357 magnum domestic bull buster boolits

[Hog Farm]

I learned today while picking up deer from the processor, he sometimes uses his 357 magnum to put down big bovine. Apparently some have not been one shot kills with factory loads. I told him to put em in the ear. He said not an option with his set-up. Has to shoot them head on.

He isn't going to buy another firearm. Sticking with 357 mag loaded to factory length, what do you suggest? What weight? What hardness? If the alloy is too hard, will they shatter and not penetrate the skull of the beast?

Thanks in advance for all your thoughts!

[376Steyr]

Did he say what ammo he is using now? I suspect a 110 or 125 JHP wasn't getting the job done consistently.

[Wolfer]

I believe any 158 gr cast from AC WW or even 50/50 at 1000 fps or so will penetrate a bulls skull. Having never shot one I could be wrong, I often am.
These boolits in solid form penetrate well and won't shatter IMO. Woody

[seaboltm]

I would think that working at point blank range a 148 grain wadcutter or a 158 SWC made out of wheel weights and moving at 38 special velocity will certainly do the job. I can't imagine that 357 velocities are needed, but if so, the same bullets listed above will certainly do the job.

[bhn22]

Butchers have been killing beef with calibers like 22 Shorts, & LR, 25/20, 32-20, 41 Short & Long Colts, etc, forever. For a contact shot, the 357 may actually be needlessly powerful. A plain old semi-wadcutter should be plenty.

[LUCKYDAWG13]

when i was a kid my friends dad just used a 22 lr on their beef bulls at point blank range
most were one shot kills. not all but most of them

[Wolfer]

We never butchered beef at home when I was young. Butchered lots of hogs. With them feeding on the ground a 22 at a point 2" above centerline of their eyes worked every time.

Now I have a friend that butchers his own hogs and uses a 22 pistol. He told me while back when he makes his head cheese the bullet is always laying right against the skull. It knocks them cold and he sticks them immediately.

[Hog Farm]

He said he sends his daughter to town to buy ammo. I'm sure with all ammo being scarce, jhp and light weight could be the main problem. I myself have had 22 not kill a cow that was down, shot straight on. Back when farmers got together and killed hogs around here, they used 22 shorts. There was a large one the 22 didn't phase, and I think someone produced a 32 and it did the trick.

With all my usual sources being out of stock, I did find some Double Tap loaded with 180 grain cast at midway. I would almost pay $25 for a box of twenty rounds to let him try em out. But then I may be tempted to buy a $75 mold to duplicate them if they work.

[dubber123]

Ross Seyfried wrote an article years back about using a .38 snub with jacketed 158+P's to try and put down a wounded elk. It almost got him gored. The +P's barely broke 700 fps., and actually mushroomed quite widely on a frontal head shot, even though they were a FMJ design. He solved it by handloading a hard cast 158 gr. SWC, and says it worked wonderfully, far out penetrating the factory load. It would be super easy to match .38 snub performance in any .357 mag.

[tuckerdog]

On the kill floor we used a metal stud propelled by a 9mm blank worked well on everything. Every now and then one would suspect what was going on and we used a stevens model 15 and what ever lr ammo was on hand. it did just fine. .357 158grn swc should turn the trick.

[Stephen Cohen]

I killed a large bull 2yrs ago with standard velocity .22 round frontal head shot at point blank, I have never seen an animal drop faster or more dead. I suspect if he is not getting kills with 357 he is not hitting the right spot. No offence intended but 357 is a lot of gun up close.

[Hog Farm]

I have a Lee 140 grain SWC mold and may have to load some up and see how many pieces of one inch plywood one will penetrate.

He did say these were 1800-1900 pound bulls. I guess they are so heavy they are hard on the cows.

[FergusonTO35]

Cattle skulls are really not that thick. As a kid I used to encounter carcasses freshly picked clean by buzzards and use the bones for .22 targets.

[725]

Glenn Frye mentioned butchers using "the bullet for all seasons" in one of his LASC articles. A little research on that title should bring up the article. 220 gr SWC for the .38. Even had load data. Meplat, heavy & long for caliber, soft cast would be big medicine for up close dispatching.

[leadman]

I tried the Lee 158gr RFN in my J frame 38 spl. on the skull of an elk I had shot to see what it would do. It penetrated one side and broke the skull on the other side but did not exit. This is at about 750 fps with air cooled wheel-weight alloy.

[wlc]

We always used a 22 or 22 mag for cows, the hogs a 22. I would hazard a guess that he aint hitting the right spot if he can't get it done with a 357. Draw an X from ear to eye diagonally. Aim just an inch or two above the crossing point of the X. That's the spot. The shot needs to be pretty square on regardless of what you shoot them with.

[JHeath]

Glenn Frye mentioned butchers using "the bullet for all seasons" in one of his LASC articles. A little research on that title should bring up the article. 220 gr SWC for the .38. Even had load data. Meplat, heavy & long for caliber, soft cast would be big medicine for up close dispatching.

Good tip, I found and read it:

http://www.lasc.us/FryxellLyman358627.htm

Makes me wonder about the .38-200. Enfield revolvers have been available cheap lately. The top break is handy, and they're not as loud as a .357. I can't think of a better use for them than this, and they are too good to throw away.

[Mallard57]

I dropped a steer like a rock with a 95 gr. Fmj out of my .380 AMT Backup. I think hitting them in the right spot is the most important part.

[MtGun44]

Federal Cast Core 180 gr, PN F357J.

Fairly expensive these days, but should do the job.

Bill

[Hog Farm]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. JHeath thanks for the link. I read the article and thought great, this mold would be useful in my 35 Whelen as well. Let me see if midway has it in stock...

I guess the mold is discontinued?

I would pick a flat base mold over a gas check mold if given a choice.

[FLINTNFIRE]

I have seen 22 mag. put down 5 cows and then used on a bull and all it did was make him mad , the shooter switched to a 222 rem. and it was a done deal , this was a custom farm slaughtering service , each cow dropped with a geyser , bull shook his head , but that 222 rem. made a geyser on him to , I myself shot a dwarf cow once from 5 feet with a 22 l.r. all it did was look at me , second shot was behind ear , done deal and dead , that dwarf had a thick hide and a thicker skull , first shot was a perfect mushroom under hide .

I would go with 38 +p loads and 158 grain solids .

[cbrick]

My FIL when he was alive had a N. Ill dairy farm, the meat destined for his own freezer was always dispatched with a 22 rimfire. One shot in the head at point blank and it was on the ground dead without a single twitch. Watching that gave me a lot of respect for the little 22.

Rick

[monadnock#5]

Back about 1970 my Pop had a man named Bob Traquair come over to the house to slaughter off and butcher two hogs. It was a job that took the better part of the day, so there was plenty of time for kibitzing. This was one of Bob's stories as best as I can recollect.

Bob took formal training for slaughtering at the UNH Extension School. The teacher was a WW II Veteran. I don't remember the details of the injury, but the teacher's crippled arm was the result of wounds received during the war. OK, so one day the class was to receive instruction on how to slaughter off a bull. The student chosen to swing the sledge, not wanting the critter to suffer, hauled off and swung just as hard as he could! The bull dropped instantly, whereupon the students started to move in. Just one problem. The bull wasn't dead. The teacher then went in and hit the creature in the same spot as it had been hit before, with his crippled hand, and then the beast was DRT.

The first wallop shattered the skull and severely compressed the brain, but didn't push any of the broken pieces into th brain. That's what the teacher did with his crippled hand. Tell your friend to use a .40S&W with FMJ's.

To the OP, thank you. This is one of those stories I've remembered all these years and never knew why.

[Zymurgy50]

My in-laws used to raise a few black angus, always butchered on new years day. One year we were to butcher 3 cows, first two dropped with one 22lr shot each. Wife's uncle was using Ruger single six. third cow took NINE 22lr in the forehead, just shook each shot off and walked away.
Finally my father in-law let me grab my 30-30, one shot from 90 degrees severed her spinal cord at the base of her skull. Wife's grandfather wanted the brains from the 3 cows, first two we split with easy blows from a hatchet, third one we had to bust with a sledgehammer before we could split it. Never saw a cow with such a thick skull since then...

[cattleskinner]

When I used to work in meat plants, the majority of the cattle were approx. 1200-1400lbs. I have a feeling that the majority of people with a butchering story encountered the same sized animal. The problem you run into is a bull weighing close to a ton is a far different animal. Size, muscle, thickness of skull all contribute to a tough animal to put down. The 60 gr. 22 lr shells didn't always work consistently, neither did any pistols. A 22 mag out of a rifle worked every time, along with rounds around that size. The thing to remember for these custom processors is they have to account for the bullet after they are slaughtered, people don't want to bite into a chunk of lead. I found a 22 lr rifle to work well the majority of the time and even then you would find the bullet slightly in the neck.

[Magana559]

I slaughter all my beef for the past 7 years and never had a federal bulk pack .22lr fail to drop bulls, cows, or pigs dead.

[WilliamDahl]

I've had to put down sick cattle over the years and although I've done it with a .38 / .357, I've also done it a lot with a .22. If you want a quick no reflex kill, you need to sever the brain from the spinal column by aiming at the brain stem. Even with a .22, it turns the lights out immediately. Of course, it's also possible that the .22 just gets in the skull and bounces around a bit -- I've never dissected their skull afterwards to see what sort of damage it produced.

[HNSB]

Never saw a cow with such a thick skull since then...

Then you never met my ex-wife!

[monadnock#5]

The tool used to dispatch the hogs in my earlier post was a .22. The man who did this had been doing it for a long time. His idea of perfection was a round that evenly split the left and right hemispheres from front to back and penetrated well into the brain. Watching him get into position for the shot was a lot like watching my Grandma thread a needle. Total concentration.

I can only assume he would have been looking for the same accuracy, and especially penetration, when dispatching a beeve.

[dg31872]

Shot placement, shot placement, shot placement. A 22lr square on to the skull will do the trick. Tell your butcher to draw an imaginary line from right ear to left eye, and another line from right eye to left ear. Where those two lines intersect is the sweet spot for instant death on bovine.

[GabbyM]

OK boys and girls here is a true story.

Back in the last years of the 70’s decade. My then brother in law was working as a butcher in a shop south of Sullivan , IL situated on a rural lot.
Met him at a dinner in town midday to load up before going out fishing. He told me about his harrowing day. They start around four in the morning to kill about 45 cattle. He gets this old bull in the shoot. He shoots it several times with the 22 LR. He told me just how many times. No effect. So one of the local deputy sheriffs was hanging out up front enjoying coffee and donuts pre dawn before meat store opened. So Rodney calls him back. They proceed to try the deputies 357 magnum service revolver. This being the late 1970’s there’s a good chance it was loaded with 125gr HP’s since they were all the fad. But I don’t know. He hits this bull in the head face on. That really upset the bull. Big horns coming up the shoot right at him. Rodney bails off. That big bull somehow made it up and over the top of the shoot. Went into the first room of the shop then right through the cutting room and into the meet store. Generally speaking the order of the moment for employees was run or die. He told me the fine details of the mayhem but it’s been to long ago to recall. They did manage to get it flushed outside where it ran out into a corn field. Rodney drove a couple miles to his house and retrieved his 12 gage and some slugs. Drove out into the field where he proceeded to unload three slugs into it. That was the end to the bulls argument over it’s fate. The place was trashed. Lots of meet was condemned by the inspector. They had to shut down and all those cattle scheduled for slaughter were left out in the pen until the next day.

[taco650]

I've seen one head of cattle butchered. Here's how it went.

Mobile butcher shows up at the farmer's barn where a Holstein steer is penned up. Butcher gets an old lever action 22 from the truck, a Marlin IIRC, and steps into the pen with the steer. He raises the rifle to his shoulder and makes a funny little sound with his mouth which makes the steer stare right at him. Butcher is aiming for the head then pulls the trigger while the steer is staring at him and down goes the steer with nary a twitch. I found the whole process fascinating because only an hour elapsed from the time the butcher pulled up to when he drove off with the quartered and caped steer was in the back of his truck. He had no wasted movements and though his knives didn't look like much, they were very sharp.

I think the key to the quick kill is he used a 22 rifle. I've been told that a standard 22LR fired from a rifle will penetrate cop body armor so if you're an LEO, watch out for this.

[GabbyM]

Well my brother in law was killing about one hundred head of livestock a week. Hogs and cattle. Five thousand a year. Sooner or later you'll get a freak. They had no back up to the 22 so obviously they had confidence it.

[Silvercreek Farmer]

I used a 20 guage slug, worked like a charm...

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DEsh QF4VMELo&ei=k5zZUrOAL_azsATThIDADA&usg=AFQjCNENiQudK-GJuQnqGXFGnBfTRtXjng&sig2=XH0DnZ3lz3e_xEwj2W5jpg&bvm=bv.59568121,d.cWc

[JOE MACK]

Hard cast lead 180gr LBT. I had to kill an old range cow that thought I was killing her calf one day. She had a really good set of hooks. Ruger OM Blackhawk in .41Magnum came out of the cross-draw holster and put a 250gr.LFNGC between the eyes. Old man was very P.O.d we had to butcher again. I asked if he'd rather butcher again or bury one of his sons. I got the old chin scratch,"hold on, I'm thinking." response.:rolleyes:

[David LaPell]

If it can't be done with the old 358429 cast from wheel weights, well, I don't think it can be done. I had to put a white tail out of its misery once that was hit by a car and while not a cow, I used a SWC version of the 358156 on a panicked and stressed out deer. It fell over dead with one shot to the base of the neck. The last time I saw a deer die that quickly was when I hit one with a 16 gauge slug to the spine. Load one of those 358429s up in a .38 Special case and maybe even a +P Special load will do what you need.

[Treeman]

Only cow (and it was a cow not a bull) that I have shot was with a .22-Actually 2 .22s because I emptied a .22lr chambered revolver into the skull without killing the cow and switched to the .22 lr Rifle for a finisher. I have shot quite a few game animals with .38 special and .357 mag revolvers and 9mm pistols. I bounced 4 158gr .38 special SWC off a Javalina's skull once before figuring out that I had grabbed a box of target loads at 650fps instead of the 850fps loads I had used before with success. Angle matters a BUNCH in regard to skull penetration. I would expect any cast bullet of 150 grains or more travelling 1100fps or more to do the trick on frontal shots. Flat noses are better than pointed at resisting skidding and punching through the skull.

[tacklebury]

Try a faster powder with a 158 SWC or round nose. Longshot makes some wicked high acceleration loads in my .45 ACP with little case space. I'm sure in a .357 Mag, you could get good performance in a shorter barrel. Here's an article that shows for .45 acp, maybe you could interpolate... 8)

http://www.handloads.com/articles/default.asp?id=41

TrueBlue could also be a good powder choice:
True Blue 8.8 gr. 1,176
True Blue 9.8 gr. 1,307 max
from: http://www.reloadammo.com/357loads.htm

[429421Cowboy]

Well, many here have said it already, but shot placement is everything, the magic X is where you wanna nail them. I think a lot of people shoot cattle far to low for a quick kill, higher is usually always better.

I grew up in the slaughter house, been in the meat industry my whole life and the most common thing to use is a .22 mag revolver with fmj bullets in it. The big bulls get whacked twice in the head and stuck real fast, cows and steers usually get hit only once. The fact of it is the real purpose is stuning and incapacitating, then the job is sealed with a knife immediately after the shot. One place I was in when I was getting certified to grade beef preferred to use a .410 slug to the back of the head in the orbital socket and that seemed to work real well too, and we're talking a little dead soft hollow base 85 grain slug going not very fast even, I think a .22 mag in the same spot would have worked just as good. I do not trust a .22 lr on pigs or beeves, if its all I have I will use it but I have seen a couple times where .22 lr solids weren't up to the job, usually on hogs not beeves though. I also was helping slaughter a beef a couple years back that about ate my lunch after he was shot too low with a .30/30 and didn't like me trying to stick him with a knife to bleed him. Point is, a .22 mag 3" higher would have put him stone dead, where a 150 softpoint in the wrong spot still left him with enough sand to hurt somebody. Bigger bulls can have a darn thick cartilage plate and skull if they are older, and it takes a perfect hit to do. I also support getting a little bit above the critter to shoot them, even if that means putting grain or something down to make them put their head down. Out in the field where things are a little less controlled than in a killbox, I like a little more gun, when I used a .25/20 at a place I used to work I always felt it was about right with cast boolits for that job, without overpenetrating.

In a .38/.357 I would go with a good heavy solid boolit, cast not too soft and loaded modestly, to limit over penetration. It would not surprise me if he is having problems with light HP's just blowing up.

[Treeman]

Cowboy, Those little .410 slugs go pretty fast- a bit over 1800fps. Otherwise no disagreement with your excellent post.

[NVScouter]

Just get him some 38 or 357 FMJ. We used 22mag when I butchered, never had one not die. Pigs reg old 22LR lead HP, always find it in the jaw area.

[redgum]

Shot placement, shot placement, shot placement. A 22lr square on to the skull will do the trick. Tell your butcher to draw an imaginary line from right ear to left eye, and another line from right eye to left ear. Where those two lines intersect is the sweet spot for instant death on bovine.

Exactly my advice too....but.

as Taco650 has mentioned "THE ANIMAL MUST BE LOOKING DIRECTLY AT YOU" for the shot to penetrate into the right spot.

We kill our own Hereford & Black Angus steers & heifers (cows) regularly here with just a Winchester 1906 pump rifle & any .22lr available and the position of the beast and shot placement are the 2 most critical factors in my experience.

http://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r49/redgum94/slaughter3_zps712e718a.jpg (http://s141.photobucket.com/user/redgum94/media/slaughter3_zps712e718a.jpg.html)

[GabbyM]

That looks tasty. We need to light a fire.