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It rained last night and the grass was too wet to mow this morning, so while waiting for the grass to dry I decided to load the .357 brass that I had shot at the CSA in April. Since Alliant powders are getting a bit scarce I decided I did not want to use any of my 2400. I have some unopened H110 and was about to go that route when I spotted a pound of Lil Gun that I had stuck in the back of my powder magazine. Looking at the data from Lyman it appeared Lil Gun gave decent velocities and since I had shy of 200 to load I decided to try it.
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I had decided to load the 160 gr. Seaco SWC. Sized and lubed this bullet weighs just under 162 grains and is 14 BHN.
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After reviewing the loading data for jacketed bullets in the Lyman Manual I felt 17.0 gr. of Lil Gun would be a good charge to use with this bullet. OAL loaded is a bit longer than the jacketed bullet data. The powder metered very consistently and filled the cases nicely.
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The bullets were seated without crimping them. The crimp was applied in a separate operation using a Lee Collet Crimp Die.
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The next step will be to go to the range and see how they shoot in the sixgun and the rifle.
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PS - and I got all the property mowed before dark!
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I think you are going to like the Lilgun. I have used it in quite a few different cartridges and it gives good results. From 22 hornet to 450 bushmaster - it has as they say RANGE.
About the only thing I wasn't happy with was in 28ga, not completely burned.
Oh and you'll notice a bit more retained heat in the barrel.
Yes it is a very nice metering powder.
I've wanted to try Lil Gun for a while, but have never managed to stumble across any while shopping for powder. Have you used any of the Ramshot powders? We did manage to snag a few pounds of a couple different references back when powders were harder to locate. Loaded up a few rounds but haven't had a chance to try them. Looking forward to your range report - and still looking for Lil Gun myself at times.
Paul - in Pereira
"He is the best friend of American liberty who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion." -- John Witherspoon
I got a 1lb bottle, liked it so much I bought an 8lb'er. My Henry 41 mag loves it, 210s at 1800+fps and 1 hole 50yd groups.
It's good in my hornet, bee, 41 , and 410 as well as the 450BM.
I use Lil Gun almost exclusively for 357, it gets velocity without the pressure. However it burns HOT. I find it heats up a barrel nearly twice as fast as H110
wvfarrier wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2024 4:08 pm
I use Lil Gun almost exclusively for 357, it gets velocity without the pressure. However it burns HOT. I find it heats up a barrel nearly twice as fast as H110
Same thing here.. I love Lil Gun in my Rossi, great velocity and accuracy, but it is a hot little gun..( pun intended)
I reserve the Lil Gun I have for my 22 KHornet. I'm sure it works great in 357 mag loads. My 357 Mag loads(for a rifle) are mid range loads with 158 gr RNFP PB coated with HS-6 and Full power loads with 158 gr XTP HP and 296. Works for me
While I found that Lil'Gun is a tiny bit slower in my SA pistols (about 20 fps), they showed significant velocity gains over H-110 in my leverguns; both my 20" carbine and 24" rifle as shown below. All loads were in Winchester brass with Winchester SR primers and Zero 158 grn JSP bullets and chrono'd at 6,100 ft asl @ 84° in our dry Colorado air.
Also, while H-110's max load peak pressure of 40,700 CUP is hard on the brass, Lil'Gun's max load peak pressure is significantly lower at only 25,800 CUP and my brass shows none of the signs of stress like with H-110. Further, the H-110 data below was consistent over a span of 10 years until I switched to Lil'Gun in 2018.
Rossi 92 20" Carbine:
16.5 grn * H-110 = 1,789 fps, 1,123 ft/lbs ME
18.0 grn ** Lil'Gun = 1,952 fps, 1,337 ft/lbs ME
(9.1% velocity increase over H-110)
Rossi 92 24" Rifle:
16.5 grn * H-110 = 1,822 fps, 1,164 ft/lbs ME
18.0 grn ** Lil'Gun = 2,005 fps, 1,410 ft/lbs ME
(10.0% velocity increase over H-110)
* Hodgdon's max load in 2008 was set at 16.5 grns with my 158 grn bullet but was later raised to 16.7 grns around 2015.
** Lil'Gun's max load is 18.0 grns with my 158 grn bullet.
Steve Retired and Living the Good Life No Matter Where You Go, There You Are
Scott Tschirhart wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2024 2:25 pm
I like LilGun in a rifle, particularly a .357. Lower pressures with great velocity. But, as has been noted, it will heat up your barrel.
Probably doesn’t matter because when I burn larger quantities of ammo, I load .38 Special cases with 3 gr Bullseye.
I agree that it does heat up the barrel faster because the powder charge is larger according to Hodgdon's CS as it burns at the same temp as H-110. That doesn't bother me at all as I've never been the 'mag dump' type of shooter. I prefer to go for precision rather than speed.
Steve Retired and Living the Good Life No Matter Where You Go, There You Are
I mostly plink with my leverguns, so I don't do "mag dumps" but I unload it fairly fast and reload it, and continue, provided the tin cans or other targets remain visible.
I've shot my 30-30 a lot in the above fashion... and ya must shoot slower, or wait for the gun to cool. But it's still a heap of fun. I've been wanting to make a very reduced load for plinking in the 30-30, but haven't yet. I have a few bullet moulds to choose from, so I guess I don't have much of an excuse.
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JimT is that the 'rifle' type Lee Collet die...? It looks like the one I have. Had to have it 'custom made' ($29) by Lee at the time, as they made all their 'pistol' Collet dies differently, and they really didn't work as well.
The difference was the 'rifle' ones had a four-piece collet that squeezed the case laterally much as a factory-crimp on most 5.56 ammo, whereas the 'pistol' ones had a floating carbide ring that was pushed down over the loaded round, and didn't seem all that different than a regular crimp die.
Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws "first do no harm" - gun control LAWS lead to far more deaths than 'easy access' ever could.
AJMD429 wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2024 1:33 pm
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JimT is that the 'rifle' type Lee Collet die...? It looks like the one I have. Had to have it 'custom made' ($29) by Lee at the time, as they made all their 'pistol' Collet dies differently, and they really didn't work as well.
Yes it is. The collet dies won't buckle the case like you can with the straight crimp die.
