usajag

With Winchester going out of business I broke down and bought a model 94 in 38-55. Sweet little gun. Anyway, I'm looking for some load recommendations for deer. I loaded up some 255 Barnes FN and a 260gr Hard Cast GC both with 27gr of H322. Seems to shoot decent but didn't have time to Chrono them. Any suggestions?

eldeguello

That cast bullet should workfor deer if it is not too hard.Your load sounds like a good one. I suspect it will give velocitiesin the 1600 FPS range.

The Lymn .375449GC is a good .38/55 bullet. There is no reason to use a jacketed bullet in a .38/55, and the fun of such a caliber is developing a great cast-bullet load or two for it.

I find if you cast your bulletsfrom wheelweights, then stand them on their bases in a shallow pan and bake them at +-465 degrees (just shy of remelting them) for an hour, then pour cold water into the pan up to the top grease groove immediately after removing them from the oven, you will have bullets with a very hard base but a soft nose that will mushroom on impact. The hard base section allows velocities up beyond 2000 FPS with no leading (ALOX or LBT Blue lube). If you have to size the bullets, do this before you heat-treat them then lube by hand or with some LEE Precision paint-on liquid ALOX lube after hardening them. In .38/55, it is possibl that you can use this bullet unsized, however depending on your rifle's groove diameter.

Put the gaschecks on after hardening them also.

IMR 3031 and RE 7 are also good powders for straight-walled cartridges like the .38/55. I think the older Lyman handbooks have .38/55 data in them, for both cast and jacketed bullets.

Have fun & good luck!! Also, let us know what you learn!