.357 and deer hunting

Yep !!

GP100 6" full lug SS

I use a Lyman 357446 160gr. SWC wth a 13.5gr 2400 pusher .

2 holes at 50yds.

Federal 357 Mag 180gr Vital-Shok CastCore is a good round.

Buffalo Bore Heavy 357 Mag 180 gr. L.F.N. G.C. is too.

6" GP-100 shooting 180 grain XTPs over a bunch of H110. Too bad I haven't seen a deer yet

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

Gonna try for one using Rossi 94 clone with 24" octagon barrel. Feed it with Hornady 158 gr XTP.

Sniderman

Hi,
New member here, Gotta love the .357.
I'm shooting them, (one last year) with a Speer 180 gr pushed out of a 6" Security six with 7.5gr of unique. Find something you can hit 'em with in the piece you're shooting, "A hit with a .38 is better than a miss with a .44."

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Welcome to The Republic of Vermont, Get off my lawn.

Freedom Arms 353 9" using either 180 gr Partition or 180 gr XTP. Loads are kind of sporting. I wouldn't use them in any other revolver.

I only killed a couple deer with a 8" DW 357. I preffer 158gr soft polnts or Barnes X bullets for deer. They cost more but work ever time. Use many 180gr HC on hogs. Good at breaking bone but HC are not good for deer, they tend to just bore a hole through . They will run a good ways with a lung sHOT. Oh nothing special about 180gr part.

Last year:
Puma M92, 20" Octagon
Buffalo Bore, 180gr. LFN-GC

I use 180gr XTP's in my Marlin 1894 and my 6.5 Blackhawk. Shot a doe last year outta the Blackhawk with a 140gr Barnes XPB. The Barnes did good I just didnt like spending 75 cents a bullet, gets expensive making sure the gun is sighted in.

GP100 man, I have some questions for you:

Std SP primers I presume?
What are you bullets sized to?
What are your GP100's throats dimensions?
How is leading in your combination?

I have a GP100 and am hoping to learn from your experiences.

S+W Model 686 with 6 inch barrel
200 grain full metal jacket long flat nose.
Not afaid to shoot black bear, or razorback hogs with it eather.

Std primers

I size&lube with a lapped Lyman die to .359 ,my boolits are 10.5bhn so very little spring back , They drop from an IDEAL 357446 at 360+

I use White Label Lubes CarnaubaRed lube .Dressed & loaded they weigh 164.3gr. average + - .8 gr.

I load these in Starline cases with less than 5 firings , after 5 the cases have erratic tension hold on the boolit & I start to get wider SD spreads .

The throats are .3585 I lapped 3 to match the factoy 3 were just under .358.

I take my boolits & start at 1000fps & push until I reach the top load data or start stripping the boolit

The 357446 will run to 1250 fps with a little wash then fill the lands with strips any faster , I can tuffen em up with a little tin (up the alloy up to 3.5%) & stop the stripping but it`ll affect the expansion a bit .

I recovered a boolit from a deer shot at 40 yds ,it hit a rib on the near side & busted it then the base snibbed a rib & cracked it on the off side ,slid by & barely broke the hide on the off side , at it`s widest point it measured .488"
& weighed 157.2gr.

I've killed two deer with my 6" M686. Started out using Winchester 145gr SilverTips, but quickly found them not to have the penetration needed. Tried 180gr loads, but found the POI was high and not enough adjustment to bring it down. Now I am using either a 158gr XTP with 16.0gr of 4227 or my hard cast 358429 bullet (170gr) ahead of 13.5gr of 2400.

Don

shot a muley doe awhile back with a marlin 1894 at 121 paces. through n through, went 20 feet and died.

I took 4 white tail does and a 4x5 muley buck with buffalo bore's 180 gr cast load from a 4" ruger ss gp100. Shots were anywhere from 20yds to 75yds. All died from one shot and fell within 30yds of where they were shot.

rbrtweber85 said:

I took 4 white tail does and a 4x5 muley buck with buffalo bore's 180 gr cast load from a 4" ruger ss gp100. Shots were anywhere from 20yds to 75yds. All died from one shot and fell within 30yds of where they were shot.

Click to expand...

I've been doing a lot of expansion/penetration testing with my 4" gp100 lately with 158 & 180 xtp & 180 hard cast- the hard cast has more than double the penetration of the xtps. How was the wound channel with the buffalo bore?