Well what better way to celebrate the freedom that the Veterans have provided than shooting a gun many folks around the world can not even possess . . . . a pistol.



I thought 18.5 grains would be a reasonable starting load with the Lee cast bullets and WC-820 (once I stuffed the bullets down the case enough to chamber in my SRH (That fat nose on this bullet sure does preclude loading them out to take advantage of the bottom crimping groove in my gun).



Fired a couple off of a hard rest on my bench to get on paper at 50 yards and when I got close to sighted in I was out of ammo. Hey it is nice to be able to just walk back to the reloading room and load 6 more.



One off to the side and then the rest were close enough I thought I had missed the target on some (makes me happy at 50 yards).



Back to load some at 17.5, 18.0, 18.5 and back to the range to test all three loads.



17.5 WC820 is about one and a half for 5 and 2.5 for 6 rounds



18.0 WC820is about 3-3.5" for 6. Not a bad pattern, but a lousy group.



18.5 WC820 is about one and a quarter inches for 5 and 2.5 for 6.



I have a Redhawk and a Super Redhawk and both of them havve one chamber that throws one bullet out of any good tight group, That is ok, both guns will absolutely STACK the other 5 using any load they agree with!



Ok, I had to see what the bullets would do on my hedge apple test medium since I could not set the chronograph up in the rain. Have you ever seen a hedge apple hit at 50 yards with one of these bullets pushed by 18.5 of WC-820? I bet the pieces of that hedge apple went at least 25 feet high and wide . . . . Now that explains why the big meplat kills stuff theory is extant.



Shucks I think I will wean the Redhawk back to fast stepping 180s or 200s.

The two schools say, "cut back for cast, since cast bullets seal better", "no need to cut back, one can actually increase the load because cast has lower coeffieient of friction".
...............
Both schools are correct. As pressure builds, the boolit moves, right? So, for a fast powder and weak boolit, the seal becomes tight indeed and therefore promotes a faster velocity in the end. And, for a slow powder and strong boolit, the seal might not be as tight up front, but the boolit still goes fast because no time is wasted in getting going. We are obviously talking about powders with the same energy content, with the only variant being burn speed. Seldom is this the situation, though, because more slow powder is typically used in the case/boolit combo, giving more energy. This more energy usually delivers more velocity in all situations. Therefore, for performance, it is always best to use the slowest powder with the hardest boolit possible, fitting exactly the throat(s) of the gun. ... felix

Glenn
Thanx for the load estimates, that is what I was figuring.I just hope this will shoot at least as well as the 300 grain Hornady coated bullets did.
I will not have time/a chance to chrono this load. Anyone out there have personally measured velocities out of 6" or 9.5" barrel?

You got some great replys. I find 21.5 grs of 296 is the most accurate and my last batch of H110 needed 1/2 grain more to match it. I would not go over these amounts because accuracy starts to fall off. Many many deer have fallen to this load for me all the way to 100 yds.