Remington Core-Lokt .357 165gr. chrono results, not so good.

[WonderNine]

Just thought I'd share a little knowledge I obtained chronoing this ammo to anyone who's been thinking of picking some up as a hunting load. This is pretty expensive ammo and when I bought it at a discounted price at the gunshop it still came out to about $.75 a round or more.

The box advertises this load as 610ft/lbs. muzzle energy out of a 8.5" barrel. I just found this out on the Remington website, I just assumed it was for a standard 4" barrel, my mistake. Anyways, I thought the advertising was a little deceiving.

I test fired a couple boxes out of a Smith & Wesson model 19 with a 6" barrel.

Average velocity was approx. 1210 fps which comes out to 536ft/lbs. of energy. The low being 1173fps and the high being 1246fps.

Some other loads I tested were the 125gr. Remington Golden Sabers which are advertised at 400ft/lbs. out of a 4" barrel. Results with the 6" Smith were approx. 1330fps for 490ft/lbs KE. About what I expected.

Also tested some old Remington 125gr. JHP ammo.

Got an average of about 1460fps for 591ft/lbs KE, a little dissapointing, but the ammo is about 20 years old. The low was 1420fps and the high was 1522fps. The stuff is definately hot though, makes a big boom and flash. It would have some serious power out of a levergun.

 

[George Hill]

You ever test any Hornady Custom?

 

[WonderNine]

Sorry, have not so far.

Did test some S&B 158gr. .357 JSP

Averaged about 1310fps the high being 1325fps and the low 1295fps for about 602ft/lbs. KE.

I believe the S&B 158gr. .357 JSP, JHP & FMJ are all loaded the same, but I can't remember for sure.

 

[James Bondrock]

I don't see the problem here. Your gun's barrel is a full 2.5" shorter than the test barrel used by Remington. And was it a vented barrel (to simulate the cylinder/barrel gap)? Some additional velocity would be lost through this gap. I would expect a 75-100 fps velocity loss between the test barrel and your gun, which would account for the energy loss. (These figures are not exact; I am not a mathemetician. ) However, I would allow that published velocity figures from test barrels do give unrealistic expectations.

 

[P95Carry]

I'm a skeptic ..... and a cynic!! These days it seems hard to find ammo that i would call ''true'' .357 mag ...... you need to load your own to get ''real'' useful figures ..... IMO anyways!