Testimonials
I'm a friend of Jessie's and have been shooting his bullets for years. I still remember the bullet I used of his and what a difference it made.
I had an old model 44 Mag Super Blackhawk with a Nichols shotgun scope mounted on it. I'd been shooting another brand and having nothing but problems with leading. The load was a 240 swc over 22 gr of 2400 powder. I could manage 3" groups a 50 yds, but would have to spend a half hour scrubbing bore to get the lead out.
A local gun store was started carrying his bullets so I thought I'd try some. What a difference!! My groups shrank to less than 1.5 inches and cleaning was a breeze. I shot my first deer with a handgun that fall @ 55 yds!! I've never bought any one else's cast bullets since!!
Papa, Juliet, TN
I've used both the hard cast .358 diameter, 158 grain, LSWC and the hard cast .358 diameter, 148 grain wad cutter made by Tennessee Valley Bullets. I've found both bullets to be superior in accuracy and velocity. All the bullets that I have purchased from TVB are uniform in weight and diameter. The amazing part...When I chronograph my hand loads, I've found that TVB are an average of 50 feet/sec. faster than any other bullet that I have used. All my orders have been mistake free and shipped promptly. When coupled with the ability to easily check with TVB either by e-mail or phone, on the status of an order, or simply discuss a reloading issue, it makes TVB my choice for reloading supplies. Oh, and one other nice aspect of using TVB, I can visit the man himself when he has a booth at my local gun show.Tennessee Valley Bullets; competitive prices, great service, and simply the best bullets you can buy.
Dave
White Hall, AR
I loaded some high-quality Tennesssee Valley cast 160-grain .358" bullets over the correct powder charge for what my friends refer to as the "TX FBI Load" (it duplicates the performance of the commercially available .38 Spl. +P FBI Load). Did a nice roll crimp in the Lee Factory Crimp Die, and headed to the range.
Here are some photos of some of the rounds:
The hard-cast 160-grain bullets performed better than any other bullet I've used for this load, even better than the Hornady swaged bullets I've been using for carry (that has changed). From my 3" barrel, they did an average of 971.1 fps/ES 36.55/SD 15.52. For comparison, the Hornady 158-gr LSWC bullet over the same charge from the same gun at the same time did an average of 909.0 fps/ES 53.71/SD 20.71 - just fine, but not nearly as nice as these hardcast beauties. These Tennessee Valley Bullets are hands-down the best bullets I've ever bought. They also proved capable of very tight grouping at both 10 and 25 yards. I got lower spreads and higher velocities across the board, and I didn't have a single smear of lead in the bore.
The next week I loaded them hotter, over two different loads for M1103 fps/ES 32.57/SD 15.77 and M1230 fps/ES 6.39/SD 2.23 respectively from a different 4" gun. That's smoking hot with phenomenal velocities from a 4" tube, and this last load had the lowest standard deviation I've ever recorded. No lead in the bore after firing 15 rounds of each hot load.
Here's a photo of 10-yard targets; the two targets at the top were shot with the hardcast LSWC Tennessee Valley Bullets - the bottom-left was Remington HBWCs and the bottom-right was Hornady cold-swaged LSWCs.
I'm quite happy with Tennessee Valley Bullets' .41 215-gr LSWCs, too. No lead in the barrel even though they averaged 1206 fps, with an ES of 63.95 and a SD of 25.51. How'd they shoot? One hole at 10 yards, but look at this 25-yard target. I fully believe that the two holes not touching were because I had a difficult time getting a good sight picture on this orange target in the afternoon light - I think this would have been a one-hole 25-yard group with a better shooter.
Tennessee Valley Bullets are remarkably consistent in weight and form. The lube is perfectly applied and not sticky on the fingers when you handle the bullets. The sizing is precise and as indicated, and the alloy is some sort of magic metal that doesn't deform and gives me better velocities than other bullets I've tried. All this, and they're priced right! Needless to say, I know where I'll be sending my next bullet order - thanks, Jessie!
Erich Martell
Albuquerque, New Mexico