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Re: Your most accurate .357 reloads

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 9:42 am
by LD-Ordie
Although I currently do not own a Henry, I'm helping a friend dial in some reloads for his newly acquired Big Boy. I'm a believer of using suggested loads as a starting point from one of the many hand books. And currently find myself using the Modern Reloading 2nd edition by Richard Lee the most. But I follow up every different load thru a chronograph. We went with a 158 JHP from Everglades. First load was conservative using 13.9 gr of H110, CCI 550 primers, mixed brass with an OAL of 1.580. Average velocity of 10 rounds was 1425. Next load was a jump to 16 gr with an average of 1700. I also ran 7 rounds of a Federal 158 FMJ for a good base line at 1750. Both loads seem to be comparable concerning accuracy, but the hotter load was more fun! Downside was, we went thru a pound of powder in around 400 rounds. I also ran both loads thru my SW 686, 6" barrel with a velocity of 1200 and 1500. Will probably be working on a 38 special load using a 158 gr plated bullet at around 1100 for general plinking to have a cheaper round to play with. Really like the Henry and need to add one to my collection

Re: Your most accurate .357 reloads

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 6:07 pm
by BigAl52
Welcome to the forum LD-Ordie. Hope you are able to add that Henry to the collection soon.

Re: Your most accurate .357 reloads

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 6:54 pm
by CT_Shooter
LD-Ordie wrote: I'm helping a friend dial in some reloads for his newly acquired Big Boy. ...We went with a 158 JHP from Everglades. First load was conservative using 13.9 gr of H110, CCI 550 primers, mixed brass with an OAL of 1.580. Average velocity of 10 rounds was 1425.
Welcome to the forum from CT. I settled on a 13.9 H110 load (with ZERO 158JHPs and WSPM primers) for my Henry and my Uberti SA revolver because it performed well in each and I only wanted to develop ammo that I could use in either. Thanks for including chrono data, since I don't have one to measure the velocity. I just like the way they shoot.

I look forward to your future reports. Thanks for sharing what you've done, so far.

Re: Your most accurate .357 reloads

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 7:08 pm
by PT7
3HRF.jpg
3HRF.jpg (15.21 KiB) Viewed 2812 times
Welcome from the Show-Me-State, LD-Ordie. Although I'm not a reloader, I read most of those posts as I always learn something.
Yeah, agree that a Henry rifle would be a great acquisition to your gun cabinet. As you may have noticed in reading some Forum posts, it will be hard to quit after buying the first Henry.....others seem to always follow!

Re: Your most accurate .357 reloads

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 9:14 pm
by Mags
Welcome from the TV Oregon! Please consider sharing with us how you learned of this forum's existence here: http://henryrifleforums.com/viewtopic.p ... 160#p70571

Re: Your most accurate .357 reloads

Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2018 9:13 pm
by LeverLover
I've found that less than max load IMR 4227 and less than max load of Unique work well for various 158gr loads. I got a larger pattern when I approached min or max loads. Desperately want to try H110 or 296 but no magnum primers are available locally. I can't try 2400 with standard primers because that powder is not available locally. I am not able to buy bulk powder or primers with hazmat and shipping fees to make that worthwhile. Someday I'll stumble on a place that carries the right combo of powder/primer. Attached is an experiment of trying to find a load that could match Monarch 158gr at 50 yds. The upper left target is the Monarch control group. You can see that the spread changes as you change powder amount. I am not approaching the Monarch velocity (POI) yet.

Re: Your most accurate .357 reloads

Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2018 10:12 pm
by Mistered
using a 158 gr plated bullet at around 1100 for general plinking to have a cheaper round to play with.
Welcome from Wickiup Junction Oregon!
I have settled on a load using 158 gr. plated bullets with 7 grains of Unique. This is on the light end of a 'magnum' load (but is more like a .38 Special +P+)
Regardless very accurate (out of both my Henry and Mod 66 Smith & Wesson), a little bit of 'oomph' and still pretty cheap to load.

Re: Your most accurate .357 reloads

Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2018 10:54 am
by Mags
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Welcome from the TV Oregon. Thanks for sharing your test results. I don't reload, but many others here do. They might have helpful comments.
LD-Ordie wrote:Although I currently do not own a Henry, I'm helping a friend dial in some reloads for his newly acquired Big Boy. I'm a believer of using suggested loads as a starting point from one of the many hand books. And currently find myself using the Modern Reloading 2nd edition by Richard Lee the most. But I follow up every different load thru a chronograph. We went with a 158 JHP from Everglades. First load was conservative using 13.9 gr of H110, CCI 550 primers, mixed brass with an OAL of 1.580. Average velocity of 10 rounds was 1425. Next load was a jump to 16 gr with an average of 1700. I also ran 7 rounds of a Federal 158 FMJ for a good base line at 1750. Both loads seem to be comparable concerning accuracy, but the hotter load was more fun! Downside was, we went thru a pound of powder in around 400 rounds. I also ran both loads thru my SW 686, 6" barrel with a velocity of 1200 and 1500. Will probably be working on a 38 special load using a 158 gr plated bullet at around 1100 for general plinking to have a cheaper round to play with. Really like the Henry and need to add one to my collection

Re: Your most accurate .357 reloads

Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2018 4:18 pm
by Rifletom
Mistered wrote:
using a 158 gr plated bullet at around 1100 for general plinking to have a cheaper round to play with.
Welcome from Wickiup Junction Oregon!
I have settled on a load using 158 gr. plated bullets with 7 grains of Unique. This is on the light end of a 'magnum' load (but is more like a .38 Special +P+)
Regardless very accurate (out of both my Henry and Mod 66 Smith & Wesson), a little bit of 'oomph' and still pretty cheap to load.
Mistered, where did you find your load using Unique and plated bullets? That is something I'd like to try. Are you using .357 cases? Primers? Thank you. This looks like a very good load. Likin' my .357 Henry. A LOT!

Re: Your most accurate .357 reloads

Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2018 7:20 pm
by Mistered
Mistered, where did you find your load using Unique and plated bullets?
On the Alliant powder website but any manual is going to show Unique loads for .357 mag. - pretty popular powder.
http://www.alliantpowder.com/reloaders/ ... rtridge=28
I dropped the load from 7.7 gr. to 7 as I typically never load to top for any data.
Yes I am using .357 cases as technically it IS a .357 load.
Currently using up a bunch of NOS whitebox Winchester SR primers but the load call for just SP and not SPM primers.