Selecting Bullet/Powder for .357 Mag used in 4" Revolver and Marlin 1894 Rifle

[zxcvbob]

SWC's often don't feed well in a lever action; the ridge catches on something; the mouth of the chamber I think.

My Marlin feeds full wadcutters well in .357 Magnum brass, but .38 Special wadcutters are too short and they jam.

Lee's 158 grain "2R" bullet looks interesting because it has a very good ballistic coefficient, but I haven't tried it yet. You'll have to decide for yourself if you trust a RNL bullet in a tube magazine. I wouldn't use jacketed RN bullet, but lead should be OK. Look at all the .30-30 round nosed ammo out there.

Good all-around .357 cast bullet load: 158 grain RNFP with 8.0 grains of Herco.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

That's totally amazing!

With a 158hr Jacketed bullet and H110
Older Hodgdon data lists a Max of 14.5gr
Current Hodgdon data lists 16.7gr as Max
Lyman 49 data lists 17.0gr as Max
Hornady #9 lists 15.6gr as the Max charge (or 16.0gr of W296)
Speer #9 from 1974 lists 17.5gr as the Max.

Even though all that data is different, very different in some cases, all those loads were/are safe. If a strict 3% rule is mandatory with H110 how can we explain the above discrepancies? There is as much as a 17% variation in the data at the extremes above, far more than the recommended 3% or even the normal 10% which applies to most other powders. Go figure...

 

[ASCTLC]

Yep, crazy Arch. I took all the legitimate sources (Hodgdon and all my load books) and averaged them all to find a max I could be comfortable with. Was the only way I could get anywhere.

Andy

 

[AABEN]

AA#9 is a very good powder for both for the rifle AA#9 for a 158 gr XTP 13.0 gr VEL 1580 P.S.I 34.000 this is from Accurate load book number 1 from the rifle section.