RCBS 38-150-KT

[TomSp8]

Not sure how much effect anything has at 25 yards with a pistol, (even bullseye shooters don't put too much stock in matching cases for the short line) but I generally have ocd on matching everything whenever possible. If I get a large bunch of used matching headstamp revolver brass, I will generally size and trim all of it to uniform lengths (uggghhh) and shoot through that whole batch before beginning another cycle with them.

 

[Rick]

Probably not much. Keep in mind that the majority of my shooting has been long range open sight revolver at 200 meters. Any accuracy tips that work there won't hurt a thing at 25 yards. Keep on taking pride in what you're doing, and you can't go wrong.

 

[TomSp8]

"Keep on taking pride in what you're doing, and you can't go wrong" I love that! If I can keep them at least in the scoring rings at 25 yards indoor, one handed, I'm a happy guy!

 

[Bret4207]

Gains in concentricity & uniformity can be had from sizing. As long as the casting drops big enough from the mold. Main reason I gave up on store bought molds............they tend to drop small bullets.

Sometimes, other times you end up ruining a perfectly good bullet.

 

[Bret4207]

Well, I'm still playing with my thoughts on proper size for a revolver. Originally, of course, all my cast bullets have been commercial cast and rather hard, and I just automatically purchased them in .358. And those fit good in my Blackhawk cylinders. On this revolver (1965 S&W model 14-2, which I'd rather not unnecessarily abuse), I cannot push those hard cast bullets through the cylinder without a lot of hard tapping with a mallet. The .357 I can gently tap through. My thoughts (and I may be way off) is that the hard cast at .358 will simply become a .357 after passing through the cylinder anyway, and is just unnecessary abuse when firing. But now that I can make my own, and can control the alloy, I think the abusive sizing through the cylinder will be gentler with a softer bullet. I see no real benefit to a bullet more than .001 larger than the cylinder throats. What I really need to do is have the cylinder throats opened up so I can shoot a bullet that is .001/ .002 over the bore. I think a softer alloy sized at .358 with the .357 cylinder throats should be a good combo until I can do that. We will find out.

Well, I think if you could find some bullets fired in that gun before they enter the barrel, regardless of their so called "hardcast" hype, you may well find the .357 bullets are blown out to exactly throat size. Even a light target charge packs a lot more power than we might think. What size are your unsized castings? Ah, wait, you're powder coating. Well then ignore my line of questioning.

No argument with a softer alloy. I don't think it makes much difference as far as "abuse" of the gun, but there's no need for anything remotely "hard" in a 38 at target speeds.