So some time ago I picked up some x-treme plated 325 gr bullets.
I am finally ready to start loading them.
There is no load data for these specific bullets, so I need to find something similar.
Hodgdon website shows a speer 325gr UCHP bullet with a starting load of 29gr and a max of 32.5 of H110.
I find that bullet in quickload and punch in the numbers for my brass capacity and whatnot.

It shows at 29gr, it is at 100.2% case fill (0.2% compressed load). Pressure does not seem to bad at 28,477psi.

I measure the x-treme bullets and they are .678 long. Quickload lists the speer bullet at .725. So the x-treme is shorter, which will give a little more case capacity with the same case OAL.
Seems odd that the hodgdon starting load shows as a hair compressed when running it in quickload. I change it to their max of 32.5 and it shows 112% compressed and WAY over pressure!

With 29gr being close to case fill, I want to back off and work up, but I do not want to back off to much and have the gun not cycle. I have never had any issues before with finding published load data for the 357 and 44, so I have never had to work up a load from almost scratch. Every load where I have backed off and worked up, have all been bolt actions, so I never had to worry about backing off too much to the point of not cycling.
Should I back off half a grain, a whole grain, two grains?

I also have available 2400, enforcer, No9, W296, and also longshot (if it would even be a suitable powder for 50AE).

Anyone here loaded any x-treme 325gr bullets and care to share their findings/loads.

I only use the xtreme bullets for my pistol loads but I do have a few boxes of Speer 325 HP that I found for a price too good to pass on.

I don't use the H110 so I can't speak to that. I've found the 2400, AA9 and IMR4227 to work well in the DE with lots of room to play with.

The old Accurate manual #2 had a table with DE specific loads for AA9 and for 50AE with 325 bullets. I don't have a copy unfortunately but the table is posted on the internet somewhere, a little searching can find it.

The 50AE loads I have made with AA9 were at the low end of the table which is 22.7 grain. I'm just using a lee dipper and a 505 scale so they were probably somewhere between 22.5 and 23.

I guess I only had this written on a loose sheet of paper and didn't put it in my reloading notes because it isn't there but I posted this in the other thread.



I haven't had much time available for playing in the last couple years. I'm hoping that after next week things will be back to a regular pace at work for the next 6 months or so and I can get caught up on the fun stuff in life.

Well I finally had some time today to test some out, the weather has not been working with me the last few weeks.
Using Speer brass, federal large pistol mag primers, and H110.
I started out at 28gr, and started going up .5 at a time. I loaded 5 rounds of each charge.
However I only pre loaded up to 29gr. If all looked good, then I would go back inside and load 5 more of the next charge. That way I was not stuck having to pull bullets if a charge was too hot. Having your shooting range outside your house has its perks.

28 - 29 cycled no problem but felt a little weak (for 50AE). Velocity was around 1050-1150-ish. I was having some issues with my chrono randomly not wanting to read. I would get a reading of 100-something, and then get a reading of 7800-something. So I only got like 1-2 readings per 5 shot group.
I turned it off and back on again, and removed the debris guard from it and it started reading a little more normally.

29.5 was 1185 fps
30, the chrono acted up again
30.5 was 1238 fps
31 was 1275 fps
31.5 was 1313 fps

I just went ahead and called it at 31.5. It was feeling full power. A couple of them was just starting to show some ejector marks. Not ejector swipes, but you could just barely start to see the outlines of the ejector and extractor cutouts.

Accuracy on all loads was pretty much around the same. None really stood out from the others.

Ambient temp was around 45-48 degrees. I am going to back the charge back down to 30.5 for now. It seemed to have the best balance of still feeling full power, but no signs of any issues, and it seemed to have the best ejection pattern (all landed almost together).
I plan on revisiting this during the summer when it is 90+ degrees and see what the pressures do before I settle on a final charge. I do not want a load that shoots good in the cold, then is dangerous in the heat.

I also want to try a few loads with some No9 and maybe some 2400 also. However I only have less than a half pound of 2400 left and I have not seen any for sale in years.
I have probably 5-6 pounds each of H110 and No9, and regularly see them at my local stores. So those will probably be my go to for a while.
I also have some W296, but it is very close to H110, but I may try some of it also.

I did manage to dig a couple of the bullets out of the berm and they all looked great. No signs of jacket/plating issues at all. A couple of them looked so good, I almost think I could load it up and shoot it again!