357 Magnum subsonic loads

[GaHenryFan]

This is another installment in my quest for mild, yet accurate round ball loads for my Henry BBS carbine. I've switched to 357 brass due to some issues with carbon buildup. I want to stress that I've done a great deal of research into this, and I'm taking every safety precaution I can.

The extra volume of the 357 case presented some concerns at the low charge weights I'm using, but I found a way around the issue. After a lot of digging, I learned that deep seating the round ball into the case actually lowers pressures and gives me a more complete burn of the powder. I'm still at 1.5 grains, but I've switched to Hodgdon Universal. I've had good luck with it in subsonic 30-30 loads, so I decided to try it here too. I'm very pleased with the results.

I'm going to post a picture below, and a link to a YouTube video. I don't have a decibel meter, so I'm giving you a sound comparison with my Henry H001 shooting a CCI Quiet round.


This is a closeup of the 2 water-filled cans in the video.

2017-10-04 21.02.00.jpg (148.71 KiB) Viewed 1423 times

And here is the sound comparison video.

https://youtu.be/ImQFf3S0olE

[JEBar]

most impressive

[Squatch]

I've done a bit of this type of loading for both my 44 mag and 45/70. It comes down to using the right powders. lately I've been real impressed with Trail Boss for light loads.

Here is a great source of info for extra light stuff. Be sure to read the extra reading they link too about the concept and the powder info. I've found that in my experiments my loads match their results very well.

http://www.gmdr.com/lever/lowveldata.htm