What's the right jacketed bullet for .38-55 Trails End?

[dogwood2]

I have a Win. 94 Trail's End Hunter. It is very accurate with factory loads and my handloads with .380 diameter cast bullets. I bought a box of Hornady 220 grain flat nose .375 diameter bullets, and my rifle will not stabilize them. I suspect the Winchester factory loads are .377 or .378. I pulled some Winchester bullets and reloaded them with a pretty good charge of RL 7 and they are very accurate. They of course are unavailable for handloading. Has any tried any of Deerings Custom Bullets in .378 or the Barnes in .377? I believe with a proper diameter jacketed bullet I can put together some potent hunting loads for this new rifle.

John (Dogwood)

[3t-]

dogwood2

I had good accuracy with the Barnes .377 jacketed over a charge of RL-7. I used between 28 and 30 grns, this was safe/accurate in my rifles. Your mileage may vary.

[Old Savage]

Seems to me we heard before, maybe on the old board that these have barrels measuring .378 or there abouts.

[Hobie]

Yep and Dave's bullets always get rave reviews. BTW, Dave....

[Buffboy]

The Barnes .377 and Dave's .378 Bullets have both been very accurate in my 38-55. If you want them to reload "right now" get some of the Barnes because they are currently in stock in several places(because how long they will be in stock is always a problem). Natchez currently has the best price I've seen lately.

If you are willing to wait, get an order in for some of Dave's slugs and join the line. They are worth the wait.

I too wish the Winchester bullet was available as a component as factory loads are very accurate in my rifle but only run 1100FPS out of my 26" barrel.

[dogwood2]

Thanks for the help. I won't need the loads until fall, so I will try some of Deering's .378s. I believe RL 7 would be a good powder to begin with. It works well with my remanufactured Winchester loads. If anyone needs a partial box of Hornady 220 grain .375s, I have a nearly full box I would be glad to sell.

John (Dogwood

[Hobie]

I gave the 220s I had away...

[Buffboy]

RL-7 is a good place to start. That's what I wound up using on my hunting loads with both the Barnes and Dave's bullet. My rifle is an 26" octagon 1893 Marlin so I'm not running very hot, running the Barnes at about 1520fps and Dave's at a little under 1600fps. Still a pretty good step up from the 1100fps that the factory Winchester loading gave in the same rifle. In your 94 you could up the ante on that quite a bit, probably getting close to 2000fps at 30-30 pressures but there's really no need, unless you revel in recoil and you WILL start to notice the recoil before then. Even at 2k, you're still not shooting very flat. My load with Dave's bullet went pretty much end for end on a large mulie buck and exited so there's no lack of penetration. Another nice thing about keeping it slower is: they still kill deer just fine and don't mess up a lot of meat.

Put your 220s in the classified ads and they will go quick to the 375 win fans or those with bores that are smaller in 38-55. I'd probably have the same problem you did, as my bore slugs .380.

[Stone Fence]

Guys,

I have been notified that my day job is going away. So, hopefully in a couple of weeks you will no longer have to wait as long to buy some of my .38-55 bullets!

I occasionally put some out on gunbroker.com under the ammo (not reloading) section, so check that from time to time.

-Stone
PS- thanks Buffboy and Hobie for the kind words.