Keith's heavy .38

[revchuck38]

@jtcarm - I got 1080 fps using a 170-grain SWC over six grains of Unique in .38 Special cases from my 4" 681. You could back that off somewhat and get 1000 fps from the Blackhawk with less recoil and unburnt powder. I personally wouldn't use slower-burning powder for that unless the improved accuracy merited shoveling all the unburnt powder out of the gun.

[ssb]

My 1961 edition of Sixguns lists 5.0gr of Unique and 13.5gr of 2400 as loads for the .38/358429 combo. The latter he specifies as a .38/44 load; the former is apparently totally safe in a J Frame .

I have some 358429 coming from Rimrock. I plan to work up to around 12gr of 2400. Somebody on another forum was able to pressure test that load at 12gr, coming in just shy of 29,000PSI. I’ll be launching them out of an N Frame.

[revchuck38]

The Lyman manual that came out in '61 (lost the front cover and first few pages, but they have a contest with first prize being a trip to the '62 NRA Nationals) shows six grains of Unique and 10.5 grains of 2400 for 358429, with the caution that they're for "heavy frame guns only". The ones I loaded are dedicated to my 4" M28-2.

This song came up on Pandora while I was typing.

[Outpost75]

Current SAAMI MAP is 35,000 PSI.
Current CIP MAP is 43,000 PSI.
Originally, the 357 MAP was listed at 46,000 CUP, approximately 43,000 PSI, but SAAMI decided that 357 magnum was too hard on some guns, and needed to be downloaded a bit. So now we're at 35,000 PSI.

So we went from having heavily built 357 revolvers, and now we have 357 Mag J frames?(I have one) I've been trying to wrap my head around that for years. Was this a safety issue, or a marketing issue?

There. I finally said it out loud.

Poor durability of K-frame .357s in police service is very well documented. J-frames will not stand up.to the duty cycle expected of cop guns in the 1980s. J-frame .etus are pure marketing hype to sell to.the mall ninjas. After shooting the first couple cylinder loads of .357 most buyers will change to .38 Special. Few of these civilian guns will see 1000 rounds in their Iifetime.