unusual question, answer might save a life in your neighborhood

Welcome to the High Road.

That is indeed an unusual question in many ways. First, I don't know why you would be throwing a 357 down the street but how far it would go depends on how strong your arm is.

If you were to load that same round into a revolver and fire it, it wouldn't drop more than about 10 inches or so at 150 yards, I believe.

Lastly, you suggest that you might save a life. Firing a 357 magnum 150 yards down the street into a house is likely to endanger lives, not save them.

Absolutely a danger at 150 yds. Might or might not penetrate the house, might or might not hurt someone inside. The POSSIBILITY, probable or otherwise, is DEFINITELY real. Assume the risk. Be smart. NEVER take unnecessary chances with a gun.

Edit: Never take a shot that "probably won't" do harm... only take a shot if you're SURE IT WILL, and you INTEND IT TO.

I guess I could step outside and fire a shot. I'd be able to tell where it hit with all of the dust around here. That is if the wind didn't blow it away first.

I'm going to give the benifit of the doubt.....

What you are realizing is that, yes you do need to recognize the environment that you live in and what gun/s you own and what situation you envision needing them. It really comes down to following the big four safety rules: (From the NRA)

1) ALWAYS Keep Your Gun Pointed In A Safe Direction.
2) ALWAYS Keep Your Finger Off of the Trigger Until Ready to Shoot,
3) ALWAYS Keep Your Gun Unloaded Until Ready To Fire
4) Know Your Target and What Lies Beyond.

Obviously in a situation where you need to use your firearm these have to be weighed against what needs to be done...

Rule number 4, is best thought about before you are knee deep in it. There are lots of threads here and opinions regarding the best defensive weapon in an urban environment....

Short answer
EVEN .22 will travel almost a mile

Possibly a shotgun would be a better tool in your situation? Maybe #4 shot? Just a suggestion.

Figure about 550 yards and two bounces before it is becoming fairly harmless. If entirely airborn you might add 300 yards.

Give me a minute and ill fire my g17 9mm 150 yds and ill report back Ill fire it thru two sheets of plywood and some 1/2 inch plastic sheet in between them. (all I got set up in front of back stop)

Might or might not penetrate the house,

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Oh, it will definitely penetrate the house at 150 yards.

My daddy had a junk ford truck in a ditch on the farm..

And I made Swiss cheese out of it at 150 yards with a .357 Ruger Blackhawk.

In one door and out the other!

rc

well the 115 grain 9mm dropped roughly 10 inches or so at 100 yards and two of 5 hit a man sized target sitting shooting off hand. But it went straight through the 2 sheets of 1/2 inch plywood and 1 1/2 inch sheet of plastic and kept on trucking like I assumed. Just to reiterate IT WOULD BE EXTREMEL DANGEROUS TO DO THIS IF THERE IS ANYTHING OR ANYONE IN YOUR LINE OF FIRE. Even if the round went 300 yards and skipped off pavement it is still deadly

When I was a kid I would place plastic bottle caps on the tips of limbs in the farm burn pile. Sitting on the bottom step of the back of my house this made great target practice for a 13 year old boy with a 22 rifle.
Later on I went to our pond house which was sided with tin and found the tacklebox that I had always left there had been shot by someone. The bullet penetrated the tin and went through a half dozen plastic compartments and exited the other side of the tackle box. I was p***** that someone would shoot my tackle box until I remembered my target practice earlier.
The 22 bullet traveled over 600 yards and still had enough energy to go through a piece of tin siding and all the way through a plastic Plano tacklebox.
This really opened my eyes at an early age of exactly how dangerous a round off target or even downrange of your target could be.

If you ever get a chance to shoot some tracers....it's amazing the speed and trajectories a bullet takes during it's flight.

If you are going to shoot in a residential neighborhood you better hit your initial target. That house on the corner is farther away than the one across the street.

rcmodel said:

Oh, it will definitely penetrate the house at 150 yards.

My daddy had a junk ford truck in a ditch on the farm..

And I made Swiss cheese out of it at 150 yards with a .357 Ruger Blackhawk.

In one door and out the other!

rc

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Yup, been there and done that. We shot an old truck (metal frame) with a .38sp and the rounds went through both doors and kept going.

Makes you question the point of cops taking cover behind cruiser doors, because it is only visual cover and not physical.

Not to quote the popular game Mass Effect but:

"If you pull the trigger on this, you are ruining someone's day, somewhere and sometime."

Hmmmm, first post on the forum and it's about firing a .357 Magnum round down the block into a neighbor's house? More than suspect to me... Why in the world would any responsible person do such a thing?

I was thinking the same thing, looks like a shill or troll post to me.

Or a young person/ new firearms owner in need of experienced opinion, factual information, and well grounded advice from a more mature perspective. Let's be High Road and give him the benefit of the doubt. If half of what he knows about guns comes from TV and movies, he may legitimately need the help.

Simply amazing ...

A .22 will travel a mile but at that range it would travelling slow. I have heard plinkers complain a .22 won't penetrate a water bucket at 400 yards. It will kill a woodchuck at 175 yards. Penetrate 12" ballistic gel at six feet, or five or six 3/4" pine boards in a baffle. And that's an itsy bitsy teensy weensy .22 LR.

.357 bullet is three times heavier(158gr v 40gr), couple hundred feet per second faster (1300 fps v 1120 fps). I would expect it to penetrate a water bucket at 400 yards and do serious damage to the side of a wood frame house at 150 yards. Maybe even penetrate with enough force left to do greivous injury.

I'm thinking that all of us, and I'm including myself, are pretty foolish to waste a nanosecond on such a pubescent post from somebody who has 1 post.

Pretty sure this guy is trolling. I won't even entertain him.

A drop table, or any of the free calculators, will give you the answer. A lot depends on specific bullet weight and design and muzzle velocity. Here are some examples that will put you "in the ballpark" http://www.chuckhawks.com/handgun_trajectory_table.htm and here http://gundata.org/ballistic-calculator/

My question is where are you getting 150 grain RNL .357 Magnum cartridges?

Troll?

I would say its worth about one day of jail time per yard minimum for reckless endangerment

Anybody got a clue as to how far a standard .357 retail bought round nose would travel before the energy gave out and it hit the dust?

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A hell of a lot farther than 150 yards...