.357 Maximum

[Trick Pony]

Anyone here have experience loading .357 Maximum? I scored a Super 14 barrel in this caliber for my Contender pistol and plan to load with some 180 gr bullets. From what I've read, this caliber can rival the performance of .357 Herrett and .35 Remington. I'm pretty fired up that this can be done in a straight walled pistol cartridge. It looks like I should be able to push them at about 1800+ fps and was wondering if anyone had recommendations on jacketed SP or HP pistol bullets that perform well and stay together at these kinds of velocities.

[YALE]

Sierra's Tournament Masters will most likely stay together. They list BC for 2000fps+. Barnes makes a nice .357 hollow point, but it's only 140gn, so it might actually touch 2000fps. I'd bet any quality jacketed bullet will do fine. Hornady offers a 180gn JHP. Just open the books, bud.

[dee]

I'm pretty sure my Sierra book lists data for the 357max. I'll look later today when I get home, I'll also give the Nosler and Hornady books a glance too.

[Trick Pony]

I do have a Hornady book with some loads for it. Might be interesting with the 180 gr XTP.

[YALE]

I do have a Hornady book with some loads for it. Might be interesting with the 180 gr XTP.

That should flatten anything in Texas the fuck out.

[Nash B.]

Hodgdon (http://data.hodgdon.com) has load data for 357 Maximum as well.

[dee]

Pm sent with some data.

[Trick Pony]

Thanks, guys. Time to load some up and see how much this bitch kicks!

[Trick Pony]

So it appears that in a Contender you can load to a longer OAL and higher pressure than SAAMI specs with no ill effects and get over 2000 fps out of the 14" barrel. I've finally got some brass on the way and some Hornady 180 gr SPSSP projectiles. For my first loads I'm going to go by the Hornady manual for max powder charge, but if there are no signs of overpressure or hard unlocking of the action I'm going to up the ante on the next round.
From what I've read these things kick like a mule and with a lot more twisting of your wrist compared to .44 Mag or even .45/70 in a Contender. Not sure if it's the much higher pressure and velocity or what, because the muzzle energy alone wouldn't suggest that.

[Bassics]

do yourself a favor and with any bullet ogive shape you try, do this:

take the brass you intent to use, and preferably with a fired and unsized shell trim it to less than normal.

Then insert a bullet but just barely. You want it to be snug but not tight.

Then chamber it and push it as far as you can.

remove it and measure OAL.

You then have the absolute dangerous OAL for that bullet shape in that gun.

Which leads to a lot of fun experiments in OAL since you know just how long you cannot go with that brass. Remember that the rim thickness matters so always do this with any headstamp and any bullet.

This is pretty critical in that round because of the higher powder speeds you are using. Fast powder + high pressure + no jump makes for a perfect storm on launch. You want a few milliseconds of accelleration before the ogive makes contact. Makes a huge difference. In fact it can make less pressure give higher velocities.