Yesterday, my youngest son and I spent 2 1/2 hours at the range trying out my first batch of "home rolled". For the 686 I had loaded 25 shells with 2400 and 158gn Gold Dots and 25 with H110 and 158gn Unicore JSP's. For the X-frame .460 I had loaded 20 reduce recoil loads with 2400 and 250gn XTP's and 20 hunting loads with H110 and 240gn XTPMags. I also took plenty of factory loads for each to compare, i.e. 125gn Remington JHP's for the .357 and 200gn SST Hornady's for the .460. All in all we put about 200 rounds thru the revolvers. In between shooting the bigger guns, we shot up half a brick of .22's outta his Buckmark while we waited for the barrels to cool on the Smiths.
To put it mildly, I was impressed with my loads. The .357's performed well and all went boom when we pulled the trigger. Recoil compared to the factory loads was a little less, but considering they were at the starting end of the load tables I kinda expected that. Accuracy was good with all the loads, but seemed more consistent with the handloads. But then again, the 686 seems to shoot anything I feed her well. Extraction of the reloads was identical to factory loads with no signs of excessive pressure on spent cases. Matter of fact, the primers on the factory loads were flattened more than on my loads. The factory 125's shot the dirtiest of all, but even so we got dang good at hittin' clay pigeons set up at 50 yards.(we would then pick away at the pieces with the buckmark)
The .460's shot well also. There was little if any noticeable difference in recoil between my two different handloadings, even tho the one was a "reduced recoil load". Both recoiled less and had much less muzzle blast than the factory loaded Hornady's. Accuracy of the handloads was good with groups at 50 yards within' 4 inches(shootin' off bags), both handloads shot about the same, but the factory loads shot about 6 inches lower(?). Extraction was a little sticky for my reloads compared to factory, but again no other signs of excessive pressure with factory primers flattened more than my reloads. Another reloader at the range said I may have had my carbide sizer die set too high and left a shoulder at the base of the case. He looked at my cases and watched us shoot and said he didn't think it was a pressure issue.
The range we shoot at has a backstop berm made of washed river sand. We sometimes take a rake along to find what our bullets look like after we shoot. It was interesting to see the difference on the expansion of the different types of bullets. While the 125JHPs opened up wildly and lost their lead core, both the Gold Dots and the Unicore SP's had mushroomed uniformly and held together for the most part. There was much more difference in the .460s. While the 240gn XTPMags and the 250gn XTPs mushroomed similarly the 250 XTPs generally lost their lead core. When it came to the 200gn SSTs, there wasn't much to find. Basically what was left was the little red plastic tip and a piece of flattened copper foil about the size of a silver dollar. While all the other shells still had a resemblance to a handgun bullet, the SSTs were basically a thin flat sheet of copper. I know a sand berm is no ballistics/penetration test, but I know I would never recommend the SSTs as a hunting round except for varmints and will stick to either the 240 or 300 grain XTPMAG's for my own hunting use. The rest of the box of regular XTP's I'll burn up at the range.
Thanks again guys for helping me get started....
