TargetTalk

Have been looking for 38 cal 148gr HBWC bullets in bulk. The Remington version generally seems to run about half the price of the Speer or Hornady ones (when you can find any at all of any brand). Is there really all that much of a difference in quality? Do the Remingtons generally perform as well as the Speer or Hornady bullets when flush seated with the usual 2.8 gr Bullseye or equivalent loads?

Look up Precision Delta and they will ship to you.

Oh my, those appear to be the bullets that I am currently using... but at HALF the price I've been paying at my local Mom & Pop gun store. Free shipping too boot... what more could I ask for ??? Thanks for the info, I really do appreciate it.

To answer your question; I found the Remington bullets to be much fatter than the Speers, but with equal accuracy. Not a bad thing.

Offstage: (How fat were they?)

They were so fat that the wax coating was pushed off to the front causing a buildup in the seating die. This caused the bullets to be seated deeper as time went by.

I cured this by not sizing my cases, just belling them. Worked OK in my revolver, but maybe not in your auto.

As you've discovered, you can find the price of bullets all over the place.

Found a fly in the ointment with those Precision Delta 148gr HBWC bullets... very similar to the problem noted with the Remington bullets a couple posts above. Precision Delta uses what seems to be a wax/graphite mix for a lube. Doesn't take long for it to start building up on the seating plug thereby causing the bullet to be seated progressively deeper into the case. Didn't figure it out until had a round come out of the seating die with a 1/8" thick "graphite plug" on the nose of it.

Guess those 2000 bullets I just received from Precision Delta will be going back. Remington seems to be out of the running for pretty much the same reason. Looks like Sierra is what I will be looking for in the future... or was it Speer?

Hornadys are nice, too. No wax buildup.

Use a Dillon seater die with an insert made to push at the outer bullet edge. Plus the Dillon die comes apart in situ for easy cleaning. Keep an eye on your loads as they come off the press always. Then shoot those messy bullets. They are good bullets.

Doesn't Dillon use one die for bullet seating and then a separate die for crimping? Fine for a progressive press but I use one of the Lyman turret-tops. Would make for yet another step... easier to just switch to a less messy bullet. Hornady looks like it might be a player and wouldn't cost all that much more.

Looks like I owe Precision Delta an apology... it wasn't their bullets at all !!! Turned out to be a build-up of old waxy bullet lube (Rooster Red) that had been there for who knows how long. Then when loading the graphite coated Precision Delta bullets that plug of wax got covered with graphite making it look like a solid graphite plug when it came loose.

As Kelly Bundy would say "Urethra... I've found it !!!".... a real simple solution. I use one of the Lyman 6-hole turret presses so just set up a separate seat/crimp die for the Delta Precision hollow base wadcutters. Will use a different seat/crimp die for the greasy lubed cast double ended wadcutters.

Should solve the problem quite nicely.

Once again, my apologies to the good folk over at Precision Delta.

If too much lube is the problem, do like the Star press people did ... drill a hole in the seater stem so that the accumulating lube flows out to the top.