snakebite 38 158 gr

[Muskrat Rustler]

Do you size these?  I see talk of pan lube which makes me think you don't need to. If you do size, why not lube in the sizer?
Muskrat

[Howdy Doody]

I shoot a lot of the big lube bullets and I pan lube them. I then run them through one of those cheapo LEE sizers on my old single stage press. The Snakbites I use the one for 358 dia. That sizes the bullets nicely and it even smoothes the lube in the groove. They come out looking real good. I size 454 for my 45s too.
I have a lubersizer for the bullets I don't pan lube, but in my case there is nothing more boring than lubing /sizing on a Saeco. Pan lubing goes faster for me.

[Muskrat Rustler]

Thanks Howdy. Appreciate the reply. So much to learn, so little patience....
Muskrat

[hellgate]

I always size my boolits 'cause sometimes you miss a few upon inspection that are out of round (lead between the mold blocks) and the sizer shows them. I sort them out and use them for the close targets.

[Goatlips]

I do just like Howdy but my Lee sizer is .357, bought when I din't know no better.  Works just fine though, wipes off the pan lube and smooths down the fins and feathers  .

Goatlips

[litl rooster]

 I buy mine pre lubed...Got enuff to do without adding casting and lubing to the game.   There is a couple of pards who offer them this way.

[Muskrat Rustler]

Rooster,
Anyone you would recommend? I'm not ready to cast and like you, not sure if i'd find the time.
Muskrat

[Howdy Doody]

If you were to use the new Goex Pinnacle, American Pioneer or 777, then you can use smokeless lube with good results and easy clean up. That would mean that you could buy whatever bullets/weight you would like to reload and you will get plenty of smoke, but no flames. Only the true BP shoots foot long flames from the muzzle. Subs are a good place to start and even though I have shot nothing but BP for about 5 years now, this year I am shooting Goex Pinnacle in everything including C&B and shotgun. I find it very smokey and can't find anything on the downside at all.
I never had much luck with the silver bullets made in your neck of the woods. They were just too hard. I like the Snakebites because I shoot a Marlin and they feed like a hot knife through butter, but there are many choices and some even have SPG or other lube made for true BP.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

The beauty of pan lubing is it requires no sizing equipment. Hence it is best with bullets that are already sized. Pan lubing really first became popular when melting the hard Smokeless lube off of commercial hardcast Smokeless bullets and relubing them with a BP compatible lube. The bullets were already sized, so no further sizing was necessary. This was before the Big Lube bullets, like the Snakebite bullet, existed. Once the phenomenon of Big Lube bullets really took hold just a few years ago, it offered a better alternative to pan lubing commercial hardcast bullets. Hard cast commercial bullets were never able to hold as much lube as the Big Lube bullets do. Smokeless does not require as much lube as BP does. The lube groove on a commercial hardcast bullet is generally one, or maybe two thin shallow grooves. While replacing the smokeless lube on these bullets with a BP compatible lube was better than the original product for shooting with BP, it still did not provide enough lube to keep a long rifle barrel lubed for its entire length during a day of shooting. It did however provide enough lube to keep most revolvers running. The longer the barrel, the more lube you need. The Big Lube bullets carry a HUGE amount of lube, easily enough to keep the longest rifle barrel lubed all day long with no extra attention at all.

You can contact Mason Stillwell for precast, sized and lubed Big Lube bullets.

P.S. The other beauty of the Snakebite bullet is it is designed extra long. It brings the OAL of a 38Sp round out to the same OAL of a 357Mag round. This means you can use cheap 38Sp brass in rifles that are picky about only working well with 357 sized rounds.

[Muskrat Rustler]

First of all I want to say how much I appreciate the advice from everyone. It makes good sense and is invaluable in my journey into the world of CAS. I do have another question. There seems such a domination (actually exclusive) use of the 38 instead of the 357, and I was wondering why? Cost can't be the issue as brass last forever at such low loads and is relatively cheep compared to the cost of all other items in CAS. After all, we don't see a Snakebite for the 357 do we? (too long I would think.) Is it historical? Questions, questions, questions....
Thanks,
Muskrat

[hellgate]

38spl brass is far cheaper than 357 and is almost a "throw away" item. I shoot 357 in my rifle using 15grs 777. Some guns, like my Rossis, like the 357 length cartridge. I like it 'cause it takes more powder and I don't want to load elongated 38s to collect dust & dirt on the lubed bullet. Since all we need to do is ding a target then the 38s are also cheaper to buy than 357s that are loaded way too hot as factory loads. You might get a better gas seal with the thinner 38 brass too.

[Muskrat Rustler]

Sorry Hellgate but I don't see it.
I must be shopping for brass in the wrong places. I find only about a penny difference on new Win brass from Midway, surly not enough to design a bullet to overcome such an obstacle. Can you buy loaded snakebite ammo and that it is cheap enough to throw away the brass?
Muskrat

[hellgate]

Muskrat,
We may have different experiences. I'm generally looking at bags of used brass and how cheaply it goes at shoots compared to 357. You are likely correct that there is little difference in new unfired brass from the factory. For whatever reason I don't see shooters leaving 357 brass laying around but the 38s are everywhere. Maybe it's cause there are so many folks in law enforcement that are getting 38s or the brass pretty cheaply and they don't seem as coveted as 357s. You have a point.

[Muskrat Rustler]

Hellgate, you have a point. I hadn't thought about used brass from a range. Thanks for the tip, I'll keep my eyes open!
Thanks again,
Muskrat

[Goatlips]

I found clean used .38 brass on ebay for a little over a penny apiece a few years ago, so I got a lifetime supply. (If I still keep drinkin' enough. ) I don't worry if I don't get it back, but it always seems to return - they know the BP stains are mine and nobody else wants it.

Goatlips

[Cuts Crooked]

Donno about "historical" but Winchester did make a "big lube" bullet for the 45-70. This was near the end of the black powder era through and it never caught on because of the advent of smokeless.

Regarding lubing. I pan lube and then size my Snakebites, just like Howdy Doody sayz. But my PRS .45s I just pan lube and load. Same with my Big lube 45-70 bullets.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Muskrat Rustler

From a personal standpoint, I've always shot 45 Colt and 44-40 in CAS.

However I have a collection of several buckets full of spent 38 Special brass from over 20 years of Smokeless shooting in other disciplines, almost exclusively in S&W Double Action revovlers. I've been saving my brass for all that time, knowing that someday I would reload it.

Well, the time has come. Mrs Johnson shoots 38s in her CAS pistols and rifle. She has no need to shoot heavy recoiling big bores, and I refuse to load them down to 38Sp recoil levels. So we just kept things simple and started her out with 38s. It made the most sense. Now that the a real need has arisen to stop buying expensive cowboy loads in 38 Special, and load my own, I have started. And I have all those buckets of old, mostly once fired 38 Sp cases to start with. Best of all, it was all paid for a long time ago. In contrast, in all those years of DA shooting, I probably only have a couple of hundred once fired 357Mag cases laying around. I usually just shot 38s through my 357 wheel guns, much less punishing.

That's the reason at the Johnson spread why 38s are used and why the brass is so cheap.

[Muskrat Rustler]

Driftwood,
From what everyone is telling me, even though 38 and 357 brass is close to the same price new, the supply of used 38 brass is vast.  This explains a lot and answers my questions.
Thanks everyone for the great info. Good discussion!
Muskrat

[E.R.Beaumont]

Howdy Pards and Pardettes.

Muskrat, Pard alot of the Pards and Pardetts use "light" loads for one reason or an other.  It is much better to use shorter cases for reduced loads as there is less variation in the preformance of the loads from shot to shot. 

The BP guys might really want to use .357 cases to make more smoke, but there are better BP calibers out there.  This is just out inate CHeap is showing up here.  $1200.00 for a rifle, and another $400.00 to make it run, but Damn it I am gonna use trash brass from offen the range cause it is cheap. 

When I shoot an off caliber like .44 S&W Russian, the Boys and Girls are very good about getting me my brass back.  If you wanna shoot .357 brass you will probably get most of it back.  I am willing to accept a shrinkage of from five to ten rounds a match. Now that is for every shoot, so you see that all though it is only a few emptys you can see that in a hundred or two hundred matches you can loose 1000 emptys.

Mostly folks use .38 spcl cases cause they are cheep, or cause they are using smaller powder charges, if you load 6.2 grains of "zippity-doo-dah powder, and a 160 gr bullet you probably gain very little useing a .38 spcl case over a .357 Mag case.

That is all I think I know.
Regards, Beaumont

[Muskrat Rustler]

Beaumont,
Great reply, thanks. From everything I've gathered you have summed it up the best. We use 38 brass over 357 because:
1.   Cheep brass
2.   Better for loading light CAS loads, more consistent.
3.   The 38, not the 357, was originally a black powder cartridge.
4.   There is just no reason to use the 357 case.
   
Any others that I have missed?
By the way, went to watch my first CAS shoot today at the The Oregon Old West Shooting Society. What a class act they are! At the end they graciously let me shoot a stage.  Shell-E and Drifter lent me their irons. Afterwards, when asked what I thought, I said "I'll tell you when I stop shaking...".  The match director asked if I had fun, I said "I've got to get some guns!" To all the pards there today, thanks!
Muskrat