357 mag hunting loads

[hades]

Maybe, but how do you know what size that is without trying a few out? I have a .358 sizer/GC seater so anything that's got a GC is .358, my As Cast PB is .359, and around .360 once PCed. Obviously I'm not loading these randomly into the gun and trying to shoot a group, I'm trying a few different sizes out. I know .360 is too large, won't chamber in the cylinder smoothly. So I'm working on .359 and .359 for the most part. I'm not worried about extreme velocity all that much. Anything 1200-1400fps is probably not staying in a deer at any reasonable range.

Slug your barrel! And then measure throats so you can size a bullet to fit and everything is in harmony.


I wasn't trying to imply that you were willy nilly loadng random stuff and then filling cases full of mystery floor sweepings powder, scraping it flush with your rusty, (and broken), pocket knife and seating a bullet on top until the powder just won't compress any more.


I did a fair amount of tumble lubing without sizing when I first started. Size dies were expensive. Well maybe not expensive for the lee push through but it all adds up.


I'd get loads that jammed my 45 then though. Some bullets were probably. 453 and since i just lubed and loaded it wild swell the brass enough to not chamber smoothly. Not full batches of ammo but some.

Finally got all the sizers and have sized every bullet I cast and load now for a long time already.

I can only imagine they're more accurate but I know they're more reliable.


Some guys maybe have had different experiences just tumble lubing bullets as cast but my first casting caliber, that gun didn't care for that method often enough enough to turn me off from it completely.


Idk if my point really comes across, but they're a fair chance you're gun would like 0.359, and if you knew that and went after it, finding a sweet load would be easier imo.


(The NOE size die is in stock btw, little bit for the start up, but then different size bushings are cheap compared to $20-25 a pop for the Lee's. I wish I had know about these sooner...)

[Willie T]

Wolfdog, don’t over complicate things. The throats in your cylinder size any projectiles that you shoot through them before they get to the barrel. I have two Smith and Wesson revolvers that have .357 throats and a Ruger Blackhawk that has .359 throats. In my revolvers I size to fit the throats. Size a projectile with your .358 sizer and drop it in the cylinder. If it falls through you need to go fatter. What I want is the size that catches but will push through using the eraser end of a pencil without much effort. If the .358 falls through try a .359. If it will not push through drop a .357 in it and see what happens. Light interference in the cylinder is enough to keep it from gas cutting in the cylinder. Measure the diameter of the bullet you push through the cylinder. That is the diameter it will be when it enters the leade to the rifling. Pushed full tilt both smiths will lead with a softer alloy without a gas check. Sized at .359 the Ruger does not. Lyman No2 pushed full tilt in the smiths does not lead without a gas check. These results are with conventional sizing and lubed with carnuba red. You can figure out which sizer you need prior to purchasing.
Willie

[Good Cheer]

Yeah, make your boolits fit the throats.
If the throats are too small for the barrel then make the throats bigger. And look out for a bore constriction at the frame.
Try 296 with a gas checked boolit on the high side of medium weight cast as soft as you can get to work.

Having said that...
If your barrel happens to be blessed with relatively wide lands then take advantage of it and use a bore rider design with a wide blunt nose.
That way you can take advantage of the chamber and throat overall length to put the lead out in front of case mouth where it belongs and get more 296 behind the boolit. That's a technique I developed for a Ruger Security Six. Sent a drawing to Hoch for the mold and in 1981 put theory to the test. The results were excellent. On the down side the forward protruding nose would not cycle through the Rossi lever action.

[wolfdog]

No, a GC is not needed with the 357 Magnum for general shooting and even with hunting loads. I shoot a lot of Lyman 358477s and the Lee counterpart with magnum loads of Unique and Blue Dot for general shooting, practice and would even shoot game with them.

However, with magnum level loads in a revolver a harder alloy is needed to maintain best accuracy. With the use of the GC the softer alloy for controlled expansion best accuracy is maintained. For hunting specifically is where the 358156 has served me very well with the softer cast bullets over many years. A box of 1k Hornady GCs may seem expensive but when used for hunting loads only they last a long time. When considering the other cost involved in hunting bigger game (deer, pigs etc.) the cost of the GC is minimal.

You have the GC mould so why not use it?

I use it for my rifle loads, and I use it on my 35rem. But if I can get away with some pistol loads without them, I wouldn't be mad. I just picked up 2k checks recently as I was down to about 200 and wanted to be sure to stock up. But if I can get a bullet that shoots the same without GC, I see that as worth while. And my pistol HATES my rifle load. Won't even keep them on paper at 25 yards.

[wolfdog]

Have you measured the throats? I have a Freedom Arms 83 in .357 that would shoot 4 into a tight group but always had one flyer. I sent the cylinder to Dougguy and he corrected all of the throats to the same size, now it’ll shoot all 5 into a tight group.

I have not done that yet. I'm getting 3-4 inches at 35 yards, at some point I may start single loading and marking chambers and seeing if one gives me outliers. I feel like this project could go on for a while, lol.

[wolfdog]

I've re-cut the barrel forcing cone in a magnum which ultimately did improve a mild leading issue. All I can says, it helped. Leading I've observed mainly comes from soft lead, improper sizing relationship to the barrel, too little lube, or more speed than really needed. YMMV. Good luck.

Leading only happens with some loads, and I've narrowed down 4-5 that don't have a leading issue. I cleaned the gun after my last range session with a nylon brush. My best loads were sized PC .358PB over 9.5grns of HS6, A TL version of same, 7grns of 572 with the same bullets, 8grns HS6 with a TL/GC .358, and 9grns of HS6 with a 148grn TL button nosed wad cutter, 5as cast, they cast at about .358 as well and sizing doesn't get much if any contact. I mostly got leading with .359 and .360 bullets as well as tight loading and horrid accuracy. So I size all my bullets from that mold now. My plan now is to go out on the weekends and work my way up in velocity and narrow down my powder and bullet choice a little bit. I just realized I never PCed any of my full wadcutters....well crap...that adds one more experiment! lol.

[wolfdog]

Wolfdog, don’t over complicate things. The throats in your cylinder size any projectiles that you shoot through them before they get to the barrel. I have two Smith and Wesson revolvers that have .357 throats and a Ruger Blackhawk that has .359 throats. In my revolvers I size to fit the throats. Size a projectile with your .358 sizer and drop it in the cylinder. If it falls through you need to go fatter. What I want is the size that catches but will push through using the eraser end of a pencil without much effort. If the .358 falls through try a .359. If it will not push through drop a .357 in it and see what happens. Light interference in the cylinder is enough to keep it from gas cutting in the cylinder. Measure the diameter of the bullet you push through the cylinder. That is the diameter it will be when it enters the leade to the rifling. Pushed full tilt both smiths will lead with a softer alloy without a gas check. Sized at .359 the Ruger does not. Lyman No2 pushed full tilt in the smiths does not lead without a gas check. These results are with conventional sizing and lubed with carnuba red. You can figure out which sizer you need prior to purchasing.
Willie

This is an older gun I've had for a few years and had some success with. I'm just trying a few new things like PC and a new mold. I've got a few old standby loads that work and work well and that I've killed deer with. .358s can be pushed through from the front of the cyl. with light pressure, and .359s stick hard and will not move. I'm assuming they are getting sized to .358 on the shot but them and .360 have given me enough trouble to be off my radar as far as loading goes. In the end, if all else fails I've got a SWC load at 1300fps and a full wadcutter load at a bit over 1200 that work. I generally use air cooled clip on WWs for my 357 loads. I tried water dropping them, and got fracturing on bone so stopped doing that. I really want to see if I can get a PC plain base bullet to shoot around 1400fps into 4" or less at 50 yards. That would make for a fun deer load this year. GF has a Marlin 1894 .357mag and I have a Henry single shot. Both have accounted for deer and shoot a 158grn TL GC swc at about 1600fps into 3" at 100 yards and have taken deer and pigs with those bullets.

[wolfdog]

Slug your barrel! And then measure throats so you can size a bullet to fit and everything is in harmony.


I wasn't trying to imply that you were willy nilly loadng random stuff and then filling cases full of mystery floor sweepings powder, scraping it flush with your rusty, (and broken), pocket knife and seating a bullet on top until the powder just won't compress any more.


I did a fair amount of tumble lubing without sizing when I first started. Size dies were expensive. Well maybe not expensive for the lee push through but it all adds up.


I'd get loads that jammed my 45 then though. Some bullets were probably. 453 and since i just lubed and loaded it wild swell the brass enough to not chamber smoothly. Not full batches of ammo but some.

Finally got all the sizers and have sized every bullet I cast and load now for a long time already.

I can only imagine they're more accurate but I know they're more reliable.


Some guys maybe have had different experiences just tumble lubing bullets as cast but my first casting caliber, that gun didn't care for that method often enough enough to turn me off from it completely.


Idk if my point really comes across, but they're a fair chance you're gun would like 0.359, and if you knew that and went after it, finding a sweet load would be easier imo.


(The NOE size die is in stock btw, little bit for the start up, but then different size bushings are cheap compared to $20-25 a pop for the Lee's. I wish I had know about these sooner...)

No worries. I've had a lot of success from this pistol with my .358 sizer. I just was curious how some as cast and as cast PCs would go. Now I know, not well, lol. Even .357 will not load into the cyl easily. Close but a little tight, fat. So I think I've narrowed it down to .358. I'm not struggling to make this gun shoot. I'm just seeing if I can find either a load that will do more speed or stand out accuracy wise. And try out some new PC bullets as I'm just getting into that. So far PC has not really been much of a game changer for me. It seems if I can get a PC bullet to perform, I can TL the same bullet and get the same results. I kinda want to find a way to push a plain base PC bullet to 1400fps plus and have it outperform the TL bullets of the same type. But I'm not sure that's going to happen.

[Rapier]

My preference is heavy bullets with a taper crimp over H-110 or 296. With a revolver you do need to slug the barrel, plus measure the exit holes in each chamber to make sure the exit holes are larger than the groove diameter. The prefer using a bullet that is close to 50% in the case and barrel. The 200 RCBS style is a favorite of mine for a heavy handgun or rifle. I use a 162 RCBS SWC (158 that casts 162) in my K frame, 19 or 66 Smiths.

[Good Cheer]

That RCBS 162 grain is a really nice design. In the early 90's used it night time for jack rabbits in the Rossi Model 92 with just enough AL-5 so as to coast them in as far as the spot light would reach. Lots of hold over with a quiet load but there was a four power Leupold compact on it with great optics; with a steady seat on the hood it wasn't hard to connect.
Those Rossi carbines from the 80's had some problems but they had excellent barrels.

[wolfdog]

Range report.
Tried the following loads.
All bullets sized to .358.
158PC plain base with a grain under max of 572 which should get me just under 1300fps. 3" at 30 yards, 3X.
158TL of the same bullet and the same charge. 4-5" at the same distance 3 groups of 3.
148TL button nosed wadcutter with a stout load of 572. 4" at the same distance for 3 groups of 3 as well.
Slugging my bbl put me at .357 on the nose. And the chambers all let me push a bullet through with minimal force.
Next I plan to try a moderate load of HS6, 8-9 grns and to bump the 572 load by a half grain and see if I lose accuracy.
I have lil gun, but even a starting load gets me near 1500fps and no accuracy to speak of. I wonder if I drop it down a grain from the stating charge and slow it down if I would see improved groups. That said, the results with the PC 158 were good and I should be breaking 1200fps and not quite 1300 which is perfectly fine as far as I'm concerned.

[Charlie Horse]

they cast at .359 and are a tight fit, and with PC they go to 369 and simply will not chamber.

I have killed a couple deer using the 148grn button nose WC TL over 8grns of HS6 for about 1200fps.

I'm surprised that powder-coating increases the diameter by .010". Seems a lot.

I've thought about using the 148 grain WC. My Rossi likes them. I just wondered about the legality here in Illinois. They say the load must have a published velocity/energy yada, yada, yada. Seems that wadcutter at 50 yards or so should take care of any deer around here.

[Good Cheer]

Published like by an ammunition manufacturing corporation?
What in the world do they say about flintlocks?

[wolfdog]

I'm surprised that powder-coating increases the diameter by .010". Seems a lot.

I've thought about using the 148 grain WC. My Rossi likes them. I just wondered about the legality here in Illinois. They say the load must have a published velocity/energy yada, yada, yada. Seems that wadcutter at 50 yards or so should take care of any deer around here.

I have played with wadcutter loads off and on for years. My revolver seems to always shoot them well. But I think I can just beat them with the 158 RNFP. I may have to cast a few up, PC and size them.
I may have to double check my measurements, but the reality is they fit tight uncoated and unsized and don't fit coated and unsized. In my 9mm the difference between a PC bullet and a TL design was enough to cause malfunctions. When sized I can tell a difference between PCed and naked bullets.

[Charlie Horse]

I have played with wadcutter loads off and on for years. My revolver seems to always shoot them well. But I think I can just beat them with the 158 RNFP. I may have to cast a few up, PC and size them.
I may have to double check my measurements, but the reality is they fit tight uncoated and unsized and don't fit coated and unsized. In my 9mm the difference between a PC bullet and a TL design was enough to cause malfunctions. When sized I can tell a difference between PCed and naked bullets.

Other than the 148 grain WC, I have the best results in the Rossi carbine with powder coated 9 mm boolits. The excessive sizing of coated 38/357 slugs seems to be what destroys accuracy. My 200 yard load for the rifle is a 124 grain Lee TLTC, either tumble lubed or powder coated and charged with 4.X grains of Unique. The Lee 105 SWC shoots OK out of the rifle, but I can't get the Lee 170 grain SWC to shoot worth a darn. Not good enough to hunt deer with. It comes out of the mold around .360, IIRC. Powder coat that and you're talking about doing some massive, accuracy destroying sizing.

I worry about leading in the rifle because of velocity, but not in my Model 19 revolver.

I don't know what would be the reaction from some game warden to my Traffic Purple powder coated projectiles. Some day I'll probably find out. Up till now I've only hunted deer with tumbled lubed 44 and 357 boolits. I just haven't run into a game warden during deer season in a long time.

[wolfdog]

Other than the 148 grain WC, I have the best results in the Rossi carbine with powder coated 9 mm boolits. The excessive sizing of coated 38/357 slugs seems to be what destroys accuracy. My 200 yard load for the rifle is a 124 grain Lee TLTC, either tumble lubed or powder coated and charged with 4.X grains of Unique. The Lee 105 SWC shoots OK out of the rifle, but I can't get the Lee 170 grain SWC to shoot worth a darn. Not good enough to hunt deer with. It comes out of the mold around .360, IIRC. Powder coat that and you're talking about doing some massive, accuracy destroying sizing.

I worry about leading in the rifle because of velocity, but not in my Model 19 revolver.

I don't know what would be the reaction from some game warden to my Traffic Purple powder coated projectiles. Some day I'll probably find out. Up till now I've only hunted deer with tumbled lubed 44 and 357 boolits. I just haven't run into a game warden during deer season in a long time.

I have good luck in my Henry single shot 357 and the Marlin 1894 with Lee swc .358-158GC. I tumble lube them and load them with a stout charge of IMR4227. That load prints a repeatable 3" group at 100 yards out of both guns. My revolver can't keep 3 of them on paper. Right now I'm painting my pistol bullets Eastwood green but I have bronze and I think maroon in the stockpile too. I loaded up a few more to try today, it's frosty out but not cold. If things go well I may be able to say I have a hunting load worked up. I tried to load lil'gun down to a 1400fps charge hopefully it didn't go too low and I can get good accuracy. My 158s actually cast at 161 and change. I took a starter load for a 165 Jacketed bullet that claims a tad over 1400fps. Should be safe, but I worry it's going to be just fast enough to lose the accuracy I'm hoping for.

[dtknowles]

leading concerns only matters after the 2nd shot from a clean barrel. When shooting my muzzleloaders with lead conicals, (435 gr. T/C maxi-balls) it is the 1st shot that matters when hunting to me.

I have thought about this but never wrote about it before. There is leading and then there is really bad leading. For self-defense or big game hunting a load that produces moderate leading is only a nuisance as it does not degrade performance just makes cleaning more difficult. I think for hunting a softer alloy that improves expansion but produces moderate leading is not a bad choice. Developing that load can be a pain as you shoot way more rounds at the range than you do big game hunting. You still need to use an alloy that will hold together so you don't want to go too soft. All things point to using bullets on the heavy side, since soft bullets loose weight during penetration and heavy bullets have higher power at lower velocities.

It depends on the alloy and bullet fit but mostly I don't need a gas check under 1500 fps.

Tim

[wolfdog]

Latest load testing. 8grns of HS6 and 6.5grns of 572 both hit right around 1200fps and both print 3-4" groups depending on the day and how on I am. Given that both have similar accuracy, I'll probably go with HS6 for .357 mag as 572 is better in my 9mm. I will be on the lookout for H100/W296 or 2400 but I haven't seen 2400 in years here. I may also revisit IMR4227 in lower charges and see what it does at 1200ish fps, where this pistol seems to like to be. I worry it will be dirty.

Edit to add, I wonder if it's worth exploring 9grns of HS6? The groups hover between 4-5" but I'm nearing 1300fps, 9.5grns however is back up in the 6" plus range.

[Bigslug]

Wolf. . .maybe close enough to give you a lead. . .





My Martini Cadet is firing a custom .321" bullet out of a .32-20 case blown out in a chamber recut to work with the original .310 Cadet bore. Not exact, but kinda, sorta in the .357 ballpark for length and capacity and bullet weight. Of the current alloy, it's about 150 grains tumble lubed in 45/45/10 and is driven to about 1450 using 10 grains of AA9. Prior to that, it was a 130 grainer conventionally lubed with a slightly heavier charge of the same stuff around 1570 fps, IIRC. Both loads have been in the 2 MOA ballpark. Bedded the forend since last time out - might be better now.

[wolfdog]

Wolf. . .maybe close enough to give you a lead. . .





My Martini Cadet is firing a custom .321" bullet out of a .32-20 case blown out in a chamber recut to work with the original .310 Cadet bore. Not exact, but kinda, sorta in the .357 ballpark for length and capacity and bullet weight. Of the current alloy, it's about 150 grains tumble lubed in 45/45/10 and is driven to about 1450 using 10 grains of AA9. Prior to that, it was a 130 grainer conventionally lubed with a slightly heavier charge of the same stuff around 1570 fps, IIRC. Both loads have been in the 2 MOA ballpark. Bedded the forend since last time out - might be better now.

I found a couple loads that give me around 3" at 35 yards, lol, I'm not sure I have a ton more searching to do for a 357mag revolver? That however is a very nice rifle, bit of a different thing than what I'm working with here. I do have a nice, if factory Winchester High Wall 38-55, that loves the lee 379-250 unsized and TLed at about 1700fps. Not sure why but with no GC that bullet gives me sub MOA and no leading, and hits like a train.