.380 and berrys bullets

[SAILORMAN]

Hi everyone,

Looking for suggestions on loading Berrys Bullets in .380. I thought I would try some Berrys bullets because of the price and availability. But I am having a hard time finding consistent load data for the 100G bullets. The 2 I purchased are 100G FBRN and 100G HBRN.

Question 1: OAL, Lees has a 100G FMJ listed at .980 OAL, Lymans 49TH dos not list a 100G in this caliber. In this little cartridge I know that OAL
can make a big difference.

Question 2: Min and Max load. Unfortunately I have run out of 231 and am down to Power Pistol for this load until some back orders finally arrive.
My thoughts were a start of maybe 3.4 to a max of 3.8?

I am loading these for target rounds only so nothing hot to be shot in a couple LCP's.

I am hoping someone has tried these and can give me some advise.

[Sevens]

I have loaded a couple thousand rounds of .380 using the Berry's 100gr flat base Pl-RN. Note that Berry's also offers a hollow-base plated .380 slug, but I have not used it. (do you load it differently? I don't know)

The following are things I am sure of.
Be careful in how much you flare the mouth and be careful in how much "crimp" you impart on the loaded round as BOTH of these can compromise your case mouth tension or "bullet pull", i.e., the grip on the slug. These are your best weapons against unintended and/or unnoticed bullet setback. You are right to keep that in mind.

When I started with them, I went with 0.985" COAL. I found shortly after that moving to 0.975" COAL gave me better results in feeding and operation with no ill-effects with regards to pressure. So if I'm loading the Berry's 100gr slug, I'm loading to 0.975".

I started with Alliant Power Pistol and settled on a 4.4gr charge, using "4.6 grains" as a guideline for maximum. At the same time, I loaded many with Alliant Bullseye, using a 3.1gr charge.

I've never chrono'd either load but the Bullseye powered one always felt "warmer." Because I was using a crapload of Power Pistol elsewhere, I settled on that load and made...MANY. I've fed more than a half-dozen .380 pistols with it.

I would imagine you can build a fantastic .380 load using the Berry's 100gr slug and W231, but I have no experience with that powder.

[SAILORMAN]

Sevens,

Be careful in how much you flare the mouth and be careful in how much "crimp" you impart on the loaded round as BOTH of these can compromise your case mouth tension or "bullet pull", i.e., the grip on the slug. These are your best weapons against unintended and/or unnoticed bullet setback. You are right to keep that in mind.

When I am setting up my crimps these all get the stand up 220lb push test they better not move.

I started with Alliant Power Pistol and settled on a 4.4gr charge, using "4.6 grains" as a guideline for maximum.

Now this has been were my dilemma has been on consistent feed back on load charges. In lymans 49th they have a 95G FMJ with 3.5-3.9G the next bullet they have is a 115G with 2.9-3.3G. I spent well over an hour Googling Alliant Power Pistol and .380 last night and ended up with what seems like 2 way different powder volumes. One was that a 3.6G load was a perfect target round the second was like you 4.2 to 4.4G. Like anyone that has reloaded and has different reference material you get use to some discrepancy but this seemed a little large to me.

[Sevens]

I feel your pain, I've done the SAME dance more times than I can count and I applaud you for raising a serious eyebrow on the subject. I am with you fully on your train of thought and I my final thought on the discussion would always be to trust your gut and let your experiences show you the best route.

With that said, I developed my Power Pistol load using a load data for a 100 grain jacketed FMJ slug from Alliant's pre-ATK testing and published load data. And by "developed", that means I started lower and worked toward my goal. It's also been my experience that much or even, *gulp* most of the published data in Lyman's 49th (in handguns) seems lower across the board than most any other reference I ever use, and lower than many/most of the loads I end up using myself.

These days, I'm a big fan of Hodgdon branded powders because of Hodgdon's excellent web-accessible load data resource. Alliant's, in direct comparison, just plain SUCKS out loud. I still very much like some of the Alliant powders, but the current web-accessible and printed load data directly from Alliant is so lousy in comparison to...well...anyone/everyone else that markets powders. Even still, I'm absolutely married to Power Pistol and 2400, both Alliant powders, because both of them work phenomenally well for me in some places and I have no intention of replacing them. So when I'm dabbling with a new slug or a chambering I've not done a lot of different stuff with, I do keep Power Pistol close at hand if it can be used successfully.

So when I'm looking for published data for Power Pistol, I have a few places I look, but the ones I hold dearest are the published and printed Alliant guides before ATK swooped in and dumbed down ALL of the available load data and reduced all the available projectiles to Speer Gold Dot bullets. That mean the 2005 printed Alliant guide was the last "decent" one they offered, IMNSHO.

In that guide and all the ones in years leading up to it, they tested Power Pistol to a max charge of 4.6gr under a 100gr FMJ to under 21,000 PSI and a blip over 1,000 FPS in .380 Auto.

I'm comfortable loading the 100gr Berry's plated flat-base round nose to 0.975" COAL with 4.4gr of Power Pistol.

[SAILORMAN]

Sevens,
Thank You on the pain part LOL. I have loaded shotshell for 35 years fairly new to Pistol and very new to the .380 cartridge. I will totally agree that some of the new load data seems to be very conservative to what people are telling me has been published in the past. I wish there was some place online to access those older data sheets? I know that powder formulas change now and then but seems to be a trend in the data to be very conservative and cover there A..!

And I agree on Alliant load information it does suck. But I have noticed once you drop below the 9MM information just dries up pretty much for everyone. I don't think company's have caught up to the popularity of this cartridge for recoil sensitive people.

As for working a load up on new components or new cartridge. I have a system that works for me I might be border line OCD! If I agree the min/max is lets say 3.4 to 3.9 I load 5 shells of each 3.4,3.5,3.6,3.7,3.8 and follow them in the mag with a factory round to compare. This gives me a really good feel on what the gun likes as well as what I like. After that I can tweak it for accuracy if I need to but really I load for practice rounds.

As for gut feeling if I dont feel comfortable it doesnt get loaded!

Thank You for your feed back Sir.

[Sevens]

As for working a load up on new components or new cartridge. I have a system that works for me I might be border line OCD! If I agree the min/max is lets say 3.4 to 3.9 I load 5 shells of each 3.4,3.5,3.6,3.7,3.8 and follow them in the mag with a factory round to compare. This gives me a really good feel on what the gun likes as well as what I like. After that I can tweak it for accuracy if I need to but really I load for practice rounds.

sounds good, especially the part where you say it works for you, that part is more important than folks give it credit.

If I were nit picking (I am not, even if it sounds like it!) I would suggest that making rounds that vary in tiny little one-tenth grain increments is -SO- small a change that it would not only be just about entirely impossible to notice a difference in any of them... the truth is that the tools you use to handle the powder all on their own can vary in a range that exceeds the difference in your loads!

For smallish handgun rounds, I tend to make changes at 0.3 or 0.4 grain steps. For larger handgun rounds (especially with slow burning powders) I do half-grain or 0.6/0.7 grain changes. The reason is simple: I want to give a different round a fighting chance to be...different!

[SAILORMAN]

If I were nit picking (I am not, even if it sounds like it!) I would suggest that making rounds that vary in tiny little one-tenth grain increments is -SO- small a change that it would not only be just about entirely impossible to notice a difference in any of them... the truth is that the tools you use to handle the powder all on their own can vary in a range that exceeds the difference in your loads!+

I would totally agree with you on this but this was specific to the .380. This caliber makes me nervous small changes can have a major impact on pressures. I think this caliber has a small window for components and powder to work together to make the gun function properly and make it shootable and accurate.

When I am working up a load it is always dipped/trickled some how until I find the range that works the best. then I will see if I can duplicate close to that on the press with auto drops. But I find anything under 4G doesn't drop very consistent anyways I have a Lee Turret Press.

[techmike]

I use Berry's 100 gr FMJ and 3.2 gr of 231@ .960" OAL. These run real good through both my P238 and PK380. And as you probably know, HP-38 is the same as Win 231, sometimes folk will overlook the HP38 and leave some on the shelf. As far as Power Pistol, I have no experience with it, Steve's Pages has data on it, "Power Pistol From 3.0 grains to 4.6 grains", but that is for FMJ. Need to reduce that a bit for plated bullets. Here is the LINK. And of course "your mileage may vary, and beware load data from the internet".

[SAILORMAN]

Teckmike,

Thank you for that link A nice wealth of information. I also found an older Alliant Powder brochure he had scanned in that shows a 95FMJ with a 4.6 load. I think i feel comfortable enough now to run up some trial loads for the "Flat base round nose 100G" Berrys Bullet.

Still looking for anyone that has experience with the "Hollow Base Round Nose 100G" Berrys Bullet. It is a little bit longer than the flat base one.

FBRN - .450
HBRN - .469

[Sevens]

As mentioned above, I've not had the hollow base bullets to play with... but while they must be longer, they are hollowed out in the bottom of the slug -- which will give more combustion "space" than the flat base bullet offers -IF- the two were loaded to the same depth inside. (not the same COAL, mind you)

I doubt even Quickload could estimate it accurately, at this point you'd be doing the kind of mathematics that ushered me out of college 20+ years ago.

I think the design of a hollow-base slug allows you similar internal combustion space while also the ability to seat the slug a smidge deeper in to the case.

Just my guess.

[SAILORMAN]

Well I thought I would report back since everyone was so helpful on here. I did the following loads of Power Pistol under Berrys Plated RNFB with a Coal of .980.
3.6 Grains
3.8
4.0
4.2
4.4
For comparison purposes I loaded a factory round in the Mag then handloads followed by another factory round. While they all cycled the LCP the first 3 were lighter than the factory round. The 4.2 load felt the closest to a factory round in this case WWB. The 4.4 load shot fine and I saw no pressure issues but it does have considerable more muzzle flash than the 4.2 load and felt like a hotter load.

I did notice a big difference on how the gun handled between the Factory loads and Power Pistol loads. The Factory Loads were very snappy were the Power Pistol loads were a lot calmer it felt like it was pushing the pistol back into the webbing of your hand instead of jumping around. I presume this was because the Factory loads have a lot faster burning powder in them. I much prefer the feeling of the Power Pistol loads.

So for now I am going to load a 100 or so 4.2 for the next trip to the range.

Thanks for all the help guys

[Sevens]

Your comparison between the Power Pistol loads and factory loads... sounds very similar to my comparison between the Power Pistol loads and my Bullseye-powered loads.

[dl1911]

I've only used the 100gr RNFB but here's the load data I used for some. Seemed to work fine.

3.2gr Universal, 0.980 COAL
2.8 Titegroup, 0.980 COAL

[Sevens]

I also did a short run (100 or so?) of 3.2gr Universal with the Berry's 100gr Pl-RN flat base, though mine were loaded to 0.975 and I found them to be light... lighter than I liked, and as seems to be the case with so many Universal powered loads I've tried -- a lot of unburnt flakes when running a load that's not running near it's peak. I scrapped the load without going much further.