Thanks Doug.

by Hoot , Diversityville, Liberal-sota, Wednesday, April 04, 2012, 09:19 (4617 days ago) @ Slow Hand

I've done a bit more surfing on this topic. One theory holds that pressure blows the skirt open as it hits the forcing cone and it becomes easier to tear the skirt off than to swage it back down to bore size. Ken Waters wrote about a happening where he found a skirt lodged in the forcing cone of a .38S&W. I need to dig out that article.

There were (surprise!) other theories where the pressure vs. the surface area exceeded the strength of the lead leading to "blowing out the core". One poster warned this could happen no matter which way the WC was loaded and that's why a gas check was recommended on the backwards-loaded HBWC's.

I have not tried anything yet, other than the 71gr LRN. The article on the conversion cylinders indicated success with heavier bullets nearing 1000fps. I have a bunch of 90gr swaged in both WC and SWC as well as a big pile of cast SWC's in various weights. I just got to wondering, first, does this same potential problem exist for the .32HBWC (assumed: yes) and, secondly, at about what velocity, or pressure, would it occur? The above reading points to velocities above 800fps for the .38's start to give trouble. There was also commentary about the HBWC design and the depth of the cavity.

Haven't had much time to load recently so no further experimentation has been done. Soon though, soon. This little popper is just too danged cute not to shoot.