens probably has a 1-16" twist, and I got a 55gr mold... so I'll have to play with it. I've also fired up the mill and lathe, an started to build my own mold, though I don't know how that'll turn out, I'm aiming for about a 35gr flat point, and a 30gr hollow point from a 2 cavity mold.

I've got a bullet sizing die, the requisite press, reloading dies and various other goodies on the way from wideners, so I'll have to wait for that all to show up before I can start to load for the hornet anyways, so in the mean time, I've got to secure some powder, and some primers... I think I'm gonna go ahead and buy a box of ammo at $49 just so I can at least shoot the gun... it's so pretty with it's new front sight! (and a shameless plug for Numrich, over at http://e-gunparts.com I placed the order Friday afternoon, and I had the parts Monday morning!)

[OVERKILL]

 Yeah, I should have mentioned my Hornet has a 1 in 12" twist. A 1 in 14" or 1 in 16" may not stabilize the longer bullets. What bullet mold do you have?
 I have Alliant 2400, Hodgdon H110, IMR 4227 and Accurate 1680 on hand, if I get around to testing any of these with the lighter bullets I'll let you know the results.

[Admin]

The mold is the nei #4, it's a 55grn pointed gas check design... Probably not gonna be
any good in the hornet, but molds for .22 are so darned hard to find in general, and even worse right now, when I had the opportunity to buy it, I did. I got 200 cases and some gas checks from the same guy, all for about the price of the nei mold from nei. I figure if all else fails, I can sell or trade the mold...

[OVERKILL]

http://www.midsouthshooterssupply.com/item.asp?sku=0000622BATOR

 I thought this one would be pretty good in the 22 Hornet. It's the same weight but with the flat nose should do better in rifles with a slower twist rate. I haven't got around to ordering one. I reckon they wait until they have enough back orders and then have a batch made.

[Admin]

The Bator mold looks interesting, right now they're showing expected delivery at the end of September though... I don't want to wait that long!

I'm gonna try and figure out this whole machining thing enough to make a couple molds... I really just need to spend the time on it to do it, and if I screw it up... oh well.

I just need to find a few components, then I can start to loading, something anyways...

[OVERKILL]

 Any news on the handloading front? I got a chance to test out a few loads and just never did post them. With the 30gr Hornady V-Max's 2400 blew all the other powders away in accuracy and consistency. I also got some 40gr Sierras and tested those and the 45gr Hornet bullets. 2400 gave the best accuracy with the 40gr and I think H110 wasn't far behind. At the 45gr mark is where the Lil' Gun started to shine, but it seems if I remember correctly H110 and 2400 did good too. IMR 4227 didn't seem to do well with any of them, I figured it was due to the large granule size (in comparison to case size anyway). AA1680 seemed to give good velocity, but I couldn't seem to get the tack driving accuracy out of it as other powders, don't even have a clue as to why. I'll have to scrounge through my books to find specifics on charge weights and groups and distance.

[Admin]

Well, I've actually done a good bit of hand-loading over the last year or so.

As far as the hornet, I hit a wall with it and without a scope I felt I couldn't find the accuracy I was looking for, and have moved towards more loading for handguns of late.

I have a .44 magnum that I use and load for a lot, I'm probably the most involved in loading for it, I cast my own bullets for it, and even swage my own jacketed bullets. I've got a recipe for a swaged jacketed bullet for that Ruger Super-Blackhawk that pushes a 165 grain pre-fragmented bullet (AKA ZOmbie stopper) at almost 2,000 FPS out of it's 7.5" barrel. The M-E on that round is through the roof, as is the terminal effect.

I've been loading for and shooting the .45's a lot lately as well. I expect to finish a 1911 Caspian build in the next month or so.

And I've been having a lot of fun with the little and quite old .32 S&W long cartridge. It's not much of a man, or Zombie, stopper, but it's great for small game and soda cans! It's really economical to load, in fact, it probably costs less than the .22 LR to shoot with today's ammo prices VS my component prices. It anchors squirrels and rabbits far more convincingly than the .22 does as well. I'm working on a single shot .32 S&W long rifle.

[OVERKILL]

 The 44 Magnum is definitely a handloaders cartridge with the price of the ammo, and also the price of bullets makes casting a near must too. I lucked up and found a LEE hollow point gas check mould for it a while back. It looks like the C429-240-SWC , but with my alloy and the hunk of lead missing in the front for the hollow point, they come up about 20 grains light after lube and gas check. I'd like to hear more about your bullet swaging as well.
 The 32 S&W Long is a favorite of mine as well, and just 32's in general, my first pistol was a 32 Long and my first 2 moulds were for a 32 and a 50 caliber muzzleloader. The 50 cal mould payed for its self in about an hour, the 32 took a while longer since I was getting MagTech 98gr LRN bullets about $4.00/100 in bulk at the time. I shot that little Harrington & Richardson so much I wore the ratchet out and got it out of time, lead and powder go a long way in that round and it's easy to shoot a lot. Now, if I could find a good source of free lead again.

[Admin]

No kidding about the cost of .44 mag ammo. I bought 1 box right after getting the gun, and I think it was something like $35 for 50 rounds... when I load my own, I think it costs me about $3 to load 50... makes shooting way more practical.

The bullets I swage I make from .40 S&W Brass, I put them in a collet in the bench lathe, and part off the rim. After parting I anneal the brass. I fill the brass most of the way up with no 9 shot and set a piece of buck-shot on top. I weigh them as I'm making them, and before I swage I adjust the weight of the finished bullet by adding or removing pieces of shot. When I swage them, the buck-shot closes the top of the bullet and prevents the shot from leaking out.

The brass Jacket is thin and fragile, and breaks up immediately when it impacts anything. The buck-shot carries enough energy to punch through thin bone (like the skull of a Zombie) and the shot disperses, dumping all of the bullets energy right then and there.

My load is within the load book, I'm using IMR 800X powder, which is hard to handle sometimes, as metering is difficult. but it pushes my 170 grain bullet at almost 2000 FPS from my ruger's barrel, for right at 1480 FT LBS of energy.

The concept is that the bullet has enough power and penetration to kill a Zombie by scrambling it's brain with a head shot, but a hit elsewhere in the Zombie's body will cause as much damage as possible to slow it's progress.

I've got the same .44 Lee Hollow point mold, it does a great job!

[OVERKILL]

 That's a really cool idea about swaging 40S&W brass. One of these days I'm going to get around to having some concrete poured (like I swore I was going to do this summer) so I can build a good toolshed/workshop and stock it with a lathe among a few other tools. Might try some stuff like that myself if I ever get the equipment.
 As far as the 800-X goes, I did a test in 40S&W with 180gr bullets. I had loaded 200 rounds and somehow had 10 primers left over so to finish the pack off I loaded 5 rounds with the powder measure I had been using (set to 7.1, but would throw off by -/+ 0.1) and 5 rounds with the charges weighed at 7.1. I chronographed the loads and there was basically no difference in them. It was only 5 rounds each and only one test, but I wouldn't worry a whole lot about inconsistencies in the charges thrown.
 Good to hear you got one of the LEE hollow point moulds as well. I love the LEE system for hollow points. It's about twice three times as fast as the Lyman system, it's a shame LEE quit making them. If you run across any at a reasonable price, especially the 38/357 hollow point, keep me in mind (or just PM me an invoice for what I owe you).
 Since we're on the subject of cast bullets, what's your philosophy on weight? Mine used to be get one slightly light for caliber, so I could cast more bullets per pound of lead. Then I started getting heavy for caliber moulds, figuring if I was limeted to a certain speed with cast bullets I might as well have more mass to get more energy. On occasion, I try to find a mould about the same weight and ( if possible) profile as the jacketed bullets I shoot. I don't guess there's a right or wrong answer, only preferences and opinions.

[Admin]

The "Zombie Stoppers" do a convincing job on milk-jugs full of water, but I really haven't tried them on anything else, the theory is sound though, and it certainly packs a lot of energy in the round. I'm hoping to use it to hunt with later this year. I'd like to see how it does on a wild boar.

As for casting, yeah, I've been looking for one of the lee hollowpoint molds for the 357 myself, but haven't come across a cheap one yet, I've got two for the .44 and one for the .45 though. If I happen onto a cache of the .357 versions, I'll put one in the mail to you. I can also swage jacketed hollow points with the dies I use to make the Zombie stoppers for the .44. I really like the looks of the cramer style molds, I think they'd be even faster than the lee versions, especially since they're multi-cavity! I know there's a guy making 4 or 5 cavity HP molds in several popular calibers using a modified cramer style. They're more money than I have right now, but one day, I'll have a good selection of HP molds...

As far as the bullet weight question, I guess I tend to make that choice based on what my purposes are... For Coyote's and varmints, I tend to use a light for caliber bullet moving at high speed, As the game gets larger, the bullets get slower and heavier. I'm not one of those guys that would try to shoot a water buffalo with a 220 swift, or a prarie dog with a .458 Win-mag though, so calibers are adjusted, along with bullet weights.

I'll be loading up some .32 S&W Long this week, I just got the shell plate for my loadmaster to load the cartridge more quickly. I'll probably load up some .44 mag ammo this week as well.

As for metering the 800X, the only time I really worry about having exact powder weights is when I'm loading for precision rifle (I don't think I've ever used 800x in a rifle actually) or when I'm at the upper limits of my loading Data. I'm not as worried about the 800X, since I'd end up with a light charge, not an over-charge if the flakes did something weird in the powder measure.

I really seem to use a lot of tight-group as well. 5.4 grains of tight-group, under a 200 grain lead bullet sized .452" in .45 ACP through a 1911 seems pretty consistent, accurate, and not punishing, even to fairly new shooters. Tight-group also meters really well, and since you use such small loads, you get a lot more shots out of a lb of it.

[OVERKILL]

 Awesome about the 45 mold, I never even knew they made one. What weight and design is it? I guess I have something else to add to my wish list. How about a link to the guy who makes the cramer type moulds if you have one. I remember a site where a guy would do conversions, but they were only on Lyman and RCBS moulds and I just prefer aluminum. The 44 is the only hollow point mould I have, Id like to have one in at least every pistol caliber I load for at some point in time and at least a 30 caliber rifle mould that would drop bullets at at least 150 grains or heavier. When you also consider some like 45's I'd need one for semis and one for revolvers, and possibly a few different weights, I need a lot of moulds!
 I haven't experimented much with 200 grain bullets in the 45 ACP. I did buy a hundred commercially cast SWC's. I found a dipper load for 45 ACP and 45 COLT and loaded 50 of each just to see how they did. The big 45 didn't like 'em too much, but the little one shot some superb groups with those. I bought another bag of them to do a bit more accuracy testing (the shop I get them at buys in bulk boxes of 500-1,000 bullets and then divvies them up, good way to try things out pretty cheap without committing to having a huge quantity on hand if you don't like them). I also intend to set one or two aside and use the Brinell hardness tester so I can duplicate them as closely as possible. LEE makes a similar mould, of the two 200gr SWC designs, it's the one with the long nose and the standard lube grooves instead of the tumble lube design. At some point I also intend to try the tumble lube design as well, to see if the pistol likes the weight or just the design. It may have just been a fluke too.

[Admin]

Yeah, I hadn't heard of the lee .45 HP mold either until someone offered me one for $15 including shipping one day... needless to say, he had money and I had a mold ASAP. The mold drops a 220 grain slug with the same profile as the 230 gr RN.

The guy making the modified cramer molds goes by "swedenelson" over at http://castboolits.gunloads.com/member.php?u=221 That's his personal profile, and you can PM him and ask him about mold designs, his 4 cavity molds are what I was talking about. They cost about $125 each, but that's still a lot cheaper than buying a mold and having it converted.

As far as the 200 grainers for the .45, did you get leading with the colt loads? My 1911's all seem to like the 200 gr SWC's, but not as much as lee's 200 gr flat round nose bullet. That's a real gem because any 1911 will feed it, and it still punches nice round holes in the paper, and nice big holes in soft stuff. The .45 colt likes that profile too from my experience.

My Daily carry load is a 200gr lee RF bullet over 5.7 grains of tight-group. I'm only getting about 425 ft lbs of energy, but it's a formidable load in my 3" 1911. And I can print 2" groups at 25 yards with that load and gun combo. (chrono tested in that gun)

I won't be casting again for a while, but when I do, I can send you some of the .452 bullets I cast if you want to try them.

Do you load for the .44 mag BTW? I can send you a few Zombie-stoppers if you like to try out as well.