Loading for Early 38 - 55.....

[dak47]

So in a moment of weakness I listed the early 1894 (1896 manf) but now with the clarity of the new year, I'm going to start shooting it and maybe even drag it to deer camp after properly sighting it in on a bench.

The last time I pulled the trigger on it was at least 10yrs ago with the remainder of the 1950's Dominion ammo that I inherited it with. It shot flawless and I thought it was spot on, but the shooting was one arm to the tree offhand, so some proper bench time is in order.

I bought 500 Oregon Trail Laser Cut slugs way back, have 200 fresh brass and a box of Hornady .375 220gr? flat nose slugs. The gun's action is tight and the old Dominion loads showed no signs of stickieness or other strangeness, so would you load cast or mild modern 38-55 loads?

Does anyone have a pet load for an 'Ol Mule like this one? Many Thanks!!

D.K.

View attachment 21029

 

[Garand]

I get my cast bullets from the Bullet Barn and load 9.5 grains of Unique which gives me approx. 1,400 fps and no signs of pressure on the fired cartridge case.

 

[H4831]

The original bullets designed for the 38-55 would probably be the best, if you could get any. Modern .375 jacketed bullets may be designed for more velocity than you can get.
Actually, I don't know how much the bullets in the original ammunition expanded, because I have seen the streak of black, cut hair on the snow behind a moose that took an old Dominion CIL in the ribs, then went about twenty feet before expiring.
If I were you I would get cast bullets of the proper diameter and weight and load them up to original velocities with a powder that wouldn't give excess pressure for the given velocity.
That original Dominion ammo that you had would have been loaded right up to the velocity shown for the 38-55.
One thing you have to remember is that ammunition designed for any cartridge for a Model 94/1894 Winchester, will not have enough pressure to show the usual marks on the brass associated with excess pressure in a high pressure cartridge designed for bolt action rifles. Thus, there is virtually no way you can tell whether or not you are getting into excess pressure by looking at the fired case, or stating the case didn't stick in the chamber.

 

[jethunter]

Modern 38-55 loading data is designed to produce the same pressure levels as 38-55 ammo did back in the day when your rifle was new. Load cast bullets of .379" or larger to that level and you will not be disappointed. The Hodgson's website has some good 38-55 recipes.

 

[BCRider]

Another 38-55 fan here. From my research the lever guns brought out in this caliber in tend to want a .379 to .381 size bullet. A good first step would be to slug your bore and get a reading on what you should be looking for in terms of bullet size. There's even a risk that it may want the earlier standard size of .376 to .377 instead. Only slugging the bore to figure it out will tell you for sure.

Once you've slugged it and found the size across the lands then you can look for a bullet which is .001 to .002 fatter. Some folks even end up with .003 larger. I would not want to go with more than that though.

If you chose to shoot jacketed .375Win bullets you could likely get by with a fit which is only a thou or two bigger than the bore diameter instead of looking at the groove diameter. But again I'd suggest you want to slug the bore to measure this.

Once you know what you need hopefully the bullets you've got will be suitable.

I'd likely go with cast since you get a touch more muzzle velocity for the same peak chamber pressure. It wasn't a barn burner velocity cartridge then and it's still not now if you respect the old rifle you'll be using. The loading manuals and Hodgdon's online reloading data suggest a max pressure of around 27K. And at that peak pressure a 255gn bullet is moving at 1600 to1700 fps depending on the powder used. Out of deference to the age of the rifle I'd personally want to tone that down to more like 25K and aim at shooting at around 1500FPS.

At times like this I also like to look at the pressure vs velocity. Some powders show a clear advanatage in this with similar velocity at a lower pressure or higher velocity at the same max pressure. The second situation being an indicator that if you're not being greedy that you can load down slightly to take the pressure down a little while still getting the same muzzle velocity as the other powders. In the case of 38-55 there are two clear winners for this idea in my Lyman book, IMR-4198 and RX7. Both give a bit over 1700FPS with a 250gn cast bullet at a notably lower pressure than the other options.

 

[Goldenlakepete]

I've used 22 to 24 grs of IMR 4198 with a 250 gr cast plain base bullet with good success.