Rossi Rifleman

Like Archer, Unique will do for a majority of my "middle of the road" loads, in almost every caliber I have.

BUT, I am using quite a good bit of Power Pistol lately and it might be a better choice. Since I finally got a lb of it , and then later got an eight pound jug of it (cause I could not find Unique!!!) It meters better than unique because it is smaller flakes. It's easier to find, cause all us old die-hards are afraid to try it and we think we HAVE to have unique. And it was developed with semi autos in mind (ie power PISTOL). But don't let that stop you from trying it in your 44. It does just fine in reduced loads too.

And don't even think about such a small charge, in such a large case. Worry more about an asteroid hitting mother earth. That IS NOT as big a problem as the internet experts, make it out to be.

And PP is actually pretty clean burning, a little cleaner than Unique, even the newer stuff.But to get really clean, you have to get rid of the lube.

Thanks for the head's up on the Power Pistol Don. I too use a lot of Unique for my medium velocity rounds. I'm gonna have to give it a try. Unique is scarce as hen's teeth around here too.

For the low velocity stuff, I generally go with powders that take up a lot of space and use "special" cases. Either 38 or 44 special cases so I don't have to worry so much about powder shift. Just a habit I got into over 40 years ago that I've never gotten over. Heck, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. LOL

But I have a buddy that was at the time, one of the top pistol shots in the US. Won a ton of competitions. But he is the one that got me started down that road in loading low velocity in special brass instead of magnum bass and it was hard to argue with his results once I saw him shoot! ;~)

But I prefer magnum brass. It's what I have the most of and I HATE cleaning that dang gap in front of special brass. LOL

Don!
SSSHHHHH!

I've got a couple pounds of power pistol.
I haven't had a chance to use it much YET but it books well especially in .38 SP.
My 'source' wasn't able to get more of it for me recently.

Accurate #5 is another that should meter well but I haven't seen any Accurate powders around here other than an overpriced kegs of 2495 (and I already have 10 lbs of IMR 4895 and a keg of 748) and an equally overpriced jug of 2015.

About all we see here is H110 once in a blue moon and BE-86 and nobody wants to try the latter because there's very little data about it and it is mostly from the manufacturer through the internet.

jdb,

Use to be "40 years ago" 357 brass was harder to come by, and was lot's more expensive than it is now. A lot of us would put those weaker loads into the cheaper and easier to find special brass, so we could save the 357 brass for magnum loadings. And we still do it out of habit I guess. I hate tying up my 357 brass with 3.5gs of bullseye!

I bet your buddy would of shot just as good with any kinda brass. Unless speed shooting a revolver, where when reloading, the shorter brass will clear the cylinder quicker than the longer ones will.

Yep Archer, the PP looks good in the books, and has performed well for me everything I have tried it in.

donhuff wrote:...I bet your buddy would of shot just as good with any kinda brass. Unless speed shooting a revolver, where when reloading, the shorter brass will clear the cylinder quicker than the longer ones will....

LOL...yep, all true Don. And he did speed loading in competition and that was also an advantage to the shorter brass.

But ya know, the thing that really convinced me that the right combination made ALL the difference was when we went down into the range in his basement and I watched him shoot a three shot group into a bull's eye at 60', pull the target back and an empty brass out of his S&W and it would NOT fit through the ONE hole that three, 38 wad cutters had just made. ;~0

THAT convinced me of several things. First among them was that I am NOT that good a shot! LOL

But it taught me a lesson about finding the right combination that has stuck with me to this day. If you stick to and really work to be consistent and persistent when developing loads for a particular gun...you CAN achieve near perfection. At least as close to it as the gun allows. ;~)

By the way, I stuck 6 of his rounds in the stainless, 6" barrel Taurus 626 I had at the time. He made about a 3/4" off hand group with my gun and BENCHED UP I couldn't manage better than about that same 3/4" group with my gun and his competition load. Taught me a valuable lesson!

Oh, and I never DID find a 38 special round that my Taurus would shoot. It would shoot magnum ammo like a target pistol, but low power stuff sprayed everywhere. Needless to say, it wasn't long before I had a 686 Smith and it had a new home. LOL

But that speaks to William's point to this post. While he is comparing velocity as compared to barrel length, without controls to gather data from so you can deduct that variable from the results, it will be hard to draw any hard and fast conclusions from our personal results. These experiments are cool, but we need to be careful as reloaders about taking and applying anything we find on web sites at face value.

As they say, free advice is usually worth exactly what ya pay for it! ;~)

That said, I LOVE this experiment William is doing. It may not settle anything conclusively, but it WILL put a lot of guy's minds at ease when they go to make a purchase!