Westlake Alfa .357 loads?

[Dinosaur1]

Anyone use bullets other than hollow based wadcutters in the Westlake .357 Alfa? I’d be interested to hear peoples experiences. Thanks!

[Popsbengo]

Yep, and I gave up and sold it. I'll stick to my Euroarms R&S cap and ball, way more accurate and much easier to live with. To be fair I struggled with the sights on the Westlake with my ageing eyes.

Westlake's solid WC's don't load properly in my (and friends) experience - too soft and too tight, they deform as they're pressed in. Tried resizing to .356, this helped but accuracy was pants.

A friend has a 6" (mine was 4" oo-err) and has good experience with Lee home cast WC over 2.6gn Herco with Cheddite primers.

Cheddite primers seem to be very weak, I've had piercing even with 2.5gn Herco. Maybe try CCI?

[Dinosaur1]

Thanks for the feedback. I’ve done ok with this one, cylinders are a little “snug” but not overly so, at least not on mine. Powders tried so far are Herco, Unique and Blue Dot. Best results for me are with 3 to 3.2g Herco.

 

[Nocrimp]

Herco defiinitely works best in mine.

Slightly off thread but....  I can't fire more than one or two shots before the cylinder binds and I have to rotate it (hard) by hand to make it index.

It seems like the primers are binding against the frame?

Does everyone else's work fine?..   Thanks for any answers....

[Dinosaur1]

This occasionally happens to me but not very often with Cheshire primers. A chap on YouTube did a video showing how he “fixed” the same problem on his. Basically he sorted his primers based on tolerances - not ideal but it seemed to work for him.

[Nocrimp]

Many thanks, I  found a chap who had the same problem and solved it by making the primer pocket slightly deeper but I'm not sure if it was the rim recess or the primer pocket body depth as well?

I definitely need to do something as mine is pretty un-usable as it is now...... Remington primers almost work and Cheddite don't fit at all.