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13.8 sounds good. I was planning to make some test batches in 13.5 and 14.0, so the 13.8 would be just about the middle of my personal load range.

SamBodie wrote:I managed to get an evaluation pack of the 158 GR SWC to try in my 686 from Mr. Donnie. I loaded them ahead of a healthy dose of 2400 and was completely happy with the results. As others have said very little smoke and no leading, I just ran a dry patch through the bore and it looks un-fired. I can't wait for the current hording craze to subside so I can load up more of these.

"healthy dose"? Care to share?

I'll be loading up some of the 158 gr lswc's next week. I've been loading regular "commercial" lswc's with around 13.2-13.5 gr of 2400 for use in a 3" SP101, and have had minor leading, but no serious issues. For that relatively small revolver the load is just slightly snappy, and chrono's 1080+/- from the 3 inch barrel. I'm figuring on 14 gr of 2400 might be a good standard charge for all around purposes with the Bayou Bullets.

So, what's your start point?

surv

I didn't get to make it to the range during the week (when it's not so crazy), but today I did get to run out to a buddy's place where he has a bench set up for 25 yard shots. Mainly I wanted to try the 18.5 gr of A2400 loads with the new purty green 240 gr lswc's (above pic). In the Rossi rifle, they were just as smokless and left just as little residue in the barrel as I've come to see in my previous experiences with the .38/.357 and .45 acp boolits. Dropping the load down a full grain of powder from what I normally shoot in the Super Red Hawk made the little Rossi (with that nasty shaped excuse for a buttplate) a pleasure to shoot. I'll probably get a chance to meet up with someone with a chrony next week and see what some of my various loads do, but this load - with this boolit- is what I think I wil adopt. The eight rounds shot today off of a shaky saw horse (his bench) from a folding lawn chair were all grouping inside about an inch, and unbelievably hitting poa. I'm really anxious to try this load at 50 and 100 off a real bench with the rifle, and see how it does with the SRH.

I guess I'm a "greenie" now for sure.

I often make several different powder loads to range test and put them into the same box in batches of 5-10. I just hit the primers with a different color of magic marker and log the color to the load data records.

Other than that, if you're making full boxes of a specific load, it's just a matter of either taping to or inserting into the full box a standardized load data card.

here's a pic from a batch of the 240 gr lswc's I loaded tonight. Might have to do a little project rescheduling early in the week, if the wind will lay a bit, so I can make a quick range trip to check them out.



The green coating is a dry lube that Donnie gets from a company in Australia. I believe it's a two step process in that the first coating that shows up as a gold color is applied directly to the lead to help bond the final green lube coating - then it's all baked on. The finished product almost feels like a hardened epoxy paint finish, but it's certainly not.

surv

Charles

I'm betting it's because I did in fact order revolver boolits. When I called and asked Mr. Donnie if he had the .44 boolits "in stock", he said he had a few on the shelf and could fill small orders. He laughed when I said I only needed 500 ... apparantly a tiny order, and said they'd ship the next morning. I do have a buddy in Louisiana that wanted to order for .357 and .44, but rather than call and place his own order he decided to save a couple of dollars in shipping and jumped into a huge group buy with a few competition shooters. He's been waiting for over a month and expecting to wait another couple of weeks. My guess is there are revolver bullets, maybe in small quantities, still on the shelf but pistol bullets aren't even seeing the shelf.

surv

Last week I finally got around to ordering some 240 gr lswc's for my new .44 mag fettish. Got a new Rossi in 20" barrel last week to compliment the 7.5" SRH I picked up last year and decided it deserved some "proper" boolits. Mr. Donnie boxed up a "starter batch" of 500 for me last Friday, and the Pony Express (actually, normally it's more like Luke the Plow Mule) had them in my PO box today. They look every bit as good as the .38/.357 and .45acp Bayou Bullets I've come to love so much. Unless this Saturday ends up being that infamous day of TEOTWAWKI (not sure I got all them letters right), I'll be loading up a batch or three to try in the SRH and the Rossi. I was shooting mostly .430" 240 gr RimRock lswc's on the first outing with the Rossi and didn't notice "much" leading issues, and that was through a brand new barrel that wasn't seasoned. Supposedly the Rossi .44's are bored pretty consistantly to .429, so .430 boolits should do fine anyway. The Bayou Bullets are sized to .430 and coated with that wonderful dry gator snot lube, so I'm expecting both an increase in velocity, less lube smoke, and most likely better accuracy.

I can't believe I've "gone green".

Mr. Cotton

I would be glad to send you a few 230 gr RN .45 acp boolits, and/or some of the 138 gr .38/.357 wc's to try out (all I was able to get before the rush)..if you have time to do any loading. I know you are an extremely busy man, but I also know that it may be a long wait for a shipment of Bayou Bullets. Don't know, but Mr. Donnie may still keep enough on hand to ship out the 100 count sample packages, even though he is back ordered pretty heavily (so I've heard).

I've never noticed any particular odor from them

since first posting about Bayou Bullets a couple of month ago, I've shot a few hundred of them in .45 acp and .38 spl, and have never changed my delight with them since firing the first few test rounds. I use a lot of Unique powder with cast bullets, and had assumed that most of the "smoke" was due to the often chided Unique. My opinion was apparantly misguided ... the Bayou Bullets result in minimal smoke. As to lube residue, I have never seen any evidence of any in my barrels, but I don't push my cast bullets to max velocities.

I'm still loving my Bayou Bullets...just need to order more, and a variety