[twoblink]

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45934

From this thread, I became curious.. what's the biggest "thing" a .357Mag can handle?

The .357Mag is a different monster out of a 18" barrel it looks like.

Is White-Tail ok with it out of a rifle or not?

[P95Carry]

With a long tube and a good load - with a good bullet...... then I'd say a whitetail was well possible .... providing good shot placement.

For my money tho I would prefer to crank things up to .44 mag ... even then you are still in the region of half the energy of a HV rifle round.

For 75 yd category shots tho ...... I think you'd be successful.

For other ''things'' ..... groundhogs, PD's, and other smaller critters ....... pretty effective. I'd use my 357 Win 94 on any of these .. no probs.

[twoblink]

Coyotes @ 75-100 yards, can I do it with a long barrel or no?

[P95Carry]

I can't give first hand experience ....... but ..... basing assessment on their body mass ..... and the ballistic potential of the round .... it should work - fine. However, I would add the caveat that it will still be necessary IMO to make for good shot placement ... and use something also like an XTP bullet ... good energy transfer and shock. Not beyond 100 yds tho IMO.

I know guys round here who have success on hogs with this combination .... and one case where a ferral dog was very successfully despatched with same.

Again tho ..I am somewhat in the camp of prefering to be ''over-gunned'' than under!

[SkaerE]

i dont know about the largest thing you can kill,

but im hoping to get me a sasquatch :evil:

course i'd probably go up to a 44 if i was looking for abominable snowmen. :neener:

[DennisE]

Certainly NOT recommending it, but when the .357 Magnum first came out in the 1930's didn't some guy take really big, dangerous game with it just to show it could be done? Dennis

[George Hill]

An Ego? :scrutiny:

[Wil Terry]

Elgin Gates killed a Cape Buffalo with an S&W 357 using the W-W Highway Patrol load from way back when.
PS: Elgin carried his cajones around in a wheelbarrow, by the way.

[Dr.Rob]

357/180 is a heck of a killer... it's just not legal in CO. 158 is no slouch either.

Whitetail should be no problem.

[Shane]

180 grain and 200 grain Cor Bon loads out of a carbine barrel length (Marlin lever action for example) is no slouch. Even out of a revolver, these loads are some of the better medium size game loads there are, IMO.

[Jim March]

No arguments with the above...just a comment: for some people, either cash is tight or you face weird local laws limiting your number of guns. Or you don't have the space to reload and you want to practice with cheapo 38Spl and use your one 357 for hunting, CCW and home defense.

For that matter, having "one gun that does it all" isn't really that crazy - you "bond with" that piece, it becomes absolute second nature in any number of hairball situations including charging boar on a hunt and encounters with more dangerous critters in the big city.

If you're adding a carbine, the 357 had advantages for long-haul backpackers or others with space/weight limits...ammo is physically smaller and lighter than other rounds capable of stopping black bear and smaller, and compatible with your sidearm.

Upshot: I can see lots of legitimate reasons for trying to maximize what the 357 can do.

[twoblink]

Jim,

The Cowboy Logistics (TM) Theory goes:

Ruger SP101 as CCW
Ruger GP100 on the hip
Timberwolf 357Mag Pump Rifle on the sling

3 guns, 3 purposes, carrying only 1 ammo..

If I really wanted to go hunting, it's be my Mauser in 308. That will do a whitetail no problems with something like a nosler..

But I want to know about what the limits are for the 357's..

Also, from the other thread.. if they are pushing 180grainers to 1400fps out of something like a GP100 6", then an 18" barrel will be like 1800-2000fps!!

Pass me the deer jerky!!

[Reloader]

Personally, I would limit the .357 out of a rifle to 125 yds or 125lbs. We are not talking self defense, but hunting.

[mainmech48]

The guy that did most of the "promotional" hunting with the then-new .357 Mag (IIRC) was Daniel B. Wesson Sr. Not sure of just how many of those oversized critters needed "insurance" shots from the PH, but you can bet your bippy that they were there with a .577 Nitro or the like at the ready.

The published figures for factory loads of the time using 158 gr. bullets were outrageous by modern standards, too. Again IIRC, something over 1500 f/s from an 8 3/8" barreled revolver. As chronographs and transducers for pressure measurement were unknown at the time, the accuracy of those figures is questionable at best, and chamber pressures may well have been bordering disasterous levels.

At close range, with exquisitely precise shot placement, one could likely manage about anything on this continent with the right loads. Would it be ethical hunting practice? Not for me, certainly, and not for most of the rest of us either, IMHO. Especially if the animal is one of those inclined to retaliate when annoyed.

Most credible writers on the subject seem to agree that whitetail deer and perhaps small-to-average sized black bears and wild hogs at 50 yds. or so are about the upper level for most shooters and the .357. Even with a carbine, I'd think that 100 yds. would be about it under anything less than "ideal" conditions.

[Dr.Rob]

Maximize?

Well a 357 Maximum is a whole 'nother animal. You can kill an elk with that.

[DennisE]

I found a report on what I was trying to remember. For what its worth it is reported that in the latter part of the 1930s Colonel Wesson, the designer of the S&W .357 Magnum revolver, bagged at least one of every big game species in North America with his personal 8 3/4" .357 Magnum. Included where one shot kills on antelope at 125 and 200 yards, a bull elk with a lung shot at 130 yards, and a bull moose at 100 yards with a chest shot with a 158 grain SWC bullet. Dennis

[Wil Terry]

I do believe it was Doug Wesson who went all over creation in the mid to late '30's whackin' game animals with the then new 357 S&W MAGNUM.
He named the cartridge, he claimed, after his favorite sized jug of champaigne, the MAGNUM.

[SnWnMe]

Is Magnum a french word?

If so then we need to re name a few cartridges...

[lazarus long]

He is supposed to have killed a Griz dead and cracked its skull with the load. Some non-believers have started to hint that maybe he had a 30-06 along on those hunts and used it instead of the magnum

No Magnum is a latin word. Smegma is a frence word.

[surfinUSA]

The .357 has probably killed everything and more than the 44 and 41 magnums, if for no other reason than its been around longer and the are alot more 357s out there.

The 357 will still kill everything that a 44 or 41 will, but without their margin for error.

When I was growing up in the sixties pretty much all the hunters I knew used one of three long guns. A 30-30, 30-06, or a 12 gauge. In handguns the 357 pretty much did it. Very few had a 44 and many that didn't believed that the 44 was uncalled for.

I still believe that those three long guns and a 357 mag will pretty much take care of everything that needs taking care of. Nothing wrong with the 44 or the 41, both are great guns but for me the 357 is more versatile.

[Slow]

I took a large whitetail doe last year with a 6" GP100 using 180grn Winchester Partition (factory loaded). The distance was 63 yards and she dropped like a rock! Bullet went through both lungs and it appeared to expand about .5" ( I didn't measure just guesstimated).

[P95Carry]

Slow a question ... and this is in no way an attempt to belittle what was obviously an excellent and effective shot.

Did the bullet pass thru one of the intercostal spaces?? I ask cos I tend to be a tad wary of the situation where the .357 bullet encounters bone first .. maybe then losing or giving up a tad too much energy for what else is needed. Also then wonder if premature bullet deformation might itself prejudice adequate deeper penetration.

Sounds very well as tho this could have been a shot that fortunately missed bone on initial penetration ... very good result.:)

[twoblink]

Again, if I hunt, I will go 308.

But I find the 357 to be a great "man-stopper", but want to know if needed for self-defense, what is about it's stopping limit.

125lbs or 125yards. That's fairly easy rule of thumb, I'll remember that.

Slow, went huntin' with a friend in Oregon last year, and she bagged a white-tail, but not before it hopped away quite a bit.. She got a great lung shot, but hit bone first (308 bolt) and so I'm curious too, as I would suspect that a 357 hitting bone first wouldn't really have a chance..

Also, with my buddy's 8mm or 30-06 hot loads, he'll aim shoulder shots. I doubt you can do that with a 357...

I don't know what barrel length Winchester uses to measure things on their website; BUT:

They list their 158grain Super-X .357Mag SoftPoint:
Under the Rifle section (I'm assuming 18" -22" barrel somewhere there)
Velocity(fps) 1830 (!!!)
Energy (ft-lbs) 1175 (!!!)

Under the Handgun section (I'm assuming 4"-6")
Velocity (fps) 1235
Energy (ft-lbs) 535

Man, what a difference! 357 out of a carbine rocks!!

[Slow]

P95, I believe it did... I planned it that way!;)
Just kidding.... I prayed before I shot and God directed the bullet. I have switched this year to some Ruger only .45 Colt 300grn. XTP for a little more room for error or bone etc.

[Poohgyrr]

From what I remember hearing, the old 44-40 used to be king of the southeast deer rifles. Looking at my reloading books, today's 44 mag pistol velocities are faster than today's 44-40 rifle velocities... And compare those to .357 speeds, both pistol & rifle. And an old family friend used to bring home deer with a Smith .38, to feed his family, back in the 1960's. So can it be done, it just depends on how we want to do it....

[Gillster]

I hunt the Texas Hillcountry where the whitetails don't have the biggest body weights but for the last three years I have used a 6" S&W 686 exclusively and never ran into a problem. Loads ranged from the Winchester 180gr partition factory load to a smokin' 140gr JHP handload. They all worked but the heavier bullet weights produced much better results so I have tended to stick with them. The 140 works great on the odd coyote that comes around though. My .02.

Chris

[Lloyd Smale]

I know that I weight #200 and would want to bet on living to long after a hit to the chest