Been playing with a Handi rechambered from 38-55 to 38-72Win. Unfortunately, I don't have a bullet mould large enough for the bore (.3802), so nothing has worked so far with cast bullets, so played with some Hawk 280 gr slugs @.377", although he said they would "slug" up and work fine. He was right as groups at 100 were running under an inch for 5 shots @2550fps. At least until the safety bar flew out of the gun. Took awhile to get it back , so backed down to 2400fps and so far so good, with no change in groups.
On the cast bullet site and people were talking about making 44 bullets from 40s&w cases and I thought what else is out there to make bullets for the Handi. Thought .223, 38spec and 9mm Luger. Made a set of swage/nose forming dies, at least after a few futile tries. Made a die to reduce 9mm Luger cases to .380" and then I put a 175gr lead bullet in the case and form the nose with another die. Made a part to work with a Lyman "M" die to seat the core, but bullet comes out with a kind of flat nose. All things I have read is that you need to seat the core first, before forming the nose, but somehow, If I skip the step, the bullets still shoot with only the forming step.
I used a 3/8" carbide burr to make the nose forming die and just put the case in the shellholder, insert the bullet and pull the handle. Run them back thru the .380" die
Pic of the dies and a few bullets. Seated core, then two formed bullets, formed bullet without seating core and a couple of the heavier bullets. The 175gr bullet makes a final bullet weight of 238gr. I have a heavier 30 cal bullet that I have tried, about 213gr, and a 338 mould that makes a 220gr bullet, with a final bullet weight of 279gr and the heavier 30cal bulet makes a 272gr bullet.
From earlier in the week. A pic of the 100 yd gong. 3 shots into about 1.5". Made some more today and shot 5 at the 100yd gong and got about 2.5" group. Shot 4 at the 200 meter gong and got about a 5" group (sorry, no pic). Velocity of the 238 gr bullets is right around 2200fps. Gonna speed them up and see if everything stays stable. 2200 fps makes for a nice load
Have a .383 reamer on its way. Going to open up the rear of a Lee mould and see if I can get a cast load to work. If not, these things work far beyond what I expected.
