Two rifles.
Both are Uberti made replicas of early lever action Winchesters.
Rifle #1 is an 1866 "Yellow Boy" brass frame chambered in .38 Special.
Rifle #2 is an 1873 "Trapper" chambered in .357 Magnum.
Each rifle works fine with it respective ammo as long as the bullet is round nosed. Semi-wadcutter types will not cycle thru the action.
38 Special in round nose lead moderate power loads is common and relatively affordable in factory ammo.
.357 in round nose lead moderate power loads is insanely expensive and pretty much must be special ordered.
Another issue is 38's will not cycle in the 357 rifle because the elevator is very sensitive to O.A.L. of the cartridge and 38's are too short.
357 can't be used in the brass framed 38 rifle as they are too long as well as too powerful for the gun. Even some truncated cone bullet rounds are too short to cycle reliably.
What I wanted to do was create a round I could use in both rifles.
The round would be a lower powered plinking round for general range shooting.
Both rifles are intended for short range, light recoil shooting. Perfect for the newbies.
After doing a little reading and experimenting I believe I've found a solution.
Started out with many rounds of 38 Special brass. Did not want to spend any more money on 357 brass that couldn't be used in the '66,
So I needed a bullet that could be seated out farther than a standard 158 LRN would allow. Finally found a 190grn LRN on-line and ordered some.
This bullet allows seating out far enough to meet 357 O.A.L. while still have enough length to taper crimp firmly in a 38 case.
Firm crimp is needed because of tubular magazines on the lever action rifles.
Powder charges are the same for both rifles. Powder charges are light, approx 4 grains of various pistol powders.
I've been tinkering with O.A.L.'s and i've found that 1.585" works in both rifles.
Accuracy varies with the powder charges. I'm still playing around with different powders. Still have more work on this.
So the trick was to seat the bullets out farther in a 38 Special case.
Now I can haz boolits fer de lever gunz all day.
This is what is so neat about rolling your own. You can make whatever you need at 1/4 the price of factory ammo.
Both are Uberti made replicas of early lever action Winchesters.
Rifle #1 is an 1866 "Yellow Boy" brass frame chambered in .38 Special.
Rifle #2 is an 1873 "Trapper" chambered in .357 Magnum.
Each rifle works fine with it respective ammo as long as the bullet is round nosed. Semi-wadcutter types will not cycle thru the action.
38 Special in round nose lead moderate power loads is common and relatively affordable in factory ammo.
.357 in round nose lead moderate power loads is insanely expensive and pretty much must be special ordered.
Another issue is 38's will not cycle in the 357 rifle because the elevator is very sensitive to O.A.L. of the cartridge and 38's are too short.
357 can't be used in the brass framed 38 rifle as they are too long as well as too powerful for the gun. Even some truncated cone bullet rounds are too short to cycle reliably.
What I wanted to do was create a round I could use in both rifles.
The round would be a lower powered plinking round for general range shooting.
Both rifles are intended for short range, light recoil shooting. Perfect for the newbies.
After doing a little reading and experimenting I believe I've found a solution.
Started out with many rounds of 38 Special brass. Did not want to spend any more money on 357 brass that couldn't be used in the '66,
So I needed a bullet that could be seated out farther than a standard 158 LRN would allow. Finally found a 190grn LRN on-line and ordered some.
This bullet allows seating out far enough to meet 357 O.A.L. while still have enough length to taper crimp firmly in a 38 case.
Firm crimp is needed because of tubular magazines on the lever action rifles.
Powder charges are the same for both rifles. Powder charges are light, approx 4 grains of various pistol powders.
I've been tinkering with O.A.L.'s and i've found that 1.585" works in both rifles.
Accuracy varies with the powder charges. I'm still playing around with different powders. Still have more work on this.
So the trick was to seat the bullets out farther in a 38 Special case.
Now I can haz boolits fer de lever gunz all day.
This is what is so neat about rolling your own. You can make whatever you need at 1/4 the price of factory ammo.
