Talk to me about the 357 sig

[osteodoc08]

I told the wife to not get me anything for Christmas. I wanted her to spend it on the kids and save the rest. She's been rather insistent about getting me something. So I gave her lots of suggestions. I listed off specific wheel guns and lever actions in either 45 Colt or 45/70. I sent her pictures or examples. Well, based on the title that was obviously in vain.

Im in the middle of a 24 hour shift when she sends me a picture of a black box and I see the Glock "G" on it. She says guess what it is. I call her and told her she had to give me a hint and tell me what caliber. She proudly announces "357, did I do good? I know you were talking about your 357 the other day". In my mind I'm thinking total face palm, but I tell her "oh baby, that sounds awesome". So I'm at least hoping it was a 32. I ask her, "So is it a Glock 31,32 or 33?" Slightly irritated she says "You tricked me into telling you!". I chuckled and asked her to look. She tells me it's a 31. I try to talk it up and tell her I'm gonna love it and that I've eyed those in the past and can't wait to try it out. Meanwhile I'm thinking, dang, how much plainer did I need to make it when you asked me what I wanted......I gave specific models, types, calibers, pictures, etc. Oh well.

So it looks like I'm the new owner of a Glock 31 in 357sig. Trying to make the best of it, what can y'all tell me about this caliber/platform. My only other Glock is a 20SF.

[Animal]

She sounds like a great gal! Maybe you will enjoy it. I don't know much about them, but I know that a lot of people think very well of them. According to Wikipedia, it is popular with law enforcement for its stopping power. Being how it is a bottle neck, I don't know that it will be a preferred handgun for handloaders... I see a new handloading quest in your future, sir. Enjoy

[osteodoc08]

She sounds like a great gal!. I see a new handloading quest in your future, sir. Enjoy

She is indeed a great wife.

Already looking at components.

[Mtnfolk75]

I bought an OD Glock 32 last fall along with brass, dies & bullets. Never got to shoot it before my son talked me out of it. I've shot it since then and don't care for it, just too snappy for my taste. But you have to factor in the fact that I'm 61 and have had several hand surgeries. Try it with a smile on your face since it was gift from SWMBO, maybe you will actually like it, I didn't ..... ;)

[ReloaderFred]

I've loaded about 12,000 rounds of 357 Sig, but mine are a Springfield XD and a Witness. It's an inherently accurate round, flat shooting and fun to boot. You load it kind of like any bottlenecked rifle cartridge, but there's really no trick to it. You'll use 9mm bullets, but they'll have to be either flat point or hollow point, since the OAL of the loaded round is critical, along with the short neck. Avoid round nose bullets, since the OAL normally makes the case mouth hit on the ogive of RN bullets, causing bullet setback issues. I like Accurate #9 powder, since it fills the case and helps prevent setback, but also delivers good velocity and excellent accuracy. I pretty much stick with 124/125 grain bullets for most of my loading, but for some reason the Witness I chambered a barrel for likes the 115 grain bullets a little better for accuracy.

It's an excellent round and I find it easy to shoot, and I'm 70 years old. Don't waste your money on the Dillon carbide dies, though. You can load the round with steel dies just fine, and if you have a carbide .40/10mm sizing die, you can run the brass through that first and then into the steel sizing die to resize the neck. I just lube my cases with a spritz of aerosol case lube in a ziplock bag and then tumble them for a few minutes in corn cob after sizing to remove the lube residue.

I also lightly chamfer the insides of the case mouths to facilitate bullet seating without flaring. This helps with neck tension and only has to be done once, but it really does help.

There is ample reloading data available, so you'll have plenty of choices of bullets and powders within the weight range the round excels at.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[wv109323]

My wife got me socks and I didn't even show her a picture.

[ejcrist]

I don't know anything about the 357 Sig's but your story reminded me of experiences I had as a kid trying to get my Mom to buy the BB rifle I wanted for Christmas which was a Crosman 760. I cut out pictures with descriptions from the Montgomery Wards catalogue for umpteen years and never did end up with a 760. I believe I had every Daisy they ever made but never a 760. She'll be 82 this month and lives with me now, and just the other day she remarked how happy I always was when I used to open the BB guns. I'm glad I never said anything. Course if I did, even now, I'd probably get a slappin'.

[Ia.redneck]

I got into the 357 Sig in a roundabout way. I have a Glock 23 and a co-worker gave me a box of 357 Sig. He bought it thinking it was 357 Mag. Well........good excuse to try handloading another caliber, so I got a Lone Wolf 357 Sig barrel and am amazed at how well it shoots! One of my more accurate pistols. I predict you will be impressed.

[clocker]

Not sure about about your Glock, but a lot of 357 Sig pistols can be converted to 40 S&W with just a spare barrel. The magazine is usually the same for both cartridges, so you don't have to swap that out. 357 Sig is a really cool round, but if you don't enjoy it you still have options with the firearm.
Congrats on the great present and great wife!

[dk17hmr]

I have a 32c as a carry gun. I have brass and dies to load for it but have never really got all hot and bothered about loading that short neck so I shoot factory ammo through it since its a carry gun mostly anyways. One thing I will suggest is get a Lone Wolf 40S&W barrel for your pistol. 40 S&W is so much easier to load for. Keep the 357 sig set up for a house gun.....its a wicked little auto loading round.

[Bigslug]

Put me in the "facepalm" category. I'd buy a box or two of factory to take her shooting with in the event she ever asks, and cut straight to the aftermarket .40 barrel that you can load your 10mm bullets in.

Basically, it's a +P+ 9mm / .38 Super for which you get to pay for bottlenecked rifle brass rather than straightwall pistol hulls in order to feed - and it's snappier than either.

Oh well. . .she did try, and is a keeper for it.

[Animal]

Anyone have any cast boolit experience with this caliber? We have more than enough info on this site about the standard handguns such as the 357mag/spl, 44mag/spl, 40s&w, 9mm and 45acp... shoot, we even have info for the AK47... I'm curious of how this caliber can digest cast boolits. Sounds like a fun journey.

[rintinglen]

When they first came out my friend Mark bought one, and ordered a set of dies. We experimented loading with commercial cast 125 grain boolits but were plagued with problems of set back when the boolits hit the ramp. A LEE FCD would have been useful there, but that we did not have. It was a nuisance lubing cases and OAL was very important for proper functioning. We gave up on cast and went exclusively with 125 grain TC FMJs. Today I could probably make it work with cast, but in 92 I had half the reloading experience I have now, and less than half the casting knowledge.
Lyman reported that none of their boolits would function in the 357 Sig during testing for their 49 th manual, nor do they feature it in the 4th Edition ​Cast Bullet Handbook.

[Tackleberry41]

I picked up a G31 not long ago, good deal, barely used, previous owner shelled out for a spare mag and the stainless guide rod set up for it. I really like it, but not my first bottle neck since been reloading 7.62x25 for a while. It does have a bit of snap to it, a bit more than the factory spring. Not sure why glock uses same spring in everything. Out of the box it really flings the brass, not out, but up. Fire it and wait, it will finally come back down. I went with a wolf non captured, from what I read the flat springs dont tend to be the true weight, and I like Wolff springs. Runs fine w a 22lbs in it. As said your all of $99 for a barrel away from running 40 thru it. Picked up a G23 very recently, never been fired, just dried out factory grease, not a spec of carbon anywhere in it. I buy a gun first thing Im gonna do is run some ammo thru just because. Bought a 357 barrel for it.

Reloading isnt a huge deal. Supposed to lube them unless using carbide, or just add a step and run it thru a regular 40 die first, then the 357. It is picky about bullets as said, round nose generally wont work, but the XTPs are cheap enough and work fine in it. It is sort of something that really screams to be run hard vs plinking loads. Being that cal heaviest you can really go is 147gr, but pretty much designed around the 125. I dont see it really being a very cast friendly gun, as said Lyman tried and just didnt get great results, its a hot round. Wanna run cast get a 40 or 9mm barrel.

[Groo]

Groo here
I have a "few" .
Just broke out a sig 239 as a BOB gun- added a sig 9mm barrel for a 2 cal gun.
My G35 is a 40 [ only found one 40 that was accurate- my EAA Gold Team] that I put a 6in 357sig barrel in.
Clay birds at 100yds quake with fear.
Pratice with 40 carry 357.

[Beau Cassidy]

I have a 229 with a .357 sig barrel and a HK P30 with a .357 sig barrel. I really like the caliber but it is time consuming to load for. I am in the process of sizing several thousand cases and am finding the nickle cases are harder to size than the brass ones. I think the flash holes on the nickle cases are smaller. I have only tried 2 powders in it so far- longshot and blue dot (I have a bunch of it). The blue dot is waaay too slow. I don't remember the charges but they weren't max. So far I am planning on loading with longshot. I just got some BE86 but haven't loaded with it yet. I bet WSF would be a good powder, too.

Here are some action photos of the blue dot loads showing the large fireball. The longshot powder did not do this...

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq95/OrthoNP/IMG950168_zpsjdxzb75j.jpg (http://s437.photobucket.com/user/OrthoNP/media/IMG950168_zpsjdxzb75j.jpg.html)

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq95/OrthoNP/IMG957435_zpsnjm18lfl.jpg (http://s437.photobucket.com/user/OrthoNP/media/IMG957435_zpsnjm18lfl.jpg.html)

[DIRT Farmer]

I have a Sig in 357 Sig, fairly stright forward on loading, I have been using 800X. When I got the gun, got it cheap because the previous owner could not find ammo for it, I had 8 brass cases for it and 12 nickle. The flash hole in the nickle was much smaller than the flash hole in the brass cases. I drilled them to match and loaded them with the Lee 100 grain round nose. They shot fine and altho there was some leading it was a simple clean up after 20 rounds. It is a snappy round for sure and has a real muzzle flash with 800X.
This was the gun I wanted when I was working as a police officer but had to settle for a 45 ACP Sig 220.
Not that I was dissapointed when the cheif OKed it.

[Tackleberry41]

Yea you do have to watch the brass. I bought a bunch of once fired, all speer cases, they decided that the flash holes needed to be smaller. Lee dies it just pushes the rod up fortunately, I had to mod one to get the primers out, then drill them to a proper size. I have been using power pistol in mine, usually in things like this you go with slower 'magnum' powders, but dont seem to work so good in the 357 sig.

[Moonie]

My understanding is you can get both a 40 S&W and a 9MM barrel for that pistol. If I were to get a plastic pistol I'd get either the 40 or 357 glock, compact or sub and add the other 2 barrels. If you get the 9mm you can't get the other two as they are larger diameter and won't fit the slide. The aftermarket has 9mm barrels that fit the larger slide hole.