38-40 loads for 1873

[Bigfoot]

So it didn't take much but I bit ad bought the Uberti 1873 in 38-40 that I previously posted about. Now that it's home I'm wondering why I ever hesitated as this is one pretty lady of a rifle.

Having said that I'm really surprised how hard it is for me to find a good load for cast bullets. I picked up some locally produce 180 grain swc types and some HS-6 (even if I don't use it for the 38-45 I'm going to be loading a bunch of 357 loads for Byron) but am thinking I'm going to have to head up to the attic for Ken Water's pet loads unless anybody here has any great tips as to a good target load (powder and gr#'s etc).

[Jason]

Have you looked for Clays or Trail Boss loads? Hodgdon lists data for that bullet for both of them here, but you need to look under pistol loads.

http://data.hodgdon.com/cartridge_load.asp

IMR Trail Boss
Start: 4.5gr 694fps 7,300psi
Max: 5.5gr 800fps 9,900psi

Hodgdon Clays
Start: 4.7gr 760fps 8,700psi
Max: 5.5gr 889fps 13,500psi

There are others on that page, but I bring those up because the Trail Boss is some soft-shooting stuff that will fill up the case and the Clays is super clean-burning and I have some of that that I'll give you since I no longer load shotshells. You can push those bullets slightly faster with Titegroup or something else, but it won't take a huge amount of velocity for a 180gr bullets on the pistol cartridge silhouette targets.

[the ex pom]

14.5 of 4227 works excellent with a 180g projie