SamboSon

Mike, I happened to load mine up at exactly 1.14" also. I guess that is not a coincidence considering that point is the max seating depth before the brass starts to bulge. I am really digging these bullets though. They shoot much cleaner than the cast, traditionally lubed 160's that I have been using. I am a 3-4" at 25 yards offhand shooter, so I can't say that these are worthy of the "far and near". Let me know how they do Mike. It doesn't really matter at my current skill level, but it's nice to know that my scattered groups are my own fault.

I found these 147 grain .358 polymer coated cast bullets the other day and ordered a sample pack to check them out. The polymer coating is very tough. I scraped off the coating to measure the bearing surface of the bullet, and it was much tougher than scraping the moly coating off the 160 bullets I currently use. The bullets are less pointy than the 160s that many users use, but the bearing surface is actually longer. I loaded up a few dummy rounds, and they fall in just as nice as the 160s. The price is pretty good at 241 for 3000 shipped. Now I just need to develop a load and see how they shoot. Thebluebullets.com

Directly from the product overview: • Full Top Strap and Barrel Serration • Ball-Detent Lock-Up • 2-Piece Barrel Does the 2 piece barrel system guarantee properly aligned barrel/frame clocking? If so, that's a plus. It seems like all of the smiths I see in shops have overturned, underturned barrels.

Wow! I bet a whole lot of time and machining went into that barrel. What was the purpose of the project? Decrease weight? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The 6" barrels are preferred by icore shooters. Icore tends to require greater accuracy than other games and the longer sight radius helps a lot. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I am using hearthco moonclips with starline short colt brass, 160 grain lrn bullets, bullseye powder, federal primers, 130 pf Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm not sure how hot rod my 686+ is but here it is. 686+ 6" barrel 7 shot titanium 38 special cylinder Moonclip conversion Apex hammer Sdm fiber optic sight Hogue wood grips Hogue "short" extended cylinder release 4.5 lb double action Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I saw that blade tech has a "pro series speed rig" for 80 bucks. I tried to search if anyone has any experience with the holster but couldn't find anything. I haven't seen a picture of the revolver version, but it looks like a blade tech doh with the top end cut almost to the muzzle. I think I will order one soon and let everyone know how it works out.

Before you comment, the bullets are not actually billy bullets. They come from the same bullet mold and are traditionally lubed with a light coat of molly. I ordered them from black and blue bullets. They are very affordable. The bullets did not cause any leading whatsoever. I honestly forgot to even pay attention to how much smoke they created. I was way too busy staring at the the chrono. Anyway... I posted these pictures to explain my seating depth and crimping issues. from left to right: 1: This bullet is seated to 1.13", the point where the top of the brass meets the very end of the bearing surface. If you compare to the unaltered bullet immediately to the right you can see two things: 1, the roll crimped reduced the diameter of the bullet at the very top of the bearing surface resulting in a setback of the bearing surface. 2, the bottom driving band has been swaged or reduced in diameter because of the drastic increase in wall thickness of the starline brass. 2: Unaltered bullet showing bearing surface. 3: This bullet was seated to 1.115 in federal brass and crimped with a heavy roll crimp. You can see that the bearing surface was not altered in any way, even with an extreme roll crimp. 4: This bullet was seated, crimped, re-seated, re-crimped a few times. Focus on the line in the middle of the top driving band. The bullet was seated to 1.18" to avoid any bulge in starline brass and was lightly roll crimped. Even a light roll crimp deforms the bearing surface (the line in the middle of the top driving band) Am I being too critical and obsessing over this whole thing? Maybe! Probably! I may have OCD If anyone is wondering... I used the sharp edge of the caliper jaws and rotated the bullets to scrape off the moly coat. Also, I obviously don't have a bullet puller. Don't criticize!

Just got back from my third outing with the short colt and am quite satisfied. I had a 50 shot avg of 797.4 fps, 46 ES and 13 SD. I have no point of reference compared to other SC loads but recoil is fairly soft. I have not weighed the charge(scale is on the fritz) but with a lee auto disk pro, the charge is supposed to be 3.5 grains of bullseye. I originally purchased the starline short colts but was unhappy with the bulge I was getting when seating to where I wanted. I had to seat the bullet all the way out to 1.18" to have zero bulge. At 1.18" I was crimping right into the middle of the top driving band, and I felt that I would ideally like to crimp right at the point where the bullet begins to taper. It just wasn't possible to do this with starline brass without causing any bullet deformation. At 1.115", the bullets were being reduced in diameter at the bottom driving band and the bulge was extreme. I cut down 4 different brands of brass to .760" and measured the wall thickness. I believe they were remington, winchester, pmc and federal. The only brass that would allow the bullet to be seated to 1.115", where the bullet begins to taper, was federal. I was surprised that the non-starline hearthco brass from tk custom holds federal brass just as tight and precise, maybe even tighter, as the hearthco/starline combination. I know many people are achieving great accuracy with starline brass seated from 1.2" all the way to 1.13", but I feel that you cannot maintain a completely unaltered bearing surface on the 160 billy bullet without seat to below 1.13". I am using a tight roll crimp based on the advise of others and don't like the way the crimp deforms the bearing surface of bullet. Do any of the "problems" I have mentioned matter? I honestly don't know, but I feel that taking every effort to preserve the original state and dimensions of the bullet can't hurt. So far the 38 SC experience has been enjoyable, and I feel comfortable enough with the loading that I am pretty sure I want to pursue ICORE limited. Now to find a 627.... that's going to be the hard part!

I purposely left out the powder I am using because I didn't want the thread to turn into a "use a different powder" discussion. I am actually using bullseye. I realize it is a fast burning powder that is known to be very dirty, but it is what I have at the moment. I find bullseye to be sooty but burns completely and doesn't seem to ever get thick. I have shot thousands of rounds in 38 special and have not had any problems with soot building up under the ratchet or any other places that I have read about. I just wanted to test the waters with short colt and see if it is something I want to pursue. I am shooting them out of an old k frame and plan to buy a 627 if I can ever find one.

Just got back from shooting the 50 rounds I loaded last night. I am a little closer but not quite there. The fastest load from yesterday ended up averaging right at 120pf with an extreme spread of 34. Out of the 10 from the bumped up load 6 were in the 770's, but the last 2 got weird. One was 742 and the next was 794; extreme spread of 52. I am just below 124 power factor, so I guess I will work my way up to 130 a tenth at a time. I think .2 more grains will make it. I am going to try to tighten up the crimp and see if the extreme spread tightens up.

Thanks Bubber! The load I am developing is for icore. That sure is a lenient way they test for PF. I just bumped the load up a tenth, and that should get me a consistent 125 PF. Now for accuracy testing... What kind of extreme spread do you consider acceptable? It started to rain today while I was testing, so I was only able to get off 3 rounds of my heaviest load. The 3 were 756, 773 and 768 I think. I just loaded up 50 more with various crimps and 10 with a tenth more powder.

I had my first outing today with the 38 short colt and 160 billy bullets. The highest charged load today was chrono'ing in the 750-765 range. The primers got progressively flatter looking from my starting load to my max load, but they all ejected with ease. What will a federal primer look like on the edge of overpressure? I hear federal primers aren't a good way to assess pressure because they always end up looking flat because they are so soft. What power factor should I shoot for? 125-130? I am not familiar with how they verify loads. Do all rounds have to be over PF? Will one slow bullet disqualify me? Thanks, Sam

I think you will find that not many people use a bullet that light, especially cast, in short colt. I have no experience with this cast bullet weight in short colt, but my lyman cast bullet manual lists a 9mm load using a 102 grain round nose bullet and 4.6 grains bullseye... 1120 fps at 28,400 cup 1.030 oal. It looks like 3.5 is a very safe place to start. The pressure generated at 3.5 grains should be okay for a12 bhn bullet. Typical 9mm cast bullets are more like 18. Hope this is any help at all.

Bubberizing is cutting down the length of the speed loader in order to minimize the chance of the loader hanging up on the brass. It makes loading the speed loaders by hand more difficult but very doable with practice. Some find it necessary to use a loading block though. Look at the picture of grandboule's jet loader compared to a stock loader picture. The nipples are cut off and about half of the length of the part that holds the rounds. Cutting down the loaders definitely allows for a cleaner, more positive reload

I definitely prefer the jet loaders. I have an S.L Variant and find that the rounds wiggle quite a bit more when attempting a reload.

Wow, the x-ring is 4". I guess 8" a 50 yards offhand is what I should shoot for. I would think that 2-3" off a rest is needed for a decent shooter to make 50 yard A zone hits offhand. It looks like I need to practice my long game and get some confidence before showing up to a match.

GOF, where are you shooting? I just found out Volusia County Gun Club (about 20 min away from me) holds monthly icore matches for 15 bucks for non members.

I am interested in icore classic division and am trying to develop a load. What is the typical and longest distance for targets in ICORE? I have honestly never shot at 50 yards but can print pretty decent offhand, double action groups at 25 yards. What I am wondering is... Do the accuracy demands of ICORE require 50 yard, bench rested load development? If so, what kind of groups do I need? I searched for quite a while on the forum and didn't come up with anything. Thanks, Sam