.357 bullet choice

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loki_81

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Well I'm looking for a load to come up with in .357 that'll be good for hunting within 100 yards through a lever action carbine. My rifle barrel is 20", and depending on what load I end up with the data tells me I'll be pushing the bullet from 1472 fps - 1735 fps with a 158gr bullet. Right now I'm in the bullet selection phase.

I hear that hollow point ammo shatters on impact with soft targets at the velocities that a carbine can achieve. So one of my questions is has anyone had this experience, do .357 JHP bullets through a carbine shatter instead of expand on impact with a shoft target? If so I'm trying to stay away from the Hornady and Nosler pistol JHP bullets.

I know about the leveroltion from Hornady, but have also read reviews about the tips deforming in tubular magazines unless you install Hornadys follower. I'll definetly give these a try somewhere along the road of load development, but they're not really appealing to me as first choice. That and they're 140 grains, where I'd like to be going with 158gr - 180gr.

So far I'm looking at the Winchester 158gr JHP as it is notched jacketed, and has a flat lead nose. Really I don't understand why they're marketed as JHP as the nose is flat lead, not a hollow point. These are definetly going to be tried during load development.

Now the Sierra 180 grain FPJ (full profile jacket) seems appealing to me. Does anyone have any experience with these? I can't find any good pics, but to my understanding they have a flat lead exposed tip, with the jacket comming just up and around the diameter of the tip, but leaving lead exposed for the rest of the tip profile. With this amount of lead exposure they should be legal for hunting correct? So does anyone have any hunting experience with them? If so how were they for expansion and accuracy to 100 yards? I'd like to try these for load development but would like some opinions on legality (is there enough lead exposed to legally hunt with?), expansion, and accuracy.

Thanks in advance. My goal here is to not waste money on something that'll turn into a plinker, I have 500 lead lead semi wad cutters on order to plink with so I don't want to end up with hunting bullets turning into plinkers.
 
Well here's the reply from Sierra bullets;

'This bullet has lead exposed at the tip,but the jacketed has been rolled over it outer edges leaving it a flat point.It’s totally safe to use in tube magazines.It’s also a VERY tuff bullet and would not expand any on lung shots etc.It would be an all out penetration bullet.'

So I guess my new question here would be should I go for penetration or expansion? I do believe a .357 should be sufficient on penetration, so perhaps I should be looking more for expansion?
 
If you're going to go out to 100 with the 357 magnum you might want to look at Hornady's 140 grain FTX bullet. I don't know a thing about it myself, just wanted to get it on your radar. It should be designed to expand well at 357 magnum velocities at a little longer range as that's what the FTX is all about.

You should be able to push a 140 grainer to about 1800 with Alliant 2400.

Google, "357 magnum and the literature" for a good read on hunting and reloading for the 357.
 
The bullet that Boomer is referring to (the 190 gr. swc) is prolly optimal for big game in the .357 and should give complete penetration on deer, if it isn't cast too hard it should give good expansion as well. I know some thought went into that bullet and it seemed optimal at the time and still does, some might want a gas check for top velocities but it adds to the labour and cost. So I'd save the lighter jacketed bullets for varmints or targets and load up on some big cast flatpoints for deer or bear.......IMHO
 
I load my .357 Rossi 20" carbine with 158 grain flat point jacketed bullets. 16.5 grains of W296 or H110 and Win SP mag primers pushes them out at 1730 - 1750 fps depending on case and bullet used. I have yet to shoot a deer with that combo, but it is accurate.
 
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