Heavy boolit in an S&W 640-1 Pro Series .357

[Gray Fox]

I recently acquired a very nice S&W 640-1 Pro Series .357/.38 and I'm thinking about a 175 grain RNFP TL GC boolit in a .357 case at reasonable velocity instead of some hot lightweight loading. Do any of you folks have experience with trying this in snub barrel? It seems to me that for a carry load that has the potential to obtain adequate penetration in some heavyweight thug wearing lots of winter clothes would be better than the usual 110 or 125 grain slug with questionable expansion and penetration out of a snubbie. GF

[country gent]

In the 640 as light as it is this may be literally painfull to shoot. Recoil is going to be stout to say the least along with muzzle blast. I have a 640 and Have shot a very few factory loaded 158 357s thru it. Most its one round and done with them. I would recommend trying some light 148 grn wadcutters first.

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

r ...

[clum553946]

Heavier bullet will recoil much harder out of a snubbie! Try 140gr in a moderate load & see if that gets the job done for you. Not too heavy and not too light! I liked W231 for my Ruger SP 101

[Gray Fox]

Well, I guess I could load some of my very old stand bys, copper plated 148 grn hollow based wadcutters with the hollow base forward. Did some Fackler box tests years ago and had the box filled with gallon jugs of water. The upset out of a 3" SP101 was so violent it blew the box apart! I don't recall how many jugs it penetrated at 10 feet, so I'll have to dig up the range ledger, I guess. It was fun on a summer day in Hotlanta, though.

What I was thinking about was a .357 heavy boolit load of the genre of the old .455 Webly Bulldog. Maybe a slightly faster version of the .38/200. Any more thoughts?

[Bigslug]

Before I got my Webley, I was tinkering with duplicating the Webley load in my 640-1 using the Lyman 195 grain round nose. I was fortunate enough to be able to test it in FBI spec gelatin with a chronograph. The starting load 3.2 gr Unique at 561 fps punched through the 18" block and was halted by the rubber stop block behind it. 3.6 gr. at 635 gave an identical result and I saw no point in working up to the hot ones.

It seems to take 8-9 milk jugs to stop a 230 grain .45 flat nose at 830 fps, about the same for the regulation .380/200 and 265 grain .455 Webley loads. Penetration with cast pills is usually not a problem. Load your 175's (Ranch Dogs?) to your comfort level and be happy.

[Gray Fox]

Bigslug: Yours is the kind of info I was seeking. Yes, it is the Ranch Dog mold that I got to feed a couple Rossi '92 carbines. It is a very accurate boolit at 100 yards with a max minus 10% load of 296. I have no Unique, but I'll see what I have that can give me similar velocity and pressure. I think that boolit with its weight and nose profile and a similar velocity might be just the ticket without all the sturm and drang. Thank you, GF.

[Petrol & Powder]

Gray Fox, I have a lot of experience with snub-nose 38 Revolvers, including some with the S&W 640. It's a great gun but a 175 grain bullet is getting up there in terms of weight. Bigslug's comments and observations are right on the money and I'm going to add a little bit.

There's a very good reason the standard for caliber bullet weights became the standard for caliber bullet weights. People tend to re-invent the wheel from time to time or think they've discovered something new. The old stand by weights didn't get there by accident.
Light bullets start faster but shed that velocity quickly when they meet resistance, often making penetration disappointing.
Heavy bullets tend to be slower but penetrate deeper.
With all else being equal there's no physics mystery in play; you're just trading mass for velocity OR velocity for mass. Interestingly the sweet spot for 38 Special and .357 mag loads seems to be right around the classic 158 grain bullet weight. In the upper velocity ranges for the .357 mag loads you can get some benefit with a lighter bullet in the 125 grain range but for most loads from a short barrel the 158 grain range seems to be the best compromise.
In the 158 grain range you still have decent mass to help with penetration, decent velocity and reasonable recoil.

When talking about self-defense loads penetration is the key and bullet expansion is just the icing on the cake. The bullet must penetrate deep enough in order to damage something critical and stop the attack. Bullet expansion can reduce that penetration but generally speaking bullet expansion improves bullet performance as long as it doesn't hinder adequate penetration. However, there's a practical limit to the usefulness of penetration.

In a nutshell, a soft lead .357" bullet with a hollowpoint OR a flat point, launched at 800-1000 fps and weighing around 158 grains - will probably get the job done without excessive recoil. In a 2" (2.125" in a S&W 640) barrel that will be easy to obtain within acceptable pressures.