Jason_W
Member
One of the main reasons why so many people like 357 carbines is they are cheap to shoot, like 9mm and 22LR. Most of them can also shoot 38 spl which is a cheap plinker. The 357 has a decent trajectory out to 100 yards which means you can actually hit something with a little practice. Although the velocity is slow by rifle standards the 158 and 180 gr bullet is heavy enough to use on medium sized game.
The only downside is the the restricted effective range. Probably the reason why some states have recently made them legal for deer.
And with handloading, it's a variable yield round. You can load up a cat sneeze round that will knock a clean hole in a small game animal an still have something left to eat, or you can ramp it up with a stout charge of slower burning powder and get more than 2k f/s at the muzzle with 125 grain bullets and 1800-1900 f/s with a 158 grain bullet. It's never going to be an '06 class big game round, but within it's sweet spot out to 100 yards, it could be an effective deer load with careful shot placement.
The reason I'm interested in a bolt gun in a revolver round is that they're more optics friendly than leverguns. I like leverguns, but to me, a scope on one just doesn't feel right or comfortable and there are some targets for which a little magnification is helpful.