Finaly shot my 357 maximum!

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swampcrawler

swampcrawler

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Well iv had my original contender frame and MGM 10 inch 357 max barrel for several months now. It wears a Burris 2x handgun scope in leupold dovetail base and rings. I finally found some IMR 4227, 158 gr JHPs, and Remington smile rifle bench rest primers.

I being a bit Leary of this powder as I was planning for win 296, I loaded 18 grains instead of the 20.1 that the IMR sight stated.

Anyway put together 15 rounds and went out back. Shooting off of a homemade front rest on a fairly unstable wooden table with a sock full of kitty litter for a rear bag was somewhat less than ideal but it's what I have.

First 3 shots at 50 yards measured a hair under 1 inch center to center. Second 3 measured .802 center to center. I was pretty impressed considering the conditions.

Backed up to 100 yards and shot the last 6 rounds. Thaose went into a wierd 7 inch spread. There were 3 pairs of holes, each pair about 1 inch appart horizontally and perfectly in line vertically. There was about 3 inches between pairs, the top pair being about two inches left of the bottom pair. Odd.

I'm adsuming this can be more or less chucked up to bad rest?

Anyway I'm so glad to have her shooting, finally!
 
Had one with a 10" TC barrel. Good deer gun. Moved up to a .357/.44 Bain & Davis chambered in another handgun and in a single shot rifle, but really, the Maximum is more versatile, especially with lighter magnum rounds. Never did try specials so can't speak to that. Enjoy.
 
For a shorter barrel, 296/H110 might be a better choice. I shoot a rifle with 16 1/2 inch barrel. It does best with 1680 or lil-gun.

Loading a Max with 110 gr. JHPs to the firewall makes an interesting vermin load up to 100 yds. Load to the max and back off until the rounds quit exploding in mid air. Some loaders put a #1 steel shot in the HP cavity and super glue in place to prevent mid air demolition.
 
Fire forger I'd love to try a B&D some day.

Jaysouth, 296/h110 is what I wanted. But I finally gave up on finding any locally and just went with the 4227 because I was ready to shoot lol.

And I bed thAt screaming 110 grain would be fun to shoot nutria with.
 
Fine ball powders should be avoided in the Max if you are shooting the Ruger SRM like I am. The best powder I have found is 4227 for full power loads but I understand 1680 works well.

Glad to hear it is working for you. Now work up to a real max load instead of that starter load of 4227 and I think your opinion of 4227 will change. It is a good powder for the max.

38_357_max.jpg

For those not familiar, left to right, 38 special, 357 mag and of course the 357 Maximum.
 
Could also be inconsistent sight picture, perhaps due to parallax issues?

Ensure everything is tight and shoot a 5 shot group making sure your head position behind the scope is the same and the view perfectly centered each shot.
 
Should not be any parallax issues with a 2x Burris. A 2-7x set at 7x and shooting at 50yds it would be a possibility. Not a fixed 2x at 100yds.....or even at 50yds.
 
4227 comes into its own with a full charge in the 357 Max, like Peter was stating.

Especially in a Contender you can't put too much 4227 powder in the Max and hurt anything and the more you put in, the more accurate it shoots from my experience.
 
I concur complete on 4227. The more I shove in, the more accurate it gets. The max is the only round I have that works this way with old IMR4227 powder.

I am still working off my stash of old powder but it will be interesting to see if H4227 now called IMR4227 will be the same.
 
swampcrawler said:
Well iv had my original contender frame and MGM 10 inch 357 max barrel for several months now. It wears a Burris 2x handgun scope in leupold dovetail base and rings. I finally found some IMR 4227, 158 gr JHPs, and Remington smile rifle bench rest primers.

I being a bit Leary of this powder as I was planning for win 296, I loaded 18 grains instead of the 20.1 that the IMR sight stated.
Click to expand...
I don't know what site you're looking at because the current company load data for a 160gr JTC bullet and 4227 lists a "minimum charge" that's a full 2.5gr higher than the 18.0gr charge you used. http://data.hodgdon.com/main_menu.asp. Of course the max charge is even higher.

For some reason 4227 is a forgotten powder these days even though in cartridges like the .357 Maximum and heavy bullet 44 Magnum loads 4227 will deliver the same or superior velocity as W296 without sacrificing accuracy, and at lower pressures in most cases.
 
Plus 4227 is a stick powder so it does not have the sandblast effect of 296 on your frame. Nothing like having high pressure burning little sand sized grains of powder to flame cut a frame!
 
Well guys iv shot some more sense posting this. I upped to te 22.5 grain Max load and every group at 50 yards was under 1.5 inches, and the ones that large were my fault. The good ones were .5-.6 center to center.

I'm pretty happy with that. I have some 180 gr partitions on the way. Can't wait to try those out.
 
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