.38 Special load data for cowboy loads please using HS-6 powder

ironsite

ironsite

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Hi Folks.
I recently picked up a Marlin 1895 lever rifle chambered in .38/357 and I'm really enjoying shooting it. At my range your only allowed to shoot paper with the rifle ( at 15 yards) as the velocity from a rifle is too much for a steel plate. I talked the head RSO into letting me shoot the plate if I can safely reduce the powder charge and thus the velocity.
The only powder my local shop had for me to work with was HS-6 and my Lyman reloading manual has the Suggested starting Grains at 5.5 up to 6.5.
Can anyone please enlighten me as to a safe charge below 5.5 that would work.
Thanks
 
I am not a 38 special guy; that being said HS-6 is most likely too slow burning to do what you are aiming for. HS-6 is a magnum pistol powder, I typically see people only using it in full power 357, 44 mag or 9mm major. It is also reported to be dirty minimum charge.

You might be better to try and trade it for some Titegroup.
 
Most ranges will have a do-not-exceed bullet velocity maximum for their steel backplates. Once you know what that is at your range, it may be possible to work up a suitable HS-6 load that is safe to use. Plus stay within the min/max charge recommendations for the powder. As mentioned, HS-6 is a relatively slow burning powder; certainly not ideal for your purposes. Tinkering with below-minimum powder charges with this powder will likely result in ragged ignition and generally poor performance. If possible, try to secure a supply of another, faster burning powder, better suited to your needs. As a matter of interest, 3.5 grains of Titegroup, with a 158 grain lead bullet, works very well in .38 Special. Accurate, clean burning and velocity well below most ranges' safe limit. Check out this site's sponsors, for possible sources.
 
This doesn't satisfy your unusual requirement that it be a: "safe charge below 5.5", but it's right from the Hodgdon website:

Bullet Weight 158 GR. CAST LSWC


Powder HS-6
Bullet Diameter .358"
C.O.L. 1.610"
Starting Load
Grains 6.0
Velocity (ft/s) 990
Pressure 12,900 CUP
Maximum Load
Grains 7.0
Velocity (ft/s) 1,106
Pressure 15,500 CUP

Powder Titegroup
Bullet Diameter .358"
C.O.L. 1.610"
Starting Load
Grains 4.5
Velocity (ft/s) 1,028
Pressure 19,300 CUP
Maximum Load
Grains 5.0
Velocity (ft/s) 1,108
Pressure 24,900 CUP

http://www.hodgdonreloading.com/data/pistol
 
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Ironsite: This might also be helpful: Though Titegroup works very well in .38 Special(accurate, clean and mild recoil....one of my favourites, now), there are any number of suitable powders in and around the same burning rate, also capable of delivering good results. Some of these might be hard to find right now, but if you can get a supply: IMR231/HP38, deliver excellent results in .38 Special. Likewise: Hercules (Alliant) Unique, and Hodgdon Universal, just to name a few. Any of these powders will also deliver good accuracy and performance, at relatively low velocity, with 158 grain lead bullets. Stick to a moderate load: say, between 4 and 5 grains with any of these, and your range RSO should stay happy. It bears repeating that the Hodgdon Reloading site has plenty of useful information on it, too. The site is a good reference to use, in conjunction with your Lyman loading manual.
 
Ironsite: Thought something didn't look right, after posting. Went back and checked my load data. Amended: For .38 Special/158 grain lead bullets: IMR 231/HP38, use 3.5 grains. Unique/Universal: 4 to 4.5 grains. For .357 Mag.: 4 grains 231/HP38 and 158 grain lead bullet...also good load. All these loads good for cowboy action. If you choose to go to a lighter bullet, this one works well: For .38 Special. Cast(Lee mold)125 gr. LRNFP. 3.8 grains IMR231/HP38. A bit sooty, but accurate, with minimal muzzle flip (revolvers). With Titegroup, I like 3.2-3.3 grains, with this same 125 grain bullet. Clean and snappy. Mild muzzle flip. Hope this helps.
 
You don't say what bullet you'll be using so it's hard to say much that is specific to your loading.

Getting back to the HS-6 powder you have I found an interesting feature on the Hodgdon reloading data website. If you select .38Special for the round and then only pick up the HS-6 powder option with no other selections it gives you back all the HS-6 data for all bullets. Now that's fine and dandy but it may not show YOUR bullet option. However I do see some interesting selections that suggest it's OK to run up your own load if done with a bit of care.

First is that there are three options for using HS-6 with cast lead bullets. So cast is OK. The second interesting load is that there's a recipe for 148gn HBWC's that shows a weak starting load of 4.5gns of powder giving us a muzzle velocity of 816fps. But the interesting fact is that this load only generates a paltry 9200CUP for peak pressure. So that tells me that it's OK to work down to some fairly low power and softer shooting loads using other cast bullets.

Looking at .38Spl loading data in my own Lyman manual also shows a couple of HS-6 recipes that are down at 8000CUP and 8200CUP for some cast bullets. So again this indicates that you can sneak down a little on the powder depending on what bullet you're looking to use and what pressures the starting load you listed is generating.

What you'll be looking to avoid is a load that is so light that it does not produce consistent burning. The ammo will sound different from shot to shot almost like you didn't drop the same amount of powder in each case. That's a sign that you've gone too far and need to up the charge a little. If the load does not generate enough pressure it won't burn evenly and consistently. Go too far and the primer might not even make all the powder burn at all and you'll get a squib as a result when only the primer and a few specs of the powder burn off and the rest just sits in the barrel.

Now this might be a case of the powder burning very dirty with such light loads. But if that's the only powder you can find at least it's usable. The key if you want to work it down to less than the 5.5gn starting load is to do so with the other listed data in mind and don't go so far that you run into peak pressures that are much below around 9K CUP.

But this gives you a LOT of room to reach a point where your rifle rounds will hit the same or with less velocity than a 9mm from a handgun. Even a round from the rifle that is moving at around 1000fps will be fine with the steel and have a report and recoil that is mild.

Keep in mind that the pressure won't drop in a linear way with reductions in powder charge. So if a starting load is 5.5 and it's giving a peak pressure of over 10K CUP then I would not be looking to go down to any less than 4.8 to 5.0gns or you'll soon run into issues I suspect.

The rifle's longer barrel will shoot the loads a touch faster. But not by a whole lot. Figure on seeing the rifle muzzle velocity being maybe another 80 to 100 fps faster than the velocities shown in the handgun loading data. And for the low pressure from .38Spl loads it may not even be that much higher.
 
Another vote for Clays from here, too. if you can find some, this too is a good powder for .38 Special. If your Lyman book lacks reload data for this powder, the Hodgdon Reloading site will have some. BCRider brings up some good points too, regarding HS-6. You'll likely have a bit of wiggle room down to about 5 grains, before ignition becomes erratic. Though I suspect at this low charge weight, it will be pretty sooty. Still, if this powder is your only option right now, it may be worth a try. For your interest....Budget Shooter Supply.... a site sponsor...currently has a good supply of smokeless powder in stock. May be worth checking out, if all other local options fail.
 
An observation from my own experience on using HS-6 for 9/40/45 between Hodgdon data and Hornady data, it seems that Hodgdon's data is warmer and may be the "ideal" load as the powder is designed for. however, with Hornady, it usually has a much wider(especially on the low end) range. so, you may want to check a few different manuals to see what you could do SAFELY. an example, for my campro 124gr 9mm fmj, hodgdon says "6.0-6.6gr" while hornady says "4.8 to 6.6gr". since my new PPQ M2 is too light to handle the recoil between 6.0-6.6gr, I have tried from 6.1-5.7gr with 0.1gr reduction and get good results with all of them so far and I will continue to do 5.6-5.1gr in the same fashion just to experiment. So, I think for your purpose, this might be the approach as well.




BCRider said:
You don't say what bullet you'll be using so it's hard to say much that is specific to your loading.

Getting back to the HS-6 powder you have I found an interesting feature on the Hodgdon reloading data website. If you select .38Special for the round and then only pick up the HS-6 powder option with no other selections it gives you back all the HS-6 data for all bullets. Now that's fine and dandy but it may not show YOUR bullet option. However I do see some interesting selections that suggest it's OK to run up your own load if done with a bit of care.

First is that there are three options for using HS-6 with cast lead bullets. So cast is OK. The second interesting load is that there's a recipe for 148gn HBWC's that shows a weak starting load of 4.5gns of powder giving us a muzzle velocity of 816fps. But the interesting fact is that this load only generates a paltry 9200CUP for peak pressure. So that tells me that it's OK to work down to some fairly low power and softer shooting loads using other cast bullets.

Looking at .38Spl loading data in my own Lyman manual also shows a couple of HS-6 recipes that are down at 8000CUP and 8200CUP for some cast bullets. So again this indicates that you can sneak down a little on the powder depending on what bullet you're looking to use and what pressures the starting load you listed is generating.

What you'll be looking to avoid is a load that is so light that it does not produce consistent burning. The ammo will sound different from shot to shot almost like you didn't drop the same amount of powder in each case. That's a sign that you've gone too far and need to up the charge a little. If the load does not generate enough pressure it won't burn evenly and consistently. Go too far and the primer might not even make all the powder burn at all and you'll get a squib as a result when only the primer and a few specs of the powder burn off and the rest just sits in the barrel.

Now this might be a case of the powder burning very dirty with such light loads. But if that's the only powder you can find at least it's usable. The key if you want to work it down to less than the 5.5gn starting load is to do so with the other listed data in mind and don't go so far that you run into peak pressures that are much below around 9K CUP.

But this gives you a LOT of room to reach a point where your rifle rounds will hit the same or with less velocity than a 9mm from a handgun. Even a round from the rifle that is moving at around 1000fps will be fine with the steel and have a report and recoil that is mild.

Keep in mind that the pressure won't drop in a linear way with reductions in powder charge. So if a starting load is 5.5 and it's giving a peak pressure of over 10K CUP then I would not be looking to go down to any less than 4.8 to 5.0gns or you'll soon run into issues I suspect.

The rifle's longer barrel will shoot the loads a touch faster. But not by a whole lot. Figure on seeing the rifle muzzle velocity being maybe another 80 to 100 fps faster than the velocities shown in the handgun loading data. And for the low pressure from .38Spl loads it may not even be that much higher.
Click to expand...
 
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Ganderite said:
HS6 is a poor choice for reduced loads.

It is a powder that performs measurably better with magnum primers.
Click to expand...

This is a very good point. Just because a powder is "safe" over a range of load data it doesn't mean it's going to give good results.

An example is that a buddy and I recently bought a couple of pounds each of IMR 4756. I've yet to use mine but he's already done a bunch of .45ACP loading with his. He's told me that it really does not like the light charges and his chrono testing showed less velocity than the loading data would suggest and a high variance in muzzle velocity between rounds. When he upped the loads to near max the loads began to shoot closer to the published data and the velocity variance between shots closed up significantly.

I was going to use the 4756 for cowboy action loading until I heard of his results. Now I'm going to save it for 9mm and .45acp instead. It's clearly a powder that wants to see higher peak pressures to burn well and consistently.

The HS-6 might well be the same sort of powder.
 
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