NOE 360-180 for the 360 Dan Wesson

[donhuff]

I always miss that quarter!

Gas,I'll go along with you with the 296, but I don't think I would get very close to these speeds with 2400 before starting to see pressure signs. But I don't have a lot of either of those powders. I have a whole jug full of LilGun though, so I think I'll go with it.

[Archer]

...or 2400

Got a keg or a keg and a half of this. Think I used up a partial keg on my first ~1000 .44 Mag loads.

Got a couple pounds of H110. Sort of planning on loading .30 Carb with it.

[donhuff]

GasG,

Got the other bullets today. These do look better than the first batch. Much harder to as my finger nail would not even scratch them.
Jumped right on them and got em painted and checked....I hate gas checks. Since the coating I put on is pretty thick, about .002 inch. The diameter of the gas check shank is bigger. So now the checks do not snap on like there supposed to do. I had to use a rounded end rod, place it in the open end of every blasted check, and give it a light tap. Now they will go right on,... and fall right off! So I ended up dropping a bullet in the sizer nose down, then placing a check on the end of it, and then coming down with the ram and pushing it through to crimp them on. Did I tell you how much I hate fooling with gas checks?? I did not have all this trouble with the others that I put checks on cause the ones I used before were some 40 year old Lyman checks. They are much thinner and easier to fit to the shank. BUT they can be flipped off with your thumb nail with a little effort. I did not like them so I ordered some Hornady checks and they came in yesterday too, along with the 360 brass. I have all the components now so I need to get to reloading and see what the things will do. I also have to work on my guides some more to try and get the bullets to feed At the full 1.735" length.

I mixed a little deep blue in with the black for these bullets, but I do not see any blue in the finished bullets at all. They sure did turn out shiny though. A lot more shiny that those the other day.

I'm using checks on these bullets though because I want to see how they do at full pressure, and since they are so heavy, I knew that I would have to push them pretty hard to get decent accuracy. So far so good as they were as accurate as anything else that I shot yesterday. And that was at the starting load so I'm sure that I will be able to up the powder charge another grain, and will probablly be able to go two more. Hopefully that will put me at about 1850fps which will be pretty fast for that much lead.

[GasGuzzler]

They look bad to the bone (can't believe I wrote that).

Why are they harder? Hmmmm

I put some unknown Lyman bricks in there someone gave me. Of all he sent that were labelled, some of these weren't. I thought they might be scrapped plumbers lead but in the end I bet they were range scrap. Who knows?

I culled them more carefully and had Mobile 1 smoke rolling off the mold. Had to wait a few seconds after fill for the blob to solidify.

I'm turning the PID up to 715 I think.

You know what you're doing so feel free to reject this shot to half court but maybe 16gr 296? More? Less?

[donhuff]

I thought that you must have water dropped these to make them harder. Must have been something in the lead then.

The two loads that I have seen listed using 110/296 and a 180 show a starting load of 16.2 and 16.7, and the max was 18.0 and 18.5. I'm thinking starting at say 16.5 and ladder up half grain at a time to 18.0, then load just a few more in .2 grain increases till 19.0. That ought to show me where the top is. I may have to pull a few apart later but no big deal. That's why I only do a few until I find out where the top is.

But I'm not finished with the 300MP powder. I ran out of room for powder in the case before seeing any pressure signs the other day. BUT, that was with the 158g bullets. I'm thinking that with the 187 grain ones, I might be able to max out with that powder as the heavier slug will put more resistance on it, and make the powder work a little harder. I might be wrong, but the powder is working so good at getting high velocities without showing pressure that I hate not to try it with the heavy some more. I can tell it's not working hard as the cases all come out sooty even at the upper levels. It's only when I get the powder a little compressed that it quits sooting. Seeing that with the 158, I got to 23.0 grains and primers still looked round, I'm thinking the 180s might go 20.0 to 20.5 and still be ok, the only load I had them in before was 19.0grs. Pressures for the 360 run a little higher than the 357 with most saying 40-43000psi.

[GasGuzzler]

Hogdon sure does publish a light 296/110 load for a powder you're not supposed to go much under with. They show start at 13.0 stop at 13.5 LOLOLOLOLOLOL

[donhuff]

Yeah, I see that. Same thing on handload.com too. Sez the pressure is 39100 cup. Another sez 14.0 but also sez it is HOT!!!

Then at the bottom of the page they are showing 14.5 and 15.0 grains of 296.......... It all depends! I'll have to try it in my gun to find out.


What looks better to me though is what they list for LilGun. 15.0 and 1422fps with 5000lbs less pressure. I think I'll start at 13.5 LilGun and ease my way up the ladder to see where It ends up. RD doesn't like this powder so much for no reason.

LilGun burns so HOT though I hope it doesn't melt my barrel off BS

[donhuff]

Got some more loaded and ready to try out. Hopefully I'll find the max this time.

Gas, I've already gone through that first box and started on the second one.

I did work on the guides a little more and the thing is now feeding those 180 from the magazine OK. Still not 100% cause it will throw one out the top every now and then. I made another shim and tightened up the guides another .005". Now it will cycle 38s like they were made for it, and the 158JSP 360 load also feeds perfectly. It's just the 180 that gives it a hiccup sometimes.

I turned a 180 grain bullet on the lathe, and put a smaller meplat on it, about .215" I think. I moved the crimp groove down some so as to get more nose out of the case and get it to a full 1.750 inch long, . Naturally, it cycles just fine! That big wide meplat on the NOE bullet is whats giving me such a hard time with the length. In 357 cases at 1.660 inch, that bullet cycles great.

[GasGuzzler]

Hoppy Cited

[donhuff]

? what?