Loading 38sp/357 for Lever action carbine

[Shooter55]

thinking of grabbing a lever, have alot of 38 and 357 brass and sounds like a good shooting rifle
Anyone with pref on bullet sizes or powders ?
cheers

 

[WilliamWallace]

I'm not sure what your objectives are but for Cowboy Action shooting I use 3.2 grains of Trail Boss pushing a 147 grain flat nosed bullet in .38 special. It's an easy shooting economical load.

 

[Snider shooter]

One thing I have found with carbines shooting pistol rounds is what works well in my pistols works well in the carbines.

 

[Shooter55]

One thing I have found with carbines shooting pistol rounds is what works well in my pistols works well in the carbines.

what size bullet are you shooting? I was thinking 125g for 38 and 140g for 357 - looking at target and varmints

 

[Snider shooter]

I don’t shoot light bullets. I have a four cavity 150 gr swc that get a lot of use. I have a habit of loading 205 gr rn cast in 357. My 160 gr rn also. I find heavier bullets shoot better at longer range. At 50 or under I don’t really see any difference in light or heavy bullets. I was testing a 120 gr rn meant for the 9 mm which was working good enough for hitting the cowboy plates. At longer ranges the powders I use are H-110 and Alliant 2400. Short range plinking I just looked to see what pistol/shotgun powder I had in the cabinet.

 

[Deathrawt]

For 357 I like the heavier 158gn Bullets
You can get a bag of a thousand cam pros for pretty cheap
For powders H-110, Unique, and 2400 are good

 

[hickstick_10]

H110 for magnums and Unique for specials. Water dropped cast 158 grain wheel weights bullets unsized work good enough for me.

 

[Gillen1]

I use the max loading from campros load data with campro 158gr with unique. Good accurate load from 2 different rifles I have tried it in.

 

[wasa]

I make separate loads for my revolver vs my carbine. I use "357 rifle" reloading data from my manuals for the rifle. Slower powder like H110, W296, 2400, etc. Handgun uses faster powder as per my manuals.

I also don't shoot lead from my rifle. I'm pushing 1500 ft/s (as per reloading manual) so only plated or jacketed projectiles. Campro, Hornady, etc.

Handguns I shoot at 25 yards. Carbine I shoot at 25 and 100 yards. My 357 rifle is my backup deer gun for Michigan straight-wall rifle (main gun is 45 Colt in my Henry Big Boy).

My memory has it that Lyman has 357 Rifle data. Sierra might too but not in reloading room now to check.

 

[Standardvel]

In some levers the Keith style bullet ,loaded in .357 cases maybe too long to cycle, to make them work use .38 cases like Elmer did.

 

[CzyHorse]

I use a variety of bullets. The one's I use regularly in my Marlin 1894c 357mag/38Spl;
-Hunting, it's a 158gr Hornady FN-XTP's #35780 c/w H110 @ ~1800fps, Hornady #10 suggests a muzzle velocity of 1150-1800fps.
-Varmints & pests, it's a 125gr Hornady XTP #35710 c/w H110 @ ~2100fps, Hornady #10 suggests a muzzle velocity of 850-1600fps.
-Plinking/gong ringing at distance, it's 158gr Campros c/w H110 @ ~1750fps.
-CBA, rifle & revolvers using 38Spl Brass with 158gr or 130gr DRG LRNFP c/w Trailboss @ ~840fps from rifle.

Bullets I'm not using in my rifle.
-The easier to source 158gr Hornady XTP #35750 are, IMO, more suited to handgun hunting velocities, Hornady #10 suggests a muzzle velocity of 700-1400fps.
-My Marlin 1894's in 357Mag/38Spl & 44Mag/44Spl have a dislike of SWC bulllets. They worked, but didn't cycle as fast or smooth as a RNFP shaped bullet.

 

[super7]

I’m loading 158grn bullet with 4 grains w231 for 38spl and 5 and 6 grn for 357. I think I’m going to go to up to 6.9. The hotter I load them, the better they seem to group in my Henry 357.

 

[jamesharrison]

What I found in my Marlin 1894, my Martini & my Ruger #1, is that the heavier the bullet, the better the accuracy, in both jacketed & cast.

In jacketed, everything below 158 gr SUCKED, and 180 grain bullets (R-P Hornady, Speer, & Frontier) worked best. In cast, as the weight went up, there was a substantial inversely proportional reduction in group size.

H110, W296 & Lil Gun; it didn't matter, although usually 1 bullet preferred one of the 3 over the others. I also tried W680, 2400 & a couple other powders, but they performed nowhere near as well; not to mention they were a fair bit slower.

My $0.02 Cdn.

 

[6MT]

For my Uberti model 1873 (20" barrel), these are a medium plinking load. Easy on me and the rifle. And very accurate at 100m. Also, very economical.

Campro 125gr RNFP/FCP
TiteGroup 4.5gr (.38spl) 7.0gr (.357mag)

Absolutely no cycling issues either. And I don't shoot cast in either my levers or wheel guns (same loading for both firearms). They're all jacketed.

I usually stay away from the "all or nothing" magnum powders (read: H110) unless I'm hunting. And even then, I prefer to load up with TiteGroup.

And this also holds true for me...

One thing I have found with carbines shooting pistol rounds is what works well in my pistols works well in the carbines.

 

[Longwalker]

I haven't found my Rossi or Win M92 rifles fussy at all. Jacketed, cast, fast burning powders or slow magnum powders, they both digested the loads without problems as long as I didn't do something silly like pushing a plain lead bullet faster than it was designed to be shot. I like medium weight bullets 140-160 grain weight the best. Over all length might be an issue with feeding in some rifles, so you may need to watch that especially with .38 special loads.

 

[VICIOUS]

Marlin micro-grove like long bearing surface bullets in lead, at least 158RNFP. Round nose flat point will cycle best.
Campro 158 are handy for most uses.