Original specs of .357 Magnum

ArchAngelCD said:

IIRC the original .357 Magnum ammo shot a 158gr bullet at 1450/1510fps from a 8 3/8" revolver barrel. That is a far cry from today's factory loads.

Click to expand...

AK103K said:

Im just going by what I see when I look at some of the older manuals, and with a number of them, the older "beginning" loads, are now considered to be on the hotter side of the data, and in some cases, middle of the road loads, are now past "max".

Same bullets, same powders. What changed? Differences in the powders over time? Differences in how they measure things?

Most all the later manuals seem to be on the lighter side of things when you compare them to the older manuals.

Click to expand...

desmobob said:

The point I was trying to make was that in at least one instance I've seen, modern .357 loads are actually hotter than old ones.




The current Hogdon data for the load I was talking about has a starting load that is well above the maximum load in my older manuals. And Hodgdon has made it clear that the maximum loads of H110 should not be reduced more than 3%, so I'd say the starting load figures are not arbitrary.

But that's just one load, so I might be way off base... I was just throwing that example out there to suggest maybe .357 load data may not have been emasculated over the years.

Click to expand...

labnoti said:

You can't fit enough more H110 in the case to make any difference. The Hodgdon data is already specifying substantially compressed loads. You can try to stuff even more in there, but it won't work better somehow.

Loading it with less is quite fine up to a point. If you use longer bullets or seat them deeper that can help.

A problem is that load data is often published with "starting" loads some arbitrary amount (like 10%) below maximum loads, and its rarely clear whether they are just an arbitrary starting point or they are a minimum.

Click to expand...