Varminterror
Member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2016
- Messages
- 14,883
You have to ask yourself the following question:
What is holding you back from shooting farther than 200 yards with your current 357mag?
For most folks, the answer is “trajectory management”. Meaning your bullet is dropping so steeply after your current range that it’s simply unmanageable. In that case, the answer is almost unilaterally - find a faster cartridge. Increasing caliber, for example, shooting a 41 or 44mag typically only adds recoil, as you’re not increasing velocity or ballistic coefficient sufficiently to actually increase your range. Revolver cartridges will typically start falling apart just far enough out there that their relatively abysmal ballistic coefficients trade nickels with their modest velocities when trying to run lighter bullets at higher speeds... so it takes something like 357max, 357/44 B&D, 454casull, or 460 S&W to significantly increase velocities (and BC’s) to extend our range.
Otherwise - we’re really just talking about raw group size, and in my experience, most Ruger, Taurus, or S&W revolvers are going to run somewhere around 2.5-4moa, so if you’re at the small end of that, you might find changing your a different common revolver could INCREASE your group size, and decrease your range potential.
A used 357mag Blackhawk can be bought for under $500, reamed to accept 357/44 B&D for under $200, then 44mag brass necked down for low cost - achieving 1750-1800fps with a 180grn bullet around .245G1, without resorting to the relatively extreme recoil of the 454casull or 460S&W (and without the ridiculous size of the X Frame).
If resorting to a specialty pistol, then the TC Encore is largely the easiest and least expensive answer, and as I said above, you can take a Specialty Pistol out past a mile if you so choose.
