Shooting FMJ in a ballard barrel?
Is it ok to shoot FMJ or JHP in a ballard type rifle barrel or ok to shoot LRN in a microgroove barrel? What ammo is good to each barrel? I just bought a Marlin 1894 38/357 and am wondering on the type of ammo I can use on each barrel. Don't know what barrel I got. How can I tell? All I know its a new rifle and was bought at a out of state gunstore.
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1st of all , whether the bullet is FMJ or JHP has really no bearing on what you can shoot out of either type of barrel.
What you should know is shooting soft lead bullets of any style at a high rate of speed "in excess of 1800fps plus from my experience" from a microgroove can give you a lot of leading in the barrel.
This will be more common with rifle calibers than your pistol caliber.
Regardless of which barrel you have, you may shoot for the most part any .357 ammo you come across.
If you look down the bore of the gun and the rifling looks like the vast majority of rifling in most firearms that would be your ballard rifled barrel.
If you look down the bore and it looks more like the female threads of a real long nut , that would be your microgroove.
In summary , shoot what you have in your 357 regardless of the barrel.
If someday you come across a rifle caliber marlin and choose to shoot soft lead bullets from their micro groove barrel , you might want to keep the loads under 1900fps or so and whether the bullet tip is a FMJ or JHP really does not mean anything in regards to how the gun is rifled.
Some people may claim all lead bullets are not good in a micro groove barrel , rest assured that is not entirely true.0 -
Hello With the gun unloaded and the lever open take a white piece of paper and hold so it will reflect light down the bore now look down the barrel from the muzzle if you s 6 or fewer groves then Ballard 10 or more Micro groove. IT will not hurt the gun to shoot jacketed in either +p Lead loads MAY strip in the micro groove barrel if bullets are either soft or undersized or both . Other then making it hard to clean it will not damage the gun if you clean the lead out often. 0 -
Actually it does matter. You can safely shoot jacketed or lead with either type of Marlin rifling but safety isn't the issue. I'm no fan of microgroove rifling but if your gun has it, you'll likely discover that it doesn't shoot lead bullets all that well. It will probably do a decent job with jacketed stuff but no better than if the gun had Ballard style rifling. The shallow microgrooves often don't grab the soft lead bullets properly and leading of the bore can be a problem. 0 -
ditto on the micro-groove rifling...probably ok on 22s but rather have ballard style especially for hotter reloads...heard somewhere that marlin would update to ballard if gun was sent in ????? 0 -
Had a 357 marlin with a microgrove barrel. LOve slow moving rounds, heavy 367 or 38spc. Put in a 125gr 357mag and the pattern would come close to triple the size! 0
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