.357 Bullet Weight

[Aleksei]

I recently picked up a new 16" .357 Model 92 and am wondering if others have found that it shoots more accurately with one bullet weight than others. I have 110, 125, and 158 available in JHP but won't be able to get to the range for a while. I know that individual guns are different, but I'm curious.

[GasGuzzler]

Twist is high so some like light bullets but I am not a fan of light for cartridge so I stick with 158 or more. With the high twist that means they need pushed but that's not that tough to do. I like 158, 165, and 180+ in mine but it's a 20".

[Archer]

Actually, the twist rate is low. That is to say 1:30. So it would tend to stabilize lighter bullets somewhat better than heavier ones BUT that is also a function of speed and the range at which you care.

There are guys claiming that they were shooting heavy LEAD bullets 180-190 grains out to 100 yards or so at 800 FPS muzzle out of a 16 inch barrel is still good at 100. Some of the same folks are pushing the same bullet up to 1800 FPS with magnum powders.

I tend to stick to 158 grain bullets for most of my .357 shooting. I will sometimes go as low as 125gr and sometimes up to 170+ but I tend to buy 158s both as ammo and as reloading bullets.
One of the new buyers recently said he was getting somewhat better results out of 125 grain loads than 158 grain loads. My rifle is a 20" round barrel. I use the same loads at will in revolvers from 2" to 6".

You might also check and see if COSteve has left any info lying around since he's pushing his 24" octagonal out to 300 yards and also has a 20" RB.

There's sort of an inverse correlation between weight and maximum muzzle velocity and anything shot through a lever action tends to be a big honking aerodynamic drag magnet off a blunt body. (Which is another way of saying it bleeds energy and momentum pretty quickly.) The faster you push it the faster it spins and the further it goes the more time drag has to act on it.

[Aleksei]

I've been reloading since the '60s, so I'll loading for this one too. My Dan Wesson 15-2 will eat anything I feed it, so the load will be specific to the '92. I'm not a speed demon, so my loads will be rather middle of the road. My stash of JHPs is getting a bit low, so it will be interesting to find out what she likes.

[GasGuzzler]

It's a low gear/high ratio thing. Whatever.

I'll never shoot a JHP in a lever gun...probably in any .357 caliber gun of any type. That's me. Guess I thought the OP was a question.

[Archer]

Depends a lot on your gun. It should fire just about anything as long as it gets all the way down the barrel.
I have seen one that didn't like to feed a particular bullet profile and there are some that don't apparently like .38 SP very well. There's at least one board member who's had problems feeding .357 in a couple older rifles. It usually seems to be lighter bullets in .38 SP or possibly sharply cone shaped lighter bullets in .357 Mag.

A lot of the time those issues can be worked out and there are threads that show where various fixes have been developed.


There's a lot of guys on the board using powdercoat or lead.

I typically load a middle of the road plated bullet for plinking with either a TC or RNFP with no exposed lead.
Otherwise I'll load either a FNSP jacketed bullet by preference or a JHP although I prefer the JHPs for handgun use and won't typically use them if I've got SPs. The jacketed rounds I tend to load a step from book max if not at max. I try to make sure the rounds are capable of working in any of the guns I have in that caliber. As such I don't usually tailor them for a single firearm very often unless I'm having problems getting it to shoot something that comes close to a factory duplication load well.

[ethang]

I have had great success with a 158 grain JSP/JHP with max and near max loads. These seem to shoot better the faster you push them. YRMV.

[Aleksei]

This is my only PCC, and is primarily a range toy, so loading for it is just part of the fun. I have some powder-coated 125s that I mostly load in .38 and will be working up a light plinking load. But with things as they are, I have very limited JHPs (my preferred bullet) and few funds for more.

[Archer]

Best bet is to load a handful of dummies and try them in the gun to check for feeding problems.
125 in 38 brass may be a bit short or it may work just fine. There may also be a bobble point with the .357 where it works better longer than X but won't go through the mechanism longer than Y. As you are no doubt aware, shooting .38s can leave a ring in the chamber that may make chambering or extraction of .357 brass a bit of a pain. Probably not as bad with powder coated bullets as with raw lead but still something to watch out for.

I understand both about the supply situation and I'm with you on the funding. It seems just about every ten or so we have another 'crisis' or 'panic' where everyone and their brother finally decide to arm themselves Only were in the second massive one for the year here and the entire Obama administration was an almost continuous buying spree leaving the shelves bare and the prices rising. When these latest panics hit all the MSR manufacturers were slowing way down and dumping inventory wondering if they were going to continue making guns. With the massive shutdown there has to have been a major disruption to the supply chain.

If all you plan to do is punch paper with the rounds and you are going to use middle of the road charges you might have better results out of the 125s if they feed. If you plan to use the rounds for anti-goblin or maybe light deer in a pinch I would prefer 158s (with HPs on the goblins and FN on the deer) and I would be pushing them fast. Some people report good results with heavier bullets while others note that certain profiles start falling off quickly as the grain weight goes north of 170 or 180.

[donhuff]

Aleksei,

A very good light load for the rossi and a Lee 125gr bullet, is 5.3 grains of HP38. This load is one of those odd ones that seems to work well and be accurate in every rossi it's tried in. But I would stick with 357 brass to avoid cycling issues as the loaded round is pretty short if you use the crimp groove.I guess you could load it long, but I don't see the point in doing that, so I always use 357 brass.