cast bullet load for 375JDJ

[Tad Houston]

Anyone here have a plain base cast bullet load for the 375 JDJ? Thanks

[Leftoverdj]

The loads for the .38-55 would be safe enough and give lower velocities and pressures. I'd start there.

[rickyp]

what I do is use the same loads as for jacket bullets. As with all loads start at the bottom and work your way up.

with everyone starting to ask about cast bullets for the 375 jdj maybe MR jones will do some testing for them.

I have Even used 375 round balls out of my JDJ barrel with rood results.

has anyone used the cast bullets for hunting?

[Leftoverdj]

Ricky, GC bullets and I'd agree with you, but he specified plain base. PBs need a lot lower pressures and velocities.

[Tad Houston]

What i would like is a unique load. JD wrote me back, and he has nothing for cast bullet loads. He suggested a 375 winchester start load out of the lymam cast bullet book, but it does not list unique for the 375 win. what im looking for is a light plinking load i can use to practice the gun with. Looks like i will try the blue dot - load anything- formula. Weigh a case full of water, start at 20% of that weight, work up to around 50-60% for max. Or, does anyone here have a unique load for 375 win. with a 250 gr. lead bullet? Thanks for the feedback- Tad

P.S. i did see a unique load for the 375 H&H, so i know its possable.

[JPH45]

An old saying is 10 grains of Unique will make anything go bang. 10 grains of Unique in a 38 Special will destroy it. Unique is a fairly forgiving powder in rifle cases, just remember that 15 grains is generally considered about max in a 45-70 (I'm sure one can do a little more, it just works good there about 1200 fps with a 405)

In the 375 JDJ I would start with 8 grains and stop when I began to get above 1250 fps. (If you don't have a chrony, get one) I would think that about 12 grains will get you there. I would NOT load Blue Dot to 50% of the case weight of water. That would be on the order of 70 grains of Blue Dot, (doubt you could even get that in the case) and if you did the pressures would give catastrophic results. Who ever gave you that info needs their head examined, if you use it you won't need your head examined, you won't have one.

[Tad Houston]

The 375JDJ case holds 68 grains of water, so starting load would be 14 grains of blue dot, and 50% would be 34 grains. working the load up carfully with a chrony means i quite possably would not get to 50%. I noticed blue dot is quite a bit slower than unique, so does this sound more in line? Anybody here try that blue dot recipe? I was told it works well in the 30-30 AI case for fire forming.

[JPH45]

My bad, I was looking at the weight of case & primer of 444, 199 grains, usaable grains water is 51.2 on the Marlin case (at least according to Handloaders Digest). I would still question that method of arriving at a max pistol powder charge. The 14 grains sounds ok on a start but I would still limit my max to around 1250-1350 fps, regardless of charge weight. I've never seen data for pistol powder that uses charges of 30 + grains.  Regardless that, while the 375 JDJ was developed as a pistol cartrigde, it is in fact a rifle cartridge being fired in a pistol length barrel. I am using a surplus powder, #107, which gibrass lists as a copy of AA #7. It burns just like Blue Dot. In my 45-70, 15 grains drives a 340 grain bullet at 1290 fps. 11 grains of Blue Dot fom my 44 Mag Handi rifle gives me 1270 fps with a 265 grain bullet. The same 11 grains of Blue Dot drives a 200 grain bullet to 1400 fps from my 357 Maximum rifle. I know none of that is 375 JDJ data, but I hope you find it useful in figureing out where you want to go, sorry for my earlier goof.