.357 Mag 6" Vs 4" barrel

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Well this should be a VERY good thread, but probably won't be! In my testing over the years the Remington 125jhp .357 load has shown to get about 100fps faster in 6" over 4" in S&W and Colt and Ruger revolvers. Of course there ARE faster and slower guns for lots of reasons but GENERALLY you get about 50 fps an inch from 3" to 6" with REM and Win and Fed 125grain JHP AND most 158 grain loads . You get 150fps MORE (50fps more than lighter bullet loads) with 180 grain loads. Now a "fast gun " can show a bigger difference(maybe up to 100fps more) but these are AVERAGE results from maybe 100 assorted guns over 20 years. In other words a 125grain Remington usually does 1350 FPS in MOST 4" guns and 1450fps in MOST 6" guns in my testing. I like 6" .357s BUT 4" ones probably make more sense unless target shooting or hunting. The .357 125grain load was 'optimized' for the 4" barrel BTW.:cool:
 
The velocity difference should only be around a couple of hundred FPS for most loads. You'll be able to shoot the 6" more accurately, all other things being equal, due to the longer sight radius.
 
Since I will be using the gun for concealed carry losing 2" off the barrel out weighs the gained 100fps.

Thanks for the info guys!
 
Concealment and revolvers usually means barrels of 4 inches or less. It can be really hard to conceal a six inch barreled revolver.
 
As Gordon said you really won't know what the velocity difference will be, it could be a lot, it could be very little depending on the loads and specific guns.

For example with the original 357 Magnum load my 8 3/8" Smith only picks up 30 fps over my 4" GP100 (1,416 fps vs 1,386 fps). You'd expect there to be more of a differnece with that much barrel and a slow burning powder, but with these particular guns that's all there is.

I would definately go with the 4" gun, or even better a 3", instead of the 6" for CCW.
 
A LOT of people like 3" barrels for CCW. Seems to be a sweet spot on the curves for concealability and velocity and accuracy.
 
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