NEF .357Magnum Handi-Rifle

[GLL]

NEF has discontinued the Handi-Rifle in .357Magnum. If anyone has available or knows a source for a new or used NEF/H&R Handi-Rifle in .357Magnum I would appreciate a call.

Jerry

[fecmech]

Jerry-- You might take a look at the Rossi Single shots. I bought one a couple years ago and have shot the heck out of it. Basically a .410 shotgun frame with a .357 rifle bbl on it.

[dk17hmr]

From what I understand, you can still get the barrel via barrel acc. program. Have to send in your frame and have it fitted.

I really want a MAX, I have read that they shoot 38's and standard 357s better when reamed out.

[Nobade]

I can attest to that. Plus you don't need a chambering reamer. I measured the chamber I had, it came out to .381" so I ordered a chucking reamer that size from MSC and used that to lengthen the existing chamber. I polished it out and it works great! It went from terrible to quite accurate, and now my daughter uses it to good effect in our cast bullet silhouette matches. Plus it makes a dandy black powder rifle with the bigger case.

[Marlin Junky]

This better not effect the barrel accessory program because I UPS'd my rifle to MA yesterday for a .357 barrel.

Are the current .357 chambers extra long?... I sure hope I get a long chamber.

MJ

[BAGTIC]

This better not effect the barrel accessory program because I UPS'd my rifle to MA yesterday for a .357 barrel.

Are the current .357 chambers extra long?... I sure hope I get a long chamber.

MJ

You don't want a long chamber as the space ahead of the cartridge mouth will only collect a lot of crud. You want a long leade so the bullets can be seated out for maximum case capacity and minimum bullet jump. If you load spitzer .358 bullets, I like the 180 grain SSP, you will run out of case length before you get most bullets to touch the lands.

[Marlin Junky]

You don't want a long chamber as the space ahead of the cartridge mouth will only collect a lot of crud. You want a long leade so the bullets can be seated out for maximum case capacity and minimum bullet jump. If you load spitzer .358 bullets, I like the 180 grain SSP, you will run out of case length before you get most bullets to touch the lands.

No, I do want a long chamber because I've got a ton of DP-68 and .357SM brass to go with it. There's also the .360DW brass available from Midway and Starline.

MJ

[Onlymenotu]

Rossi quit making the 357mag rifles I've been looking for on my self for doing the same thing with,,,,,,,, i did run across 1 h&r 357 max looks to be a factory made max the price was a little steep for me being a used gun the auction has ended and the gun never sold so u may contact him about the gun and be able to work out a deal on the gunhere (http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=69929936)

[rhead]

MJ: Both of my Handis in 357 will chamber 360 DW brass easily. By short seating the bullet I can approach 357 Max balistics but fall a little short. I seat a paper patched 358 429 to 1.92 inches OAL which is just kissing the lands. Both of my barrels were made in 2003 so I do not know what they are making now. Accuracy does suffer using 38 special length loads but is still quite usable.
I can get more velocity with Lil Gun But get better accuracy with 2400. Both are certantly worth trying. Good luck.

[Marlin Junky]

rhead

I received the .357 H-R barrel a couple days ago and plan to shoot it next Tuesday with .357 Mag brass, (no time to get the .360 brass for this weekend) RCBS 35-200FN and a case full of DP-68... should be interesting.

There are a few things that really stand out about this barrel. One is the long sloping throat. I can see why you've tried PP boolits in this thing. Another is the tight chamber and groove diameters. Does your barrel slug at .356"? .356" is the minimum diameter 'cause I pushed the slug all the way through, but it was consistently tight from the muzzle to the chamber. I believe all these features are good and one should be able to use many, many boolit molds with this thing. The one thing I wasn't crazy about though is the shallow grooves that look to be only about .003" deep. Am I going to have a problem with boolits cast of ACWW metal?

Oh yeah, the chamber will accept a SuperMag case cut to 1.43" but I'm going to buy the .360 cases because SM brass will probably be too thick.

MJ

[Dutch4122]

Does your barrel slug at .356"?
MJ


Mine slugs at .356" as well.

I remember readng some time back on this board that one of he members has a .357 Max reamer for rent. I have been planning for some time to have mine reamed out to .357 Max. Even bought a ton of brass when it was on sale a Midway once. Looks like I'm committed. Now, who has that darn reamer.....................:)

[Scrounger]

Mine slugs at .356" as well.

I remember readng some time back on this board that one of he members has a .357 Max reamer for rent. I have been planning for some time to have mine reamed out to .357 Max. Even bought a ton of brass when it was on sale a Midway once. Looks like I'm committed. Now, who has that darn reamer.....................:)

Dutch, Jeff223 is the one with a reamer but my recollection is that it is a .445 reamer for use on .44 Mags.... I think we were trying to talk someone into buying the .357 Max reamer. I could be wrong, of course...

[Marlin Junky]

Dutch4122,

Leftoverdj has a reamer. How do we know it is compatible with the H-R chamber though? This .357 H-R has so much throat that it may be beneficial to ream it out to SuperMag but the .360 brass seems to be a lot more common these days. Let me know how your barrel turns out should you decide to lengthen the chamber.

MJ

[lathesmith]

Seeing this thread for the first time, I did a quick check of the H & R Firearms website, and they show the .357 mag still available as an accessory barrel.

http://www.hr1871.com/Support/accessoryProgram.aspx

I really like the idea of using 360 brass with this barrel. It appears that my barrel will easily chamber this stuff, and I am glad to see others have tried this to good effect. I also have a H & R 357 mag barrel that is around 20 years old, and years ago I had a local gunsmith ream it to 357max. This is a fantastic, versatile gun, and it shoots full house max loads and 38 wadcutters to almost the same point of impact. One gun allows me to hunt deer to squirrels! It is also very accurate with hot loads or mild. However, I have noticed one limitation with this gun over the years. The max loads are deadly accurate to around 125 yards or so. Past this distance, you cannot hit the broad side of a barn with this barrel. I have always wondered if this is due to bullet instability--and every bullet I have ever tried, jacketed or lead, seems to have the 125 yard limitation. Has anyone ever tried long range shooting with one of these barrels? I'd be real interested in hearing your results.
Lathesmith

[Nobade]

Well, I dunno... my daughter uses one (a 357 mag opened up to max) in our cast bullet silhouette match to 200M with good effect. She's shooting the RCBS 200gr. FN rifle bullet, gaschecked, over 11.0gr. Blue Dot. I've tried the same bullet in it, seated to touch the lands, over a case full of WC680 and a rifle primer all the way out to the 500M rams and didn't have a problem hitting them once I figured out where to hold. (Wasn't a very windy day though!) so, if you haven't tried that bullet you might be suprised how well it works.

[Marlin Junky]

I shot the .357 H-R today (with a Weaver K2.5) and was impressed by the 1", 5-shot groups it delivered at 75 yards with RCBS 35-200FN and DP-68. The velocity was just short of 1400 fps until the day warmed up then it averaged 1411 fps with a std.dev. of 8.15 fps for 10 rounds.

I tried a penetration test on a 9" section of a 4x4 stud and it traverse the stud easily with the un-annealed Hornady gascheck making it to the 6.5" point. The alloy was ACWW metal and solder sized to .358"

MJ

[MtJerry]

MJ,

You are getting the same performance that I am out of My NEF 357 Mag/Max barrel. They are one of the best shooters NEF makes.

Shame they don't offer the complete rifle any more.

[Marlin Junky]

MtJerry,

While the barrel interior is very fine, (even considering the shallow grooves) the chamber is too wide and I'd like to ream it out to .357 Herrett or even 35-30. I'd consider the .357SM (Maximum according to Remington) but I don't know whether a ring may be created at the end of the existing chamber. I need to at least lap the top of the extractor because it interfers with extracting fired cases... yup, the cases swell that much. Well actually, the real problem is quality control when NEF cut the extractor... it doesn't mate with the breach very well at all.

MJ

P.S. The only other thing that bothers me about this gun is the off center firing pin strike. Does anyone else's .357 H-R exhibit this?

[MtJerry]

Hmmm you are expressing some issues that would make me want to send it back for another barrel.

I don't think they fitted that one correctly.

Call H&R and ask them. They are really good about talking to you.

[Marlin Junky]

I can fix the extractor in an hour but the fat chamber is probably within tolerance even though the fired cases (using my mild loads) mike .383" at the expansion ring. I wish I had a couple factory .357 Mag rounds laying around.

MJ

[Marlin Junky]

I polished the top of the extractor last night and the cases from the last shooting session chamber and extract a lot better now. I have no idea why the firing pin strike is so off center but I suspect the problem is in the fabrication of the receiver and if that's the case, I'm sure there are others like this out there amongst us. We'll see what further developes.

Under this thread I've posted what my H-R will be digesting next week:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=15918

MJ

[lathesmith]

MJ, my NEF frame that I had fitted for a .357 barrel has a slightly off center firing pin strike, but it is nowhere near the edge of the primer pocket. I do not recall which way it is off center. I can try and determine that for you if you are curious.
That 200 grain load sounds impressive. My barrel seems to handle bullets in the 150 grain range quite well, if I remember right a gas checked Lee bullet over a stiff(but not maximum) charge of 296 gave around 1800 fps and decent accuracy. 148 grain wadcutters are also very accurate, with 3 grains of Bullseye for 700 fps it is deadly (and quiet) for smaller critters.
I agree though, those swollen cases are not a good omen, sounds like the chamber may be cut a might sloppy. While I don't have any fire cases to compare, the chamber of my .357 is around .381, which seems very close to my Ruger BH.
Lathesmith

[Marlin Junky]

lathesmith,

Polishing the extractor fixed the ejection problem but I was only able to get 5 rounds using CCI-450's to fire today. I think the mainspring has given up... already! Time to disassemble this thing and try to make it work properly. I'm not even going to bother sending it back to NEF 'cause I can take my time fixing it whereas they've gotta get it out the door quickly. Besides, NEF already had their chance to fix it.

Maybe I can make the firing pin protrude past the recoil shield father or make a new mainspring or something. We'll see what it looks like in exploded view in the next few days. One thing's for sure though, I'll never buy another NEF piece of s!@#.

MJ

[lathesmith]

MJ, I don't know if you will ever be very happy with your NEF with that way off-center firing pin strike. That mainspring will be relatively easy to pull out, and you can probably bend it to give it more power, unless it was too soft to begin with. There are some excellent articles on the web about disassembling these Handis, there are a few fine points that are good to know that makes the job easier.
I had a 35 Whelen barrel fitted to my receiver last year, but have yet to fire it. I have had some minor problems in the past with rimless cases slipping under the ejector, this kinda slows down the reloading process a bit. I guess that is why I prefer rimmed cartridges in single-shots, although I have NEVER had an extraction problem in any of my T/C's. We get what we pay for, I guess...I hope you are able to get your Handi working, but like I say with the off center firing pin it may be trading material(or something).
Lathesmith

[OBXPilgrim]

Removing some of the face off the hammer will push the hammer block in farther, which will get the fining pin tip out farther - if that's what you really want to do.

Mine wouldn't hit the short side of an M1 Garand firing pin protrusion gage. It wouldn't consistently fire rounds in my 7.62x39 barrel. That's kind of unusual for a rimmed caliber though - must be more to the off center hit.