Dixie
Slugs
Home of the Original Terminator
79 NE 242nd Ave – Old Town, Florida 32680 – 352 542 2100
The .357 Magnum and Hard Cast Bullets
"The Hunter/Shooter that says a properly loaded .357 Magnum is
not a viable hunting cartridge for medium game is
either uninformed or has never used one..JCG"
I will not belabor you with the history or introduction with the .357 Magnum.
All that has been hashed out enough!
The purpose of this write up is to make you aware of how to properly set up your
handgun to use hard cast heat
treated bullets. You must first decide if your handgun is to be used with hard
cast or jacketed bullets, they don't
mix well!
So, Let's assume you have decided to set it up for hard cast heated bullets! The
first consideration is the handgun,
assuming it is a revolver. In order to get the full potential from your handgun,
heavy weight bullets are in order.
This means the pressure will be high, but safe. Certain models have proven to be
best. Smith & Wesson's Mod. 686's,
Mod 28's, and mod 37's are the best of that company. Ruger Single Actions and
double Action .357 Magnum revolvers
meet the criteria for strength also.
The next is some mechanics. All of the chamber throats must be exactly the same
diameter! This is the single most
important factor in accurate hard cast shooting! Everything else follows suit!
Some people can do this themselves,
but is best done buy a qualified gunsmith, if you can find one. If not, send the
gun back to the factory custom
shop.
The next concern is the bore. Some models have high spots where the barrel is
screwed into the frame, etc. Unless
this is severe, leave it alone. Have your gunsmith check this. The smith should
also tell you what the exact chamber
throats are. We will discuss this later.
We are now ready to prepare the revolver's bore for hard cast. First of all, all
copper fouling must be removed and
I mean all! There are various cleaning solutions that work; the best I have used
is Shooters Choice. Spend plenty
of time on this! Once you can see no copper fouling, it is time for the next
procedure. This is done with a tight
patch and Flitz (paste). Saturate the patch with Flitz and give the bore a good
working over. Spend twice as much
time as you think is needed. This procedure will not remove any metal from the
bore, but will burnish the surfaces
of the land and grooves! After all this is done, you are ready to consider
hunting bullets.
Over the years, I have hunted and tested many .357 Magnum hard cast bullets.
None were, what I considered the best,
so I set about designing specialized heavy hard cast examples. Elmer Keith's
designs were the best, but did not have
the meplat area needed for the best tissue destruction. Working with my friend,
John Anderson of Rock Island
Ballistics, a series Of specialized hard cast bullets were designed. The
following samples are for the .357 Magnum
and are game bullets... ...Pure and Simple!
Notice the meplat diameter and area, compared to other .357 Magnum hard cast
bullets. These bullets have been used
for deer and wild hogs.
If you reload, some consideration is in order when selecting your brass cases.
You will note that these bullets are
a full .358" diameter and thinner brass cases are better than the thicker nickel
case. Midway makes excellent brass
cases. There are some powders that excel with these heavy bullets, namely WW296
and Hodgdon Lil'Gun. Magnum primers
should be used with these powders. All recent loading manuals have loads using
these powders.
Most Shooter/Hunters are not aware of the fact that hard cast bullets can be
pushed to a higher velocity than an
equal weight jacketed bullet with the same pressure. This is due to less
friction with the hard cast vs jacketed
bullets. This alone is a plus factor for hard cast! Concerning the chamber
throats diameters, the sized diameter of
the hard cast bullet should be the same diameter of the chamber throats, or no
more than .002" larger. Never Less!
Some ballistic exercises to consider:
Gates Force Factor
Over the years there have been dubious calculations applied to External
Ballistics, the worse being the "Steam Boat"
formulator Kinetic Energy!
This says a bullet a certain weight and velocity develops a certain Kinetic
Energy (ft. lbs), regardless of it being
a solid, hollow point, or soft point or whether it expands or not! Any hunter
that has done "Gut-Pile Analysis"
knows better! Water in tissue can't be compressed, only moved! Meplat Area
causes the movement of the water in
tissue. The more water moved, the more tissue damage.
Tissue damage is a product of Velocity and Meplat Area, where Penetration is
a product of sectional Density and
Velocity!
The property designed handgun bullet balances these important two requirements!
Here is a formula to calculate Force Factor used in comparing one bullet's
design against another.
(Wgt. of Bullet in grs. divided by 7000) X Velocity X
Meplat Area = Factor)
Conclusion
I can only hope that I have cleared the air concerning the use of the .357
Magnum on medium game. There are other
considerations like controllability. If you can't shoot well, you can't hit
well! Even with a full power heavy cast
bullet loads, the .357 Magnum's recoil can be controlled well. Is it better than
larger caliber? Maybe and maybe
not! Again the controllability factor comes into play! Is it capable of use on
wild hogs and deer? Absolutely!
James C Gates - Dixie Slugs
