Switch to full style
Post up your tips, tricks, load data and setups here.
Post a reply

Anyone Reloading 38 Short Colt?

Sun Dec 17, 2017 2:06 pm

I have a Smith PC 627 moonclipped 357 revolver. It's currently used exclusively for 38 Special which I load to roughly +P levels with 158gr cast bullets of .358 diameter. The challenge I'm having is aligning the 8 round moonclips into the cylinder on reloads. Having a lot of trouble getting them to drop in cleanly. In steel matches this is more a hassle than a real problem as there is no time limit loading the gun before starting each relay. The problem starts if shooting ICORE or USPSA which I'm hoping to restart in 2018.

So I'm considering a couple troubleshooting options for this:
- Buy a new Smith PC 929 with 8 shot moonclips for 9mm :bigsmile:
- Keep using PC 627 but change from currently Lee FCD (roll crimp) on 38 Special to Redding Taper Crimp die to see if that eases moonclip seating
- Keep using PC 627 but switch from 38 Special to 38 Short Colt

The second experiment is pretty cheap needing only a single die purchase. Will definitely try that.

The third experiment is a bit more work. As far as brass I have 8000 - 10000+ 38 Special cases on hand. Can investigate converting some to 38 Short Colt and/or buying a small lot of new 38 Short Colt brass for testing purposes.

I'm a bit more puzzled on the issue of reloading dies for 38 Short Colt. I notice Lee produces a 38 Short Colt reloading die set. On the interwebs I see some indications that other folks use a combination of 38 Special and 9mm dies depending on the operation.

Just reaching out to see if anyone else on the forum has any experience loading this ancient cartridge and what they might recommend for reloading die setup.

Thanks in advance.

Note that if the 38 Short Colts load in moonclip really well I'll just stick with my PC 627 for competition, skip the PC 929, and use some of that money for an Uberti 1872 Open Top. Hard to lose either way lol :bigsmile:

Re: Anyone Reloading 38 Short Colt?

Sun Dec 17, 2017 7:18 pm

Screw moon clips. Unless you shoot 9mm through it a lot I would unload a pistol that uses moon clips for a rimmed cartridge. I fail to understand why such a pistol would even exist. Seems it’s worth a bit of money though.

Re: Anyone Reloading 38 Short Colt?

Thu Jan 04, 2018 6:25 pm

Received some boxes from Midway this week with some new crimp dies since I use separate dies for seating and crimping. So I ran a comparison in 38 Special of the following crimp dies:
- Lee Factory Crimp Die
- Redding Profile Crimp Die
- Redding Taper Crimp Die

It seems my original troubles with moonclip loading were likely the result of an improperly adjusted crimp die. Actually I found that any one of these three dies produced moonclips that could easily seat in the revolver once the dies were properly adjusted to provide a suitable crimp.

Of the three I think I will stick with the Redding Profile Crimp Die which appears on close inspection to produce a short, gradual taper followed by a roll crimp at the case mouth. I've ruled out the Redding Taper Die because my load is a 158gr LRN (currently Dardas) over 5.0gr Unique which yields a +P load so I'd rather not chance having any bullets become unseated in the revolver cylinder due to recoil.

The Lee FCD has served me well although there is a lot of debate whether it downsizes or swages lead bullets due to the internal carbide sizing ring. Some users on the interwebs indicate this may cause increased leading but I've seen no evidence of this in my usage. So I think I'll simply change to the Profile Crimp Die to avoid this whole debate.

So now my 38 Special loads are worked out that will serve to get me restarted in steel matches later this month.

I've also picked up a couple hundred rounds of Starline 38 Short Colt brass and will be purchasing QuickLoad in the next couple weeks so I can do some modeling of fast burning powders under heavy 158gr/160gr bullets in that cartridge. So far I'm looking at VV N320 or Titegroup. Thinking is that for any match where reloads are on the clock that 38 Short Colt will support faster reloads than 38 Special. Plus it's an interesting experiment to work up loads in a historical cartridge for use in a modern revolver.

Thanks to Madpick for taking time to demo QuickLoad as that helped a lot in moving forward with this project.

Re: Anyone Reloading 38 Short Colt?

Fri Jan 05, 2018 6:44 pm

What moon clips are you using? My son had some issues on reloads with his 627 Pro Series. Went to using the TK Custom moon clips that are specific for StarLine brass (what I use for his 38 loads), very tight hold on the brass, almost no movement. His reloads became smoother almost instantly. Almost went the short colt route, but a buddy we shoot with played around with loads for months and couldn't get the accuracy out of his TTR that he had with his 38 loads. That kinda put the kid off the idea.
We bought a 929, but had a lot of issues with it right out of the box, I would have a hard time recommending it to someone. A lot of the guys we shoot Speed Steel with own them and its seems to be about a 50\50 chance it'll run right or be sent back to S&W. The guys we shoot with that shoot ICORE or other run and gun revolver matches chamfer and polish the hell out of the cylinder chamber throats to make reloads with the longer case of the 38 easier. Match guns take some tinkering sometimes to get em just right, good luck!

Re: Anyone Reloading 38 Short Colt?

Fri Jan 05, 2018 7:50 pm

Thanks Twizz for the perspective on both the moonclips and the 929 reliability... Right now money is tight so I think a new revolver is out of the picture for a while yet anyways, next gun is probably a Walther PPQ or Beretta APX striker fired gun for use in defensive pistol training classes.

At the moment I'm using a supply of 40 or 50 of these cheaper moonclips with the large supply of Federal brass I have on hand:
http://www.revolversupply.com/moon-clip-38-357-s-w-627-nickel-plated-0-025-thick/

They are fairly flexible. I did use to have a supply of TK Custom moonclips for my old Smith 686 6 shot. They are extremely high quality though quite expensive. I'll take a look at picking up some of the TK Custom clips to try out and see if that speeds up reloads before jumping in to buy a large set for the 627.

I'll post up again once I have a bit of mileage with the 38 Short Colt loads, might take a while.

Re: Anyone Reloading 38 Short Colt?

Sat Jan 06, 2018 10:29 pm

The Revolver Supply moon clips are what Dom started out with also. With Starline 38 spl brass, they were pretty sloppy, and Dom had a hard time getting reloads to drop in. The TKs fixed that and compared to reloading 38 short Colts, heavily modifying the cylinder throats or buying a $1200 9mm revolver, they are much cheaper in retrospect.

Re: Anyone Reloading 38 Short Colt?

Sun Jan 07, 2018 3:32 pm

TwizDD wrote:The Revolver Supply moon clips are what Dom started out with also. With Starline 38 spl brass, they were pretty sloppy, and Dom had a hard time getting reloads to drop in. The TKs fixed that and compared to reloading 38 short Colts, heavily modifying the cylinder throats or buying a $1200 9mm revolver, they are much cheaper in retrospect.


True that. Working up 38 Short Colt reloads is no cheap task between picking up a copy of QuickLoad and buying new powder in bulk. I'll definitely try a ten pack of the TK Custom moon clips for $65, it's quite cheap comparatively.

BTW I found an awesome fit chart for TK Custom moonclips which cross-references the moonclip type and thickness with various brands of brass:
https://www.tkcustom.com/resources/faq-s

This is really helpful as I shot American Eagle ammo for some time before starting to reload so I have probably at least 10,000 cases on hand.

Re: Anyone Reloading 38 Short Colt?

Sun Sep 02, 2018 7:53 am

Quick update on the thread. I've made some recent changes that have dramatically impacted my reload par times with 8 shot moonclips:
- Changed from Dardas 158gr lead RNFP to Bayou 160gr coated RN bullets
- Adjusted my resizing die... Due to a sloppy oversight on my part it was not adjusted to resize the lowermost 1/4" of the case. This led to resistance in final seating of the moonclips

Then I adjusted and ran comparisons of my 38/357 Redding Taper Crimp die vs Redding Profile Crimp die. Turns out the profile crimp die after proper adjustment yields a much smoother and cleaner crimp virtually eliminating resistance to initial seating of the moonclips. Now they virtually drop in with little or no resistance.

So proper adjustment of the crimp die is critical for moonclips of a long cartridge like 38 Special. Note that I do bullet seating and crimping in separate steps on the progressive.

I also suspect that changing from Round Nose Flat Points to Round Nose bullets contributed to easier reloads as well.

We have a bit of extra money coming in a couple weeks. Planning to buy some PC627 8 shot moonclips from TK Custom as suggested by TwizzDD to experiment with those. Will buy different thickness moonclips for my Federal 38 Special brass and also for the 38 Short Colt Starline brass on hand. Currently using some cheap (and fairly flexible) moonclips from a bargain source. So interested to see how the TK Custom perform. Will report back in a couple weeks after they arrive.

Still planning to purchase a small quantity of VV N320 at that time also to run some ladder experiments with 38 Short Colt. Thinking to start with 160gr Bayou coated RN .358 bullet over VV N320 in Starline Cases with Federal Small Pistol match primers. Will double check my data in Quickload to confirm my initial plan starting in the load 2 gr loads, probably 2.2gr and work upwards in 0.2 gr increments till I can make something like 130 PF or about 815 fps on the chrono. Of course will look for pressure signs like flattened primers or sticky extraction on the way.

Re: Anyone Reloading 38 Short Colt?

Sun Sep 02, 2018 1:26 pm

Regarding having the rounds just drop right in, it sounds like you may have that problem licked. If not, though, see #3 in this post:
viewtopic.php?p=925699#p925699.

Re: Anyone Reloading 38 Short Colt?

Sun Sep 02, 2018 3:02 pm

MadPick wrote:Regarding having the rounds just drop right in, it sounds like you may have that problem licked. If not, though, see #3 in this post:
viewtopic.php?p=925699#p925699.


Hi Steve thanks for the FCD advice. I actually have one on hand also and might run some experiments with the FCD again to compare to the Redding Profile Crimp Die. Need to read up a bit more on the role of the carbide sizing ring in the FCD as well. Appreciate the post.

Re: Anyone Reloading 38 Short Colt?

Sun Mar 15, 2020 10:01 am

38 Short Colt Ladder Load Development
Finally made it to the range to finish chrono testing & load development work. Short story is I was able to successfully test a working load for 38 Short Colt.

Please note that the load is not in compliance with any published loading manuals in several ways:
- COL is a tad long to reduce pressure
- Bullet weight at 160gr is far heavier than published load data
- Powder charge at 3.5gr is far heavier than published load data

Derived the load studying Brian Enos forum postings and started very low at 2.2gr working upwards eventually to 3.6gr in 0.1gr intervals. This is a high pressure, low velocity loading using fast burning handgun powder. So I paid close attention to any case extraction problems or primer flow issues after each firing. This load data developed for S&W 627 modern 357 magnum revolver which provides a large margin of safety for any overpressure developed by 38 Short Colt.

Settling on a 3.5gr charge of VV N320 to meet USPSA power factor.

Test Gun: Smith & Wesson PC627 8-Shot 357 Magnum w/5" barrel
Powder: VV N320
Cases: Starline 38 Short Colt Brass
Primer: Federal Small Pistol Match Primers
Bullet: Bayou Bullets 160gr LRN Coated .358" Diameter

Reloading Press: Bonanza Co-Ax Press (Load Development) or Hornady LnL AP (Production)
Resizing Die: Redding #1 Expander or Redding 38 Special / 357 Mag TIC 2P Expander
Lockout Die: RCBS Lockout Die
Bullet Seating Die: Redding 9mm Luger Pro ST 7U
Crimping Die: Lee 9mm Factory Crimp Die

Cartridge OAL(inches): 1.2
Bullet Weight (gr): 160
Goal (Power Factor): 130
Goal (Feet Per Second): 813

Range Day: 1/18/2020 Testing 2.2gr to 3.2gr loads Sunny, Approx 60 degrees, light breeze 5-10mph
Range Day: 3/13/2020 Testing 3.3gr to 3.6gr loads Sunny, Approx 75 degrees, light breeze 5-10mph

Fired 8 cartridges for each powder charge level through chronograph

2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 (Powder charge in grains)
395 463 418 617 684 705 810 768 816 826 879 (Round 1 of 8 Velocity in ft/sec)
407 482 577 596 679 750 718 762 808 805 862 (Round 2 of 8 Velocity in ft/sec)
386 457 517 606 679 704 714 791 796 836 854 (Round 3 of 8 Velocity in ft/sec)
392 470 566 583 670 737 716 725 807 801 857 (Round 4 of 8 Velocity in ft/sec)
370 482 494 594 656 689 749 768 805 811 914 (Round 5 of 8 Velocity in ft/sec)
407 525 566 608 667 691 782 795 790 835 863 (Round 6 of 8 Velocity in ft/sec)
392 470 533 627 648 704 711 778 789 832 875 (Round 7 of 8 Velocity in ft/sec)
397 463 537 616 557 727 709 751 823 814 mis (Round 8 of 8 Velocity in ft/sec)

393 477 526 606 655 713 739 767 804 820 872 (Average)
370 457 418 583 557 689 709 725 789 801 854 (Minimum)
407 525 577 627 684 750 810 795 823 836 914 (Maximum)
037 068 159 044 127 061 101 070 034 035 060 (Spread)
063 076 084 097 105 114 118 123 129 131 140 (Power Factor)

Notes:
2.2gr to 3.2gr No signs of sticky extraction or primer flow
3.3gr to 3.6gr No signs of sticky extraction or primer flow

Re: Anyone Reloading 38 Short Colt?

Sun Mar 15, 2020 10:05 am

Next steps are ordering reloading components in bulk (VV N320, Starline brass) and also ordering the TK Custom moonclips for Starline brass as recommended by Twizz. Not cheap but used to have them for my old 686 and they are super high quality.

Interested to see the reload par times and ease of loading once I get a number of rounds loaded up in moonclips.
Post a reply