.357 Goodness

I took two .357 magnums out to the range this afternoon, with mixed results. I took my 6" SW Model 27-2 and the Marlin 1894C.

I was using the load I've been playing with consisting of 12.0 grains of Alliant 2400, a CCI small pistol primer, and the Ranch Dog TLC 358-190-TF bullet. This was the first chance I've had to put it over the chronograph and the results were interesting.

The load chrony'd in the pistol at about 1030 fps, average, but I was getting a large extreme spread, in the neighborhood of 100 fps. Sd in the 50's, but the load was fairly accurate in the pistol, in the range of 3" at 25 yards. Recoil was middling stout, but the primers were still nicely rounded. I was shooting the revolver single action with my forearms resting on sandbags.

I switched to the rifle, and the load averaged about 1350 with that same large extreme spread and Sd. Accuracy was good, in the under 2" at 25 yards and opened up to about 3" at 50 yards. That big ole bead on the front sight totally obscured the 6" bullseye at 50 yards and all the shots fell within the bull, so the rifle is shooting into the front sight at 0 yards. It's trifling to complain about accuracy like that.

However, I would like to bring the velocity up to about 1200 fps in the pistol. But, I've never experimented with heavy bullets in the .357 and I don't know what that would do to the pressures.

So, this is a good performing load in both the pistol and the rifle, but I'm not where I want to be, velocity wise. It's a quandary.