What P &P and dverna said!
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What P &P and dverna said!
I'm seeing Colorado requiring 550 ftlbs at 50 yards for handguns. A 357 magnum can do that.Originally Posted by brewer12345
My previous post didn't mean that I disagree with using the .357 on deer. It worked for me once so far.
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Yes, 550 at 50 yards for handgun, but we were discussing rifles. That is even screwier. I have to use a howitzer if hunting deer with a rifle, but try a 41 mag is fine for pistol hunting. Hmmmm....
Show me factory 357 ammo that meets the energy requirements. I have not seen it.
When you care enough to send the very best, send an ounce of lead.
In my neck of the swamp, from 1920 to 1960, most deer were killed with a .22 backed up by a carbide lantern or a flashlight.
Interesting comparison, My 35 Remington pushes the RCBS 250 @ 1750 fps. That could be one reason why. I like the 357, especially in a rifle but it is what it is.
[The Montana Gianni] Front sight and squeeze
+1 on 357 Mag for deer and + 1 for 300 MP and cast. Its slow burning properties lend well with cast. Something else I have been trying is doing two coats of powdercoat. I had some coated twice in a Lee Pot and had to crush them with a spoon to get them to melt.
The Penta will expand with nearly any alloy at pistol velocities. Save the HPs for heart/ lung shots. But if you know you want to hit bone...(I want neck shots) go with the solid with a full charge of H110, 300MP or Lil Gun out of a rifle and you got meat. If you nick a neck bone it is going to sever the spinal cord. Deer wont be dead but it wont move.
It has not been hard finding less than an inch groups in my Handi Rifle, 77/357 with cast or jacketed at 100 yards. With the slow burning powders as long as youre seeing flash keep going. Lil gun burns good but is the only one of the 3 that I personally have gotten into pressure problems with. Done it with the 357 Hornady XTP Flat Points at nearly 2000 fps, MP Larsen 165 Solid, MP Larsen 185 Solid, MP 358-200, Lee Lyman 358-200 as a PB no GC and I consider myself a rookie. Get the boolit into the lands or barely touching and you will have a hard time telling which shoots best from charge to charge. EXCEPT Lil Gun...which didnt like being confined.
You never know how you rank amongst men 'til you have seen what will break another man.
The original "Bluejay" US Army/ US Navy 1945-1970.
Come on everybody knows you need at least one of the big .30 cal magnums in a rifle or at min. a .500 S&W to kill whitetail deer.No whitetail were I live but Blacktail and they are not hard to kill just good shot placement .357 mag no problem.
You are right. Using the federal ballistics calculator, they only one that might (and just barely) break 550 at 100 yards is the 180 gr WFN-GC made by Buffalo Bore... and only with a 6"+ barrel with that.
I live in Indiana which, which has 357 Mag as the minimum handgun cartridge. 45 ACP and 9mm in particular are EXCLUDED for being too short. 223 is also excluded, the minimum rifle caliber being .243/6mm. I think there is sense to this. 45ACP and 9mm are almost never loaded for hunting, and almost always FMJ or rapidly expanding hollowpoint ammo. 357 Mag in 158 grain and up is factory loaded for hunting usually. There is even a deer on the box, which is about all the average member of the public can wrap their head around.
I process deer for myself and others (not exactly a business, but it is something I do). As a consequence I get to see a whole lot of deer wounds. Indiana began to allow rifle cartridges a couple years ago on private land and we've seen an explosion in the number of enormous rifle wounds. The real offenders seem to be 243 and 308 Winchester. 30-'06 is also bad. 30-30 on the other hand seems to be worse than a handgun cartridge but not as bad as the "REAL" rifle cartridges. The high velocity rounds pretty much pulp the lungs and can make enormous exit wounds. In one case we saw entire shoulder BLOWN off a medium sized buck. The shoulder and right front leg detached...a handloaded 30-'06 165 grain Nosler Partition from about 60 yards...handloaded by a guy who no doubt thought he knew what he was doing. Basically he lost a about 10 lbs of meat he could have otherwise had. No doubt this would have been better if the deer was taken at 150 yards, but that is just not common here. Since one of the places I hunt has a vast hayfield that I sometimes shoot across I do get such long shots, but this is rare, and for somebody hunting woods it just isn't going to happen. You are lucky if you get 50 yards of visibility in most places.
Of all the wounds I'd say ROUND BALLS deliver the optimal ballistic performance. A pure lead 50 caliber round ball, which weighs about 175 grains, impacting about 1200 FPS has gone STRAIGHT through every deer with a broadside shot and NOT pulped the insides or tumbled and done all sorts of crazy things shedding little bits of lead and copper.And though it is massive overkill, a 12 gauge 1oz slug seems to work well. Basically puts a 3/4" hole through the animal and if you hit a bone its like a piano fell on them. But the recoil is brutal and the accuracy is usually poor.
Last edited by curioushooter; 06-23-2019 at 11:58 AM.
Curiousshooter,Thanks for your post. Interesting notes about round balls,I was casting and shooting them all winter.
I've been involved in processing quite a bit,too. I've seen hundreds of moose/deer wounds and bullets.
Our whitetail energy minimum is 243 too,generally the fast small calibers "explode" more often. I use 45-70 for all close range work whenever possible. Sometimes longer shots are needed,then I use a 300WM with heavy Woodleighs. If very close,a heavy Hammerhead. If very far like 300+, a Ballistic Tip. I practise 300 m regularly.
No handguns for hunting here. Mine would be a big one.
Lots of creative ballistics here, stand the cartridges beside each other, the .357, the .35 rem, the 30/30, and you'll see what I mean. I have nothing against the .357 for deer but it is illegal for use here in a rifle or handgun for deer or any other big game.
curioushooter, I am also a Hoosier, North Central Ind. I have harvested 36 white tail deer, Florida, Tennessee, South and North Carolina and South Dakota, with my .243 Winchester, loaded with 100 grain Nosler Partitions over H1000. These leave an exit wound about the size of a quarter or half dollar, if they hit bone. I suspect that the gaping wounds you have seen were caused by hollow points. I also load 85 grain LRNGC rounds over Clays for 50+ yard shots on squirrels. Of all the deer I have taken, I can count on one hand those that were over 100 yards. Since I moved back home, I prefer to use my model 1894 Marlin .44 magnum or my model 1894AE Winchester .45 Colt. Keep yer powder dry...…...robin
The 357 mag can take deer , worked well for me I don’t remember if I mentioned in this thread but the pic of it hanging was taken in a shop with 10 foot ceilings , just to give a size reference
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...eferrerid=2530
Definitely did the job, although that bullet looks like it didn't hold up to the rifle velocities as much. I'm sure you are already trying some cast bullets in that. They don't even need a hollow point at those velocities, they will expand anyway.
I have killed a number of deer with a M77/357 here in S.C. I use the Hornady 158 XTP. It seems to kill just fine. One bullet per deer for a number of years.
I plan to use my Marlin 1894 in .357 this season. I also plan to develop some cast bullet loads for this rifle. It's not a .270 Winchester but there are no degrees of dead.
The people that don't get it have never done it. Last winter I shot a 150-200 lb hog with a 180 gr cast rnfp out of my henry 357. He went about 20 feet. My concern about whether the 357 can do it diminished greatly.
Siamese4570
The .357 mag with 125 grain or 158 grain JHP out of a 4" bbl revolver was considered for many years to be the ultimate manstopper in defensive situations where dumping the assailant rapidly is of utmost importance.
A deer is pretty darn similar in mass to a human, and yet when you add 300 fps or more to the velocity of those 125 or 158 gr. bullets, it becomes completely inadequate for the armchair hunter. Make it a 180 gr. bullet and those same armchair hunters find it barely adequate.
I don't get it. However, I honestly don't care--there will always be people whining and crying about how some caliber is weak and inadequate, regardless of how much game has been cleanly taken with it.
According to my old " Cooper on Handguns" (the only gun related thing I've bought that appreciated with time), the original factory 357M load would wear out an N frame Smith quite quickly. So approach old reloading data with caution unless you have a large-framed revolver.
A model 29 can live a long life if loads kept light to mid range for 44 magnum. I rarely hear of problems with the model 57. A Ruger GP100 lives a LONG life with full power 357 magnum. I'm thinking the larger smith N frame should be at least as good.
Perhaps you mean the K frame?
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| C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
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| PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
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