.357 Magnum single shot

[wolfman]

Friday was rainy & windy in northern Kentucky, but I had the day off & was chomping at the bit to work up a good hand load for my Henry single shot.

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Scope is a Leupold FX-1 4x, low Leupold rings on the Henry rail. Just enough height for hammer clearance, while still providing a good cheek weld. Removed the unused front portion of the rail, so was able to keep the factory buckhorn in place. Looking pretty good, I think.
Have put a few hundred factory loads through her, but we all know that can quickly get expensive. Have loaded quite a bit of .357 before, so had all the bits & pieces. Starline brass, CCI 550 primers, new powder & bullets though. The 158 grain Zero bullets have a pretty good rep, & the price is hard to beat in a jacketed bullet. Always used Titegroup for lightish loads in the past, and it worked well enough, but seemed dirty in low charges & never was fond of how much case it left unfilled. Opted for HP-38 this time. Doesn't fill the case by any means, but takes up quite a bit more volume than the Titegroup did. May try Universal or Unique at some point, but pretty satisfied with the HP-38 as of now. Impressed by how clean it burned, and didn't have any trouble with pressure signs or poor accuracy. Worked up from the Hodgdon minimum, & while all loads shot fairly well, 6.7 grains won out. Keeps me a couple tenths below max, which I appreciate for a relatively fast burning powder.
Shot target below at 75 yards, & considering the stiff, gusty left-to-right breeze- that dog will hunt. Safe, accurate, relatively cheap, low recoil load.

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Will eventually work on a heavy load. Never had much luck accuracy wise with W296, but have a little left & may give it a go. 2400 & Lil Gun are possibilities too.

[BrokenolMarine]

I shot ppc competitively for a number of years and loaded 38 158 grain swc and 148 grain hbwc over w231 and found it to be extremely accurate even out to fifty yards from from my six inch handguns... and capable of ragged one hole groups rapid fire at seven yards out of my four inch model.64 Smith in the Service Revolver classes. It's the only powder I have been using for years...

[wolfman]

The ease of getting accurate loads was a common theme when reading up on HP-38/W231 for .357. Not sure what traits could make one powder more accurate than another, but can't argue with results. Maybe just plain old consistency, charge to charge, bottle to bottle, lot to lot.

[BigAl52]

Nice shooting and I have used alot of 231 as well. Currently I have so much HS-6 I am going to burn some of it up with those zero bullets. They are great bullets for plinking.

[RanchRoper]

Nice job. I shoot in the wind regularly here and I know what a pain in the butt it can be. You did well.

[Jdl447]

Nice looking rig.

[BrokenolMarine]

Nice looking rig.

+1

[Coote]

Thanks for sharing. Very encouraging.