.358 winchester short

[Broom_jm]

shot the 358 today. the group on the right is the unmodified 358 win. case. all the loads used the same bullet 225 sgk with varget powder. the groups on the left are the 1.8 cases. i would say the 100.00 barrel i bought is a shooter with the unmodified case. .362 for 3 shots with the first load tried. i tried 6 different 358 short loads with the same bullet and the same powder but with increasing powder charges. they all shot between 1.6 to 2.4 inch groups. looks like the bullet does not like the long jump. could be i havent found the right charge also. the case hods 9 percent less powder than the unmodified case so thats where i started and kept working up. will keep trying different things and see what happens.

You said the bullets might not like the long jump...does this mean you went to a shorter OAL, in addition to trimming the necks? Would it be possible to seat them long, or is that just not enough bullet in the neck, if you do that?

 

[mwilson]

yes its a shorter oal. there is only about .225 of bullet in the case. going to see if i can find a longer bullet. seems like the barnes bullets are longer for caliber if i remember right. going to try blc 2 powder also. my 355wssm did not like the varget loads but came around with the blc 2.

 

[mwilson]

Thanks for the report! Have you thought about trying the Nosler Accubond in 225gr? The bullet is a TON longer and won't have near as far to jump to the lands. Just a thought.

I have both bullets for the .358/25 WSSM Encore I am shooting. To be honest, I have been trying to get the Nosler to over 2500fps and stay in a MOA group. So far, I have done so with H322. IMR3031 is also giving me better velocities in the much shorter case. Not trying to hijack your thread, just share a bit of info!

I will be waiting to hear more! That full size case/barrel combination seems to be doing right well! That would be a keeper!

Just an after thought, did you use some crimp on the shorter case? The bullet may not have enough holding it to cause a good ignition. What was the velocity of the loads you tried?

Just curious! Again, thanks for the report!

more info is always a good thing. have not tried the noslers but will have to order some. no crimp. did not set up the chrony. kind of a pain at attebury range. may try a magnum primer also. my 358wssm liked them. lots of things to try which is always fun.

 

[Skip]

I got my best readings across the chronograph with BLC-(2). The extreme spread was in the single digits and the groups were extremely tight. The only problem with it is that it is a bit temperature sensitive. Cold days, less velocity, different point of impact.

kludge and I both thought that the Hodgdon line of Extreme powders would work best because of that. H4895, H322, and others that are found on their website. Sorry, right now their name and numbers elude me. Varget is one of them too, but there are others.

I was on a quest to get the Nosler up to 2500fps out of my Encore in .358/25 WSSM. I got there with H322 and the groups were very, very good, sub moa. Only problem was, the barrel got a bit hotter with the faster powder. No big deal but POI changed from cold to hot. About 3" worth @ 100 yards. Groups at both temps were GREAT! Just in different spots.

It would be no big deal in a hunting situation with a single shot rifle, that's for sure. Just me and it bugs the snot out of me when I shoot paper!

Loaded up a bunch of the Nosler's with H4895 that will get me to 2300fps to take to the range on Monday. I may just leave things there and call it good. Depends on what I see on paper.

Again, thanks for the info.

 

[fireball168]

I trimmed some Jamison 358 Winchester brass to 1.8" this afternoon.

Seated a 225 Partition to 2.750" for the BLR magazine using a Vickerman style seating die.

Loaded up nine with RL-7 and the 225 Partition, will see how they perform this week.

With the sample size of 9 cartridges, all fed and functioned as if they hadn't realized they had been trimmed.

All held "minute of hedgeapple" this morning, which is about all the accuracy testing you're going to get out of me when it is 25F.

I'd love to hunt Indiana with this BLR.

 

[mwilson]

that browning would be cool to hunt with. even though the best group i shot out of the 6 was 1.72 with the short 358 i would still take it hunting. under 2" group is still minute of deer in most hunting situations. but if we stopped experementing now what fun would that be.

 

[Broom_jm]

I was reading on another website where a guy has already played around with the 35 Remington-1.800" and found it to be completely suitable. The 358 short would bring another 50 yards to the table, if it can be made to group well enough to shoot out to 250, or so. I don't know if I'd be comfortable shooting at that range, if the best I could do from the bench, at 100 yards, was 2 inches. That would equate to a 5" group at 250, under ideal conditions. To me, that is leaving very little wiggle room, but I'm also fairly certain that group can be tightened up by seating longer and/or applying a good crimp on the bullet so that starting pressures are more consistent.

It's good to know the idea is workable, at least.

 

[Skip]

Yeah, I am going to have to look for a Marlin in 35Rem it looks like!

I don't think we gain anything ballistically with this setup though. The .358/25 WSSM has it hands down in that category, but, what would be nice is lots more rifles to shoot it out of a whole lot cheaper!

I too would like to see the 100 yard groups down to MOA though. Not too sure how possible that is with the levergun platform. I know my Marlin 1894 in 44Mag is close, 1 1/2 MOA and that is pretty good for that combination.

Might just have to get one to try it out! Got dies and bullets so................

 

[Broom_jm]

Well, MWilson's 358 lever-action, with full-length rounds, showed very good accuracy. It was only with the shortened necks that his groups opened up. Also, Bryan at BFG had some truly scared hedge-apples, so I'm not ready to concede that the lever action is going to prohibit 200 or 250 yard shooting. I wouldn't try to push the 35 Rem or 358 Win any further than those distances, respectively.

It may wind up being necessary to set back a barrel and cut a modified chamber. Perhaps setting the barrel back .050" would be enough but unless the end result is a shorter throat, I'm not sure the 358 Win is going to work out all that well. I'm not saying it won't, but of the two, it's the one I'd be most worried about. When trimmed to legal length, it only has a .150" neck, whereas the 35 Rem, trimmed short, still has ~.215" which doesn't seem like a big difference. However, it might be that the 35 Rem is JUST long enough to be accurate, while the 358 is a little too short. I would suspect either of them would be fine from a single-shot rifle.

 

[mwilson]

my loads were shot with a savage model 11 bolt action.

 

[Broom_jm]

my loads were shot with a savage model 11 bolt action.

Ahh, I stand (well, sit) corrected!

A bolt action would make a difference, for sure.

 

[mwilson]

got some more bullets in today. got some 225 grain barnes x bullets and some 200 grain hornady. the 1st photo is the 225 barnes next to 225 sierra game king. the bullets are seated in the case the same depth. hopefully these being closer to the lands will shoot better. the 3rd photo is 1 180 hornady, 200 hornady, 225 sgk, and the 225 barnes.

y.

 

[Broom_jm]

I'm not a cast bullet reloader, though I plan to get into it at some point. When I see those bands on the TSX bullet, it makes me wonder if they wouldn't serve as a means of applying a modest roll crimp. Maybe (this is purely hypothesizing)...maybe the short .150" neck isn't creating enough tension for those loads to develop a good and consistent starting pressure. Perhaps a crimp would hold the bullet long enough to get the chemical process off to a good start and bring your standard deviation down? I'm presuming that's part of the reason the accuracy fell off with the shortened neck. This would be a good time to chronograph the loads and find out whether or not that is an accurate assumption?

 

[mwilson]

I'm not a cast bullet reloader, though I plan to get into it at some point. When I see those bands on the TSX bullet, it makes me wonder if they wouldn't serve as a means of applying a modest roll crimp. Maybe (this is purely hypothesizing)...maybe the short .150" neck isn't creating enough tension for those loads to develop a good and consistent starting pressure. Perhaps a crimp would hold the bullet long enough to get the chemical process off to a good start and bring your standard deviation down? I'm presuming that's part of the reason the accuracy fell off with the shortened neck. This would be a good time to chronograph the loads and find out whether or not that is an accurate assumption?

may try a crimp sometime if nothing else pans out. never have seen a need for a crimp on a bolt gun. if the neck is sized correctly dont see the need. the short neck has a good amount of tension on the bullet. seated some 225 sgks and then used my bullet puller ( the hammer type) to pull them. not scientific by any means it does give you something to compare to. it took 2 very solid hits to dislodge the sgk. i did not try the barnes. i can remove the bullets in my 308 loads in 3 hits. i doubt the neck tension has anything to do with the inaccuracy of the short neck loads. if you have ever played with oal in developing loads then you know that just a tiny bit from the lands can make a large difference in accuracy let alone the .250 or so of this round. time will tell

 

[Skip]

I'm not a cast bullet reloader, though I plan to get into it at some point. When I see those bands on the TSX bullet, it makes me wonder if they wouldn't serve as a means of applying a modest roll crimp. Maybe (this is purely hypothesizing)...maybe the short .150" neck isn't creating enough tension for those loads to develop a good and consistent starting pressure. Perhaps a crimp would hold the bullet long enough to get the chemical process off to a good start and bring your standard deviation down? I'm presuming that's part of the reason the accuracy fell off with the shortened neck. This would be a good time to chronograph the loads and find out whether or not that is an accurate assumption?

I'm with you on this. A Lee Factory Crimp Die, or Collet Crimp or whatever they call them would be a great asset when trying to do what we are attempting here.

 

[Broom_jm]

may try a crimp sometime if nothing else pans out. never have seen a need for a crimp on a bolt gun. if the neck is sized correctly dont see the need. the short neck has a good amount of tension on the bullet. seated some 225 sgks and then used my bullet puller ( the hammer type) to pull them. not scientific by any means it does give you something to compare to. it took 2 very solid hits to dislodge the sgk. i did not try the barnes. i can remove the bullets in my 308 loads in 3 hits. i doubt the neck tension has anything to do with the inaccuracy of the short neck loads. if you have ever played with oal in developing loads then you know that just a tiny bit from the lands can make a large difference in accuracy let alone the .250 or so of this round. time will tell

I generally agree on not needing to crimp a round going in a bolt-action and that neck tension is usually sufficient to grip the bullet and start the combustion process. However, the neck is being trimmed from ~.360" to .150", so you're losing nearly 60% of what would normally be holding onto that bullet. Also, I've seen situations where the key to accuracy from a given cartridge/bullet combo was a consistent crimp, particularly when the bullet could not be seated near the lands. Keep in mind that basically all factory rifle ammo comes with a crimp and that is key to producing accuracy from a wide variety of guns.

If you can't load the bullet out any farther toward the lands, crimping it in place, with that tiny neck, might just be the key.

 

[parson]

I'm hoping to learn some things from this experiment. But would also point out that the Barnes, or any flat based bullet could be loaded with the base even with the bottom of the neck. From your pics it looks like this would give a bit more oal.

 

[mwilson]

shot the barnes x bullet loads today. really did not learn anything. atteburys rebar target holders were blowing around so much it was impossible to get any kind of group at all. even the 358 win loads were all over the place. will have to wait for better weather.

 

[Broom_jm]

I hope you didn't shoot a lot of those TSX bullets today...they're not cheap or easy to find, right now.

 

[mwilson]

I hope you didn't shoot a lot of those TSX bullets today...they're not cheap or easy to find, right now.

not many. 10 to be exact. enough to see that maybe the longer bullets might work better. could put a couple touching then flyer. not sure it was me the gun or the target blowing around. then again maybe the target was blowing around enough to make 2 touch, the target holder really was blowing around that much. going to try crimping them as some have suggested for the next go around also.