38 Super Pet Loads

Hi all,

I just traded my Range Officer .45 for my buddy's brand new Les Baer Premium II with the 1.5" guarantee, in 38 Super (I have a RRA for .45 now). I was wondering what you all who shoot 38 super out of a 1911 use for light loads on the 25 yard line. It will have a Micro Ultradot on the rear of the slide. I was also wondering if you have any tricks for making it a reliable shooter - this one is finicky so far, and I haven't started tweaking it yet. Its not even out of its break-in period, it has maybe 300 rounds down the pipe. Thanks!

I think you answered part of your own question. I have a lot of light loads for a super but go put another 1000 rds thru it and check back again.

Dardus 126 LSWC 3.6 - 3.8 BE. great bullet and a very accurate load even at 50

147 Magnus with 3.0 BE

we run these with a slide mounted 1" UD

Well my super likes the following : 3.8 BE w/ Dardas 126gr LSWC
                                                    3.0 WST w/ Dardas/Magnus 147gr LSWC
                                                  3.9-4.0 BE w/ XTP 124gr JHP
      for what it's worth. Good luck and have fun.

I did do some testing of 38 super loads. Most of the info is in this section under "Converting a 9mm RO to a 38 super". There is more info listed there. Here is one of the tests using Bullseye powder.

Len, were those random rested? 25 or 50 yards.

I have a Sig 1911 38 super that I had a great trigger installed and a match bushing fit. The idea was to use the frame for a 22 conversion then possibly use the 38 super for centerfire. The trigger is sweet so I'm loving it for the Nelson conversion but I could never get the 38 super to group that well.

Best I could do was a couple inches at 25 yards off a Random Rest. Groups got as big as 5-6" with the bad loads.

Some day I may send it off to Jon to have a Kart barrel fit.

Would you believe offhand at 50 yds? Ok, then would you believe that was using a "Lee" rest at 25 yds? I do have some tests I did at 50 yds with the Lee also. I can boil down the results of that test pretty easy. I ordered 1000 of the Magnus 125gr .356 JHP bullets. It turns out that they are the same as Zero bullets so I ordered a 1000 from them also. I load them with 4.6 gr of Bullseye powder. For the short line the Magnus 130 gr or 147 work good but neither load shoots as good as the JHP's. I do not find the recoil a problem and there is only about a penny a round difference so why not shoot the best.

50yds with the 125's. I don't doubt flyer was my fault.

Thanks for those pics of your tests, that's helpful. It looks like for 38 super to be accurate, it needs to be loaded pretty hot. 124 grain bullet with 4.2 grains of bullseye, 147 grain bullet with 4.6 grains... I'm assuming your testing was done with a red dot?

The results we've had with the 126 Dardus have seen groups under 2" at 50 yards using light loads of BE. We have found it much easier to make soft loads work well in the caliber than the 9mm.   Yes the JHP are a touch better but a 1.7" group with the lead SWC is pretty darn good. Same load we run at the short line. The two guns are running kart 1-16 barrels. One likes 3.6 and mine likes 3.7.  

The only thing we did with the Dardus bullet was to add a coat of 45-45-10 to help eliminate some throat leading..

jglenn21 wrote:The results we've had with the 126 Dardus have seen groups under 2" at 50 yards using light loads of BE. We have found it much easier to make soft loads work well in the caliber than the 9mm.   Yes the JHP are a touch better but a 1.7" group with the lead SWC is pretty darn good. Same load we run at the short line. The two guns are running kart 1-16 barrels. One likes 3.6 and mine likes 3.7.  

The only thing we did with the Dardus bullet was to add a coat of 45-45-10 to help eliminate some throat leading..

Thanks for the load data! What are the ingredients in your 45-45-10?
Thanks,
Wes

Wes
 
45-45-10 normal ingredients are:
Johnson's Paste Wax (JPW), Lee Liquid Alox (LLA) and odorless mineral spirits (MS)

Check out White Label Lube
http://lsstuff.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2

- Dave

yep, way easier to just order it from White Label...great folks

I put it in a small plastic bottle that has a squirt cap... I put 500 or so bullets in a small square plastic container then just squirt the lube back and forth 3-4 times onto the bullets. put the cap on the container and just tumble the bullets over and over... spread then out on wax paper and let them dry for a day or so. that's it

1st time you do it you will use too much lube...

Also this time of year you may have to heat the lube a bit to get it to flow easily..

I've had good luck with the Dardas swc and 2.8-3.0 grains of solo 1000. Also use 3.0 of wst because I've not been able to find the solo powder for couple of years.

jglenn21 wrote:The results we've had with the 126 Dardus have seen groups under 2" at 50 yards using light loads of BE. We have found it much easier to make soft loads work well in the caliber than the 9mm.   Yes the JHP are a touch better but a 1.7" group with the lead SWC is pretty darn good. Same load we run at the short line. The two guns are running kart 1-16 barrels. One likes 3.6 and mine likes 3.7.  

The only thing we did with the Dardus bullet was to add a coat of 45-45-10 to help eliminate some throat leading..

Groups under 2" at 50 is what I'm looking for. 126 Dardus with mid 3 grains of BE sounds like a good combo, thanks.

Has anyone used WST.  It seams like it takes .2gr more of it then BE.  I just tested Zero 125 JHPs with 4.1 of WST and the average velocity using my Labradar was 980 fps.  ES and SD was good but that seams a little hotter then I need.  I think I will just switch back to BE as all the data in the post above used BE and I use BE for my 38 Special and 45 ACP loads.  Don

Hello,

My .38 Super likes (a lot)....

Starline brass
Winchester primers
Bullseye 4.0 grains
Hornady XTP 125 grains

Jim

To get the slow rounds to group you are going to want to look at a 1:10 barrel.