I have been giving cotton filler a try in various calibers but the main problem is to seat the bullet without some of the cotton getting caught between the base of the bullet and the case, causing a slight bulge at that point. I a little nervous about that, as the bulge plus the filler getting jammed forward during firing might cause a stress concentration at that point. Maybe it wouldn’t be a problem, given Sherman Bell’s tests, but with vintage Winchesters and non-nickel steel, I don’t want to take a chance. I would carefully push the cotton down in the case so that it was just about where the base of the bullet would be, but in spite of my pains, it would still get caught on a regular basis. So having played around with cotton filler for about half a year, I’m finished with it and would not recommend it anymore.
I really want to get my hands on some Swiss black powder, but I also wanted to develop a no-filler, smokeless load that would give original black powder ballistics and be accurate.
My first load was 17 grains of 5744 with a standard Winchester rifle primer. The results were five-shot groups at 100 yards that were about an inch wide but 2 & ½” tall. With no filler, even 5744 has a certain amount of position sensitivity, and the difference in extreme spread in velocity results in a bit of a vertical spread at the target. Here’s a photo of one of the targets with this load ….
Standard Winchester Rifle primer:
It occurred to me that if I used a Winchester Magnum Rifle primer with the same load (17 grains of 5744), I might get more complete and consistent burning of the powder. I loaded up 10 rounds and shot two, five-shot groups at 100 yards. My theory seemed to be correct and I got excellent groups. Here’s a photo of one of the targets, a five shot group of 1 & 1/4” at 100 yards.
Winchester Magnum Rifle Primer:
I had some standard Remington primers for large rifle so tried them as well with the same load (17 grains of 5744). The groups were slightly tighter than with the Winchester standard rifle primers, but still had greater vertical spread than with the Winchester Magnum Primers. Here’s a photo of one of the groups using the Remington primers, five shots at 2 & 3/16” at 100 yards …
Remington Rifle Primers:
My 38-55 is a Winchester Model 1894 and it was shipped in 1897. It still has its original tang sight, which is what I’ve been using for all this shooting. Here’s a photo of the tang sight.
For those who might want a faster load, I tried 19 grains of 5744 with a standard Winchester rifle primer which chronographed at 1,452 fps. This load seemed to give more consistent burning without having to resort to the Magnum primer, although there is still some slight vertical spread. Here’s a photo of one of the targets, a five-shot group of 1 & 9/16” at 100 yards.
19 grains of 5744 with standard Winchester rifle primer for 1,452 fps:
Conclusion: My new load is 17 grains of 5744 with a Winchester Magnum Rifle primer for 1,307 fps with a 262 grain gas checked Accurate cast bullet sized to .380. No more filler in my 38-55 loads.
