I was prepping some .357 brass this afternoon and realized that I'm nearly out of 2400, an Alliant powder that I use for both the .357 magnum and the .44 magnum. Well, damn. I guess I won't be loading any magnums until I pick up another pound or two. 2400 is my go-to powder for the .357 magnum with 158 grain bullets and the .44 magnum with 240 grain bullets.
However, while digging through my supplies, I came upon a new box of Starline .44 Special brass I had forgotten about. I've got plenty of Unique and lots of those big ole 240 grain semi-wadcutters. I guess I'll make a bunch of Skeeter's Load. It is a load proposed by Skeeter Skelton in February 1969. He recommended a good 240-250 grain semi-wadcutter and 7.5 grains of Unique. I first used that recipe in January 2010 and was surprised at how accurate and controllable the load is. It pushes that big ole bullet out of my Ruger Super Blackhawk at 971 fps and is useful for about 95% of anything I want to do with a big bore handgun.
I've still got a couple of boxes of .357 and .44 magnum, but it never hurts to have a bunch of .44 specials around as well. It'll do until I can pick up some 2400.
2 comments:
I have recently been loading Blue Dot instead of 2400 in my .357 and .44 magnum loads, and I really like it. I keep Unique on hand for making light loads, but it mostly just sits in reserve.
Bea loads Herco in her .380, .45 Colt, and .45ACP. It is really versatile for loads below the magnum threshold. We like it a lot for her guns.
That's sounds like an ideal load for social work. Similar in effect to my favorite Colt 45 social load (255gr SWC over 9.0gr Unique).
Controllable and yet convincing.
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