38-55 and cast bullets

[Tick]

I have an H&R target in 38-55 with 28" heavy barrel. It shoots factory 255's reasonably well, but 255 cast is all over the paper. Winchester factory jacketed is 1290 to 1320 fps, the cast with H322 starting load is 1480 to 1520 fps.
Question - Am I driving the cast lead too fast?
Thanks Tick

 

[ben hunchak]

You could try slowing them down to 1200fps or so but my guess is that either the cast bullets are too hard and/or not the right size for your bore. I would slug the barrel and use a cast bullet that is quite soft, say 20-1 or so, and .001 or .002" over bore size. The bores on .38/55s are all over the place, some as small as .375" some as large as .382".

 

[jklutes]

Now that's funny because I just bought one and it won't shoot factory worth sh$t but reloads that are .375 are all right

 

[graydog]

I remember reading about this gun on a forum out of the US. It seems the bore size can be all over the board with these guns. One fellow talked about having one that had a .382 bore size, when he cast bullets to that size he couldn't chaber them in the gun as the chamber was not big enough. It seems some are great shooters and others are complete junk. You just never know what you are going to get when you buy one. As one of the earlier posters said you have to slug your barrel to see what you have, then you will have a chance to make it shoot well. Unless there is a real big problem with this gun it should shoot almost everything as the 38-55 cartridge is usualy a very accurate round. My 1885 Browning shoots everything well, just some better then others.

Graydog

 

[donor]

Try this
8 Gr of Red Dot
Win or Fed primers ( i didn't try CCI)
Win or fire formed 30-30 cases
OAL-2.540

As for casts I'm using .379 sized Lyman FP hard casts.

Above works in my H&R.on a good day i can punch 2.5 to 3 inch on a 100yrds
This rifle i great with BP loads if you are interested.