Ruminations on my first .357 experience

[Fumbler]

If you're going to carry it a lot with magnums then you'd better shoot it a lot too.
You must practice with what you're going to load your gun with.

You'll get used to the recoil and the blast, it takes many range trips to get completely comfortable.
I've noticed that going often and shooting few rounds (less than 50) helps people get used to guns better than going few times and shooting many rounds.
So maybe you should go to the range a little more and shoot the more comfy 38's and make sure you get in some range time with a couple cylinders of magnums.
You can also double up on the hearing protection. Hearing protection is not additive, but you will gain a couple more decibels of protection, and that sure helps.

My .357mag load for home defense is Speer's 125gr Gold Dot JHP or Hornady 158gr XTP JHP.
For deer hunting it is 180gr Winchester Supreme Partition Gold.
For practice/fun it is 158 gr Winchester JHP over 10-10.5gr of Blue Dot.

 

[Cosmoline]

Fumbler is right. You should practice with magnum loads, not just specials. The price on .357 is pretty low. You can get a box of federals for $13 even up here. After enough shooting you'll find there's a rythm to the recoil, and you'll learn when to stop the roll and swing the revolver back down. It gets very, very fun once you get the hang of it, and after awhile you'll find your rate of fire goes up and flinching goes down.

 

[Stevel]

I like Remington 125 Golden Saber 38's for HD.

 

[Majic]

Since you haven't mastered the .357mag cartridge yet I wouldn't worry about carry and HD ammo choices. Spend time learning to shoot the cartridge. That means cheap .357mag practice ammo. If that still remains to much for you then stick to shooting the .38sp cartridge. Not everyone shoot a .357mag and with the revolver serving as a HD weapon then your wife must be able to use it also.

 

[Ben Shepherd]

I've got 357's running from the sp101 up to the elusive redhawk, and shoot ALOT of this caliber. And the redhawk sees plenty of stuff that isn't in lawyer proofed loading manuals. Not saying I'm a guru, just speaking from my own experience.

My security six with the factory grips hurts with full house loads. In fact it hurts worse than my 454 does. It's actually the only revolver I have that "hurts" rather than kicks. With a good set of aftermarket grips on it it's a whole different world.

A couple very good(if not the best) 357 carry loads are the 140gr corbons, and the 158 speer gold dots.