I'm going to be starting to load for 38/55 this year; new CPA on the way. Could you share some loads for the 38/55. I'll be starting with a Hoch 310 gr. tapered bullet for breech seating , and the barrel I'm having made has a 14" twist. Thanks in advance for your assistance.
Bob

GWarden

I have a 38/55 barrel for my older CPA action and have shot it for about 12 years.  I am no experementer just a shooter so once I found something that worked never changed it unless circunstances forced,. I shot it fixed ammo always. Both informal local matches and NRA rules BPCS matches.

On the bullets. I use two, one for Blackpowder from a custom lLBT mold. It's a 300 gr spritzer with fairly large grease groves.
For smokeless I use a stock SAECO 300 gr with a round nose. Both are pan lubed with SPG

I went back and forth on primers. For a long time used Mag primers with the black poweder loads and standard rifle when using smokeless.  A few years ago I speed locked the action and since have used Large Pistol primers instead.  The lighter hammer will not pop rifle primers everytime.  Have seen no fall in performence using the Pistol primers and have had no missfires since.  Another advantage to the pistol primer is when switching from center to rim fire barrels I don't have to adjust the hammer spring.  Before when set for rimfire it would not pop the primer on centerfire loads even when I had the standard hammer.

With Black powder I used 2F Goex, compressed the load lightly and put a thin card wad over. The bullet was seated with mimimal neck pull and down on the wad no air space. I put in as much as the case will hold and found 1250 fps as the velocity that worked well.

Smokeless load load was 4759 which I prefer in the larger straight cases.  My rule has been 4227 for the 32/40  4759 in anything larger.  No wad at all. But my shooting style is to Mount the rifle the same way each time.  I loaded to 1400 fps.

Over the winter had CPA throat the barrel so I can breech seat both my Black powder and smokeless bullet.  This spring I will work up breech seating loads using my fixed loads as starting points.  I am crossing my fingers the bullets I have now will work as well as they always did.

If you use 4759 as a starting point it will not do a bad job.  From there if you want to experement you will have a base line load as refrence

That's everyting I know about it.

Boats