A while ago I got the 0.360 inch 190 grain Accurate bullet mold by David Bradshaw and Mr. Martin. I know Contender suggested it and maybe others as well. In any case, thank you all. Everything about it worked very well with one administrative note that I will expand on.
Back in the 80's I saved enough money to get a 357 Max revolver for silhouette. Talking to a number of shooters, they had good things to say about the Ruger and Dan Wesson. I ended up buying a Dan Wesson for 2 reasons: it was more available at that time and I was told it had a longer cylinder that gave more overall length flexibility. Like many silhouette shooters, I used mostly jacketed 35 caliber rifle bullets 180 and heavier until I bought a RCBS 200 grain bullet mold that shot pretty well. In the following years silhouette shooting pretty much dried up in my area but I kept most all of my guns and that bullet mold.
Move forward to more recently when I won a Ruger 10.5" maximum on Gunbroker. The revolver was in excellent shape but the old ammo I had loaded with the RCBS cast bullet was too long for the cylinder. I played with some 180 jacketed soft points that did good but I wanted to get a good bullet mold for the Ruger. It was then I heard about the Accurate mold and anything David Bradshaw was involved with I absolutely believe will be good. This mold is one more positive example of David's skills.
The following load information is provided because it is a core part of this post about the bullet mold. The load data was what happened in my guns but it should be considered for information purposes only as the result in each firearm can be different. I always chose accuracy over velocity. My old load with the 200 grain RCBS was 19.5 grains of IMR 4227 with a bullet that averaged around 208 grains with gas check and no lube. The David Bradshaw bullet with my alloy weighed 193 with gas check and no lube. I used the same 0.358 sizer on the bullets. To be what I thought was conservative; I reduced the load on the 193 bullet to 19.0 of IMR 4227 and tried it at 25 yards. The first 5 shots out of the Ruger printed a group just over an inch @ 25 yards, avg of 1548 fps, faster than I expected. With my 70 year old eyes and the full time "halo" I have on the front sight, I was happy with that. When I went to extract the brass, it came out but was hard to get out. I had brought my whole 357 Max family to the range so I next tried 5 from the Dan Wesson. It too shot very well but also it had sticky extraction, not as tight as the Ruger but tighter than normal. Thankfully I had only loaded about 30 rounds but I wanted to safely shoot them up as they were too hot for me and I did not want them left sitting around. So next up was the 357 Max contender. It shot well and with no extraction issues. Finally was the H&R single shot and it too was accurate and had no issues with extraction.
I wanted to make sure there were no pressure issues with the next test so I loaded them at 17.5 grains of IMR 4227. This load shot great, no sticky extraction, and still good velocity at 1437 fps average, standard deviation 7.4, extreme spread of 27.2. I shot 2 groups of 5 at 50 yards and both were around 2.5” which I was happy with knowing that I was the biggest limitation on the group size. Hands down this is the best cast bullet for the 357 max. Thanks David Bradshaw and all involved.
Back in the 80's I saved enough money to get a 357 Max revolver for silhouette. Talking to a number of shooters, they had good things to say about the Ruger and Dan Wesson. I ended up buying a Dan Wesson for 2 reasons: it was more available at that time and I was told it had a longer cylinder that gave more overall length flexibility. Like many silhouette shooters, I used mostly jacketed 35 caliber rifle bullets 180 and heavier until I bought a RCBS 200 grain bullet mold that shot pretty well. In the following years silhouette shooting pretty much dried up in my area but I kept most all of my guns and that bullet mold.
Move forward to more recently when I won a Ruger 10.5" maximum on Gunbroker. The revolver was in excellent shape but the old ammo I had loaded with the RCBS cast bullet was too long for the cylinder. I played with some 180 jacketed soft points that did good but I wanted to get a good bullet mold for the Ruger. It was then I heard about the Accurate mold and anything David Bradshaw was involved with I absolutely believe will be good. This mold is one more positive example of David's skills.
The following load information is provided because it is a core part of this post about the bullet mold. The load data was what happened in my guns but it should be considered for information purposes only as the result in each firearm can be different. I always chose accuracy over velocity. My old load with the 200 grain RCBS was 19.5 grains of IMR 4227 with a bullet that averaged around 208 grains with gas check and no lube. The David Bradshaw bullet with my alloy weighed 193 with gas check and no lube. I used the same 0.358 sizer on the bullets. To be what I thought was conservative; I reduced the load on the 193 bullet to 19.0 of IMR 4227 and tried it at 25 yards. The first 5 shots out of the Ruger printed a group just over an inch @ 25 yards, avg of 1548 fps, faster than I expected. With my 70 year old eyes and the full time "halo" I have on the front sight, I was happy with that. When I went to extract the brass, it came out but was hard to get out. I had brought my whole 357 Max family to the range so I next tried 5 from the Dan Wesson. It too shot very well but also it had sticky extraction, not as tight as the Ruger but tighter than normal. Thankfully I had only loaded about 30 rounds but I wanted to safely shoot them up as they were too hot for me and I did not want them left sitting around. So next up was the 357 Max contender. It shot well and with no extraction issues. Finally was the H&R single shot and it too was accurate and had no issues with extraction.
I wanted to make sure there were no pressure issues with the next test so I loaded them at 17.5 grains of IMR 4227. This load shot great, no sticky extraction, and still good velocity at 1437 fps average, standard deviation 7.4, extreme spread of 27.2. I shot 2 groups of 5 at 50 yards and both were around 2.5” which I was happy with knowing that I was the biggest limitation on the group size. Hands down this is the best cast bullet for the 357 max. Thanks David Bradshaw and all involved.
