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A fine gentleman from this website sold me this Lee mold and I cast a small pile of them before I got tired of the mosquitoes carrying me away bit by bit. It's a small pile but I figured I would start looking up load data to maybe load some up to test this weekend.
Let's check the Lee book since it's their mold. Hmm... no data for it. Ok, let's go with the old standby of the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook. Nope. Nada. Three more books later and the closest I can find is data for a 150gr SWC. What the hey??? I've read and heard mention of this bullet for years now and always hear good things about it being highly accurate in everything and feeds well in a lever action. I'm not new to having to work up a load but I just find it odd that there is just zero data out there to he had.
I did a Google Lee 358-140 swc mold and I found several sites that talked about that specific mold. The Cast Boolits, Smith and Wesson and the AR15 forums all have threads on that specific mold before I stop looking. Hope this helps.
An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out.
When setting a job up for myself it must be Idiot Proof as well, as I am a bigger idiot than most people I know, and I prove it to myself everyday.
I would think you would be safe using the 150 gr data .
Just check out the case intrusion and be sure that it is the same or less than the 150. I ran into this with a search for WC data in 45 Colts. Check cast against jacketed data as well . If bad comes to worst 9mm data often crosses over nearly directly to lighter for 38 special. In an older 357 (pre 80) I wouldn't worry about the difference in data from the 150 to 140 data.
Just a Red neck,White boy, Blue blood American.....
Daboone, I'm referring to published load data. I found and wrote down quite a bit from the sources you mentioned but I find it odd there is zilch for published data on so many molds. Just like how Lyman goes to all the effort to make a cast bullet book only to ignore half of their own molds. I just don't get it.
RBHarter, For all my found unofficial data I'm going to use the 150gr listed as the checkpoint. I've found a few Unique loads that look more like magnum data than .38 special so if they go above that 150gr data they will be lined out. I did think about using the 140gr XTP load's starting data and may also check that as a benchmark.
Lee should include their cataloged molds in their data or at least have some kind of PDF that you could download. I've never cared for Lyman's data because it is predominantly mouse phart loads. I think the way to do it is the start giving loads & velocities for a powder at 25.0 KPSI and then every 5 KPSI to the SAAMI or CIP limit. They it is a matter for the user as to what his alloy can handle.
Ranch Dog wrote: I think the way to do it is the start giving loads & velocities for a powder at 25.0 KPSI and then every 5 KPSI to the SAAMI or CIP limit. They it is a matter for the user as to what his alloy can handle.
That is actually a genius idea. I like that a lot and it would greatly ease load development.
