SpaceRanger42 wrote: Fri Mar 29, 2019 2:53 pm
My latest load (that I have not tried out yet) is with HS6. I am loving it in my 9mm. The bulk of my 357 is with my last batch of Bullseye, 158g round nose fmj. I did do a small batch of plated bullets and I liked those way better but they are like effing gold around here.
Bullseye is much too fast to get you anything close to a magnum load. Great for plinkers. I use Titegroup (similar burn rate) for my plinkers with plated bullets and out of my 6" blackhawk I get right around 1000 fps and they shoot kind of like a hot 22lr.
HS6 is a medium burn rate and good for what I'd call a warm load. I haven't used it much but depending on how it performs for you it might be a good choice but still won't really be a magnum load. I recently started using AA#7 which is a bit slower than HS6 and it gave me some of the best velocities I've seen. With a 158 gr JHP I was right at 1300 fps in my Blackhawk.
As mentioned before, if you really want to capitalize on the longer barrel of a rifle and load truly magnum rounds you'll need to look at the slowest pistol powders. H110, AA9, 2400, Enforcer would all be good options.
As for finding plated bullets, try X-treme online. I've had good luck with their bullets and they are pretty reasonable and they run deals fairly often. The other option would be polymer coated hard cast. I haven't tried those yet but they seem to be all the rage now. Won't lead the barrel and are pretty cheap.
ETA: oh, as for adjusting charges for longer barrels, I don't think that would be a good idea. The .357 rifle data I've looked at had pretty much the same charges as for handguns. It's really not about barrel length but chamber pressure. Once you max out the pressure you can't go higher just because the barrel is longer. Some guns will handle slightly over max charges but you need to work up carefully and I suspect most lever guns are not going to be tolerant of loads exceeding max. Powders like H110 will pretty much fill the case anyway.