I had to do a double take on that mag. That wadcutter made this look like a “HK mag” loading at first glance.Originally Posted by Jay23
I had to do a double take on that mag. That wadcutter made this look like a “HK mag” loading at first glance.
As a brand new deputy sheriff in 1973 my duty weapon was a M28-2 and my off duty weapon was a M-60. I was already a "gun person" and a hand loader so when I read Jeff Cooper's recommended load for the M-60 was 5g of Red Dot behind a 160g SWC I had to try some. That was a jumpy little thing with five of those on board.
I got into a conversation about how the M-60 shot with a former Border Patrolman, and when I got to know him a criminal investigator for the Coronado National Forrest (SE Arizona). He said I should carry target wad cutters. I was loading them to shoot in NRA PPC matches and knew they weren't much of a power house at target velocities. He said if it made me feel better load them backwards, but he warned, don't load them up hot as it would blow the center core out of them and they "wouldn't shoot worth a damn!"
Not exactly 'out of the mouths of babes' but a lot of reading, testing, and listening to others would seem to indicate that old lawman (now deceased) might have known what he was talking about.
Dave
I use the Short Barrel Gold dot in steel guns and Federal GMM in the Airweight and Airlite’s
Just a Hairy Special Snowflake supply clerk with no field experience, shooting an Asymetric carbine as a Try Hard. Snarky and easily butt hurt. Favorite animal is the Cape Buffalo....likely indicative of a personality disorder.
"If I had a grandpa, he would look like Delbert Belton".
GMM loaded....SB Gold Dot or Critical Defense for reloads.
I bet those stung a bit! I have loaded many thousands of that load in .357 mag brass for practice ammo. I would think that is basically a .38/44 load when special brass.
These days I have been shooting Remington 148 WC in my Airlites and old snubs(just because they are the most readily available WC load at the moment), HST 130 +P in the cylinder of modern Airweight and / or steel snubs, and the Winchester 130 Bonded +p for reloads for everything. I am still a little torn about the .38 HST load, but it shoots really well in all of my revolvers. I need to shot some different loads with the Airlight and decide on a standard pressure reload for it. Some of the various cowboy action shooting loads look interesting with nice flat meplats and smoothly rounded ogives.
I tried a cowboy load in .38 last year at an indoor range from my 60-9. The first round made such a smoke cloud, I thought they’d loaded it with FFFg black powder. I had to wait a bit for the smoke to clear. Hit right where I meant to, so I tried again. Same result. Couldn’t really breathe, couldn’t see, had to wait for the smoke to clear to see if I hit the target.
Dumped the rest of the cylinder out and shot something else through the 60 that day. Used up the rest of that box at an outdoor range later on. Very mild recoil, and accurate, but it was the smokiest powder and lube combo I’ve seen outside of shooting Holy Black from a muzzleloader or Navy Colt repro.
Ok, good to know. Not surprising (for most lead bullets in general depending on the lube) given the target audience. I reload all my practice ammo and use coated bullets more and more these days to help keep down lube smoke and reduce cleaning. Probably just use some plain old LSW then. I picked up a couple boxes of Geco FPFMJ a few weeks back that I plan to use to break in my 242. and will have to see how they do.
I carry Federal wad cutters in my 642. I had been practicing with ACME coated wad cutters. I recently purchase 1000 148 lead wad cutters to load for practice in my 642. This past weekend I shot a couple hundred through my 642 and my 60. I don't know that I will do that again. The leading was awful. I think I will return to coated. The loads were mainly 2.8 and 3.0 of bullseye and probably two cylinders worth of 3.5 of bullseye. I didnt think they would lead as much as they did.
I've had pretty good luck with uncoated, lubed lead bullets in .38 Special, but I'm done with them. Coated lead is just so much easier and cleaner to load and shoot. I've got ~6-700 rounds of coated lead ammo through my 642 since I last cleaned it and there's some powder fouling but that's about it.
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