All weekend all I thought about was reloading.

I think the appeal is that there’s a lot of science, but there’s also art and craft to it. There’s satisfaction in working with your hands, and when you go and shoot the loads being able to say “I did that”. It’s neat.

While I certainly was thinking about the 9mm experiments, more so I was thinking about reloads for .38 Special. I spent a good bit of time pouring through books and reload data online trying to find something that would work. There’s the fact .38 Special cases have a lot of volume so you want powder that can fill that volume and ignite well and completely without creating too much pressure. I would figure I would want a faster burning powder since these loads would be shot out of a snub revolver. Plus the bullets I picked up were 158 grain jacketed round nose, and trying to find load data with such a bullet is impossible. I just don’t know enough yet about how to adapt existing recipes to cope. For instance, I can find recipes that are almost the same but would use a Hornady XTP bullet, which is a hollow point, thus the overall length of the cartridge wouldn’t measure the same. So how to adjust? I was told the rule of thumb for when in doubt is to go longer, so I’d likely do that. Plus when data tends to be for lead cast vs. copper jacketed bullets you might need to add 0.1 or 0.2 grains of powder to help overcome the friction of the jacket.

I just don’t want to risk anything. 🙂

So all sorts of things swirling in my head. Emails will be sent out to some experienced folk to ask for their input.

Crazy thing is, if I had a choice as to what to do today? I’d rather be in the garage cranking out some reloads. 🙂