Taurus .357 LBR Hand Loading

[Zilberbak]

I have been using my gallery rifle rounds up until now through my Taurus and as I am waiting for the Hendon Summer League stickers to arrive I have started thinking about improving accuracy and wondered if anyone with a .357 Taurus as any suggestions.

Currently using 5 grains of Titegroup with 158 gr. RNFP bullets. Thoughts are going down to 148 gr. Wad Cutters with corresponding lower grains of Titegroup.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

[saddler]

Mate seems to have fallen in love with the 148gr HBWC bullets now he's changed to them.
Not sure what charge of Bullseye he's using...possibly 3.8grains or something - but NOT posted as a reference load - I just recall it was a mild charge!

He won a major open comp the other weekend with it so it gets the job done

[WelshShooter]

Not a Taurus, but a Marlin 1894. I've used Ramshot True Blue, Bullseye and Red Dot with 158gr TC boolits. All hit the target great, I have more of a preference to True Blue for it's excellent metering abilities and clean burning powder.

With regards to dropping to 148gr; why would you drop the powder load? You typically drop the powder load with increase projectile mass unless there's a special rule for wadcutters.

[Daryll]

When i first got my Taurus LBR I went through the usual load development and settled on 3.8gn of Vit 320 behind a 158gn Hardcast TC.

That works well in the LBR, and is also pretty accurate in my Marlin 1894, so I can use that load in both.

Back in the days of Pistol shooting the "standard" load for .38 was 2.7 gn of Bullseye behind a Bingley 148 gn HBWC.

I haven't tried any HBWC through the Taurus, as I usually use speedloaders and non-tapered bullets don't feed easily... and my 3.8 of Vit 320 load is probably more accurate than I am anyway.

[dodgyrog]

Mate seems to have fallen in love with the 148gr HBWC bullets now he's changed to them.
Not sure what charge of Bullseye he's using...possibly 3.8grains or something - but NOT posted as a reference load - I just recall it was a mild charge!

He won a major open comp the other weekend with it so it gets the job done

2.7gr Bullseye or Viht 310 with a HBWC or you'll blow the skirt off of the bullet.

[1066]

Back in the days of Pistol shooting the "standard" load for .38 was 2.7 gn of Bullseye behind a Bingley 148 gn HBWC.

.

Bingley bullets - Now that brings back memories. :)

[Sim G]

Back in the days of Pistol shooting the "standard" load for .38 was 2.7 gn of Bullseye behind a Bingley 148 gn HBWC.

This should be your reference point. It was the standard as Daryll says. My prefered ended up being 2.8gns of Bullseye with the 148gn WC, but from a .357 case instead of a .38.

[lapua338]

I've settled on 3.8gr of GM3 with a 140gr or 158gr T/C.

Perfectly adequate for humanoid-type targets (Met. Police EPP, the full size British 1500 Assoc. 1990 target and any other practical type target like the one shown).

Also works well in my 16" Rossi carbine.

If it's within the Blue scoring ring it's a good hit as we're not a Precision & Deliberate target club.

[lapua338]

I'd sooner be having fun rather than dicking around with the minutiae of revolver load development, however, as an experiment I will be trying out 10 loads in the range 2.8gr to 3.7gr GM3 (in 0.1gr increments with a 158gr T/C) just to see if there's a sweet spot load.

Not all powder measures dispense small amounts of handgun powders consistently so for the trial I've weighed each powder charge individually and assembled the ammunition precisely using Starline brass (which has a very consistent wall thickness at the case mouth).

[Daryll]

Starline brass is great... I'm still using mine from my "proper" revolver days... so they're 20+ years old, and reloaded more times than i can remember.