Wow. Never thought this thread would go 7 pages.
Also a yes and no answer from me.
It’s not a useless round. Actually pretty potent and handy to have in different platforms. But if the reputation you speak of is that it’s the all high and mighty best round ever, then no. It doesn’t deserve that reputation. I think when people discuss the 357 they also bring up 44 because they are the popular revolver calibers. Obviously the 44 takes the cake as far as power goes, therefore they scoff at the 357. But 357 does not deserve to be scoffed at either.
I have a Marlin lever action with 18” barrel. It loves buffalo bores with the 158gr Speer bullets. That is a devastating deer dropping bullet. I have 5 drt kills with that setup.
My 6” Ruger gp100 does really well with the Buffalo bores as well. But it shoots the 140gr leverevolutions more accurately. I have shot a few does with the wheel gun at 10-30 yard distances. All one shot kills as well, but not all drt. When I clean the animals I will tell you the inside wounds are devastating. I accidentally gut shot one after a quick point and shoot as she was spooking. Yet still, the wound all throughout her body was impressive. One shot. She ran about 50 yards though.
That’s my take on 357. It’s a great round for the platforms I use it in.
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I'm far from an expert but I believe .357 magnum is a bit superior as a sidearm caliber. Obviously, shot placement is key to anything struck by a handgun projectile. As @matemike posted above, the doe he hit with the Ruger had an impressive amount of wound trauma.
I think in a lever gun the .357 not only amps up the velocity big-time but being a narrower and faster round than .44 Mag it will also shoot "flatter" (comparatively of course). I like Underwood but Buffalo Bore also loads hotties. A 158gr from one of those makers will hit 1700+ fps easily, if not a good deal more.
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I would imagine we're talking somewhere in the neighborhood of eight to nine hundred foot pounds. Basically that's in between handgun and rifle energy, with 9mm maxing out around five hundred and 5.56 being somewhere around a thousand, maybe a bit more. I've seen medium size animals completely turned inside out by .223, and the less said about the effects on humans the better.
Upwards of five hundred foot pounds is where you start to get stretch cavities large enough to start actually tearing the flesh, creating a large permanent wound channel. That is of course a function of magnitude and time. The bigger the cavity, and the faster it forms, the less able the tissue will be to withstand it.
It's also highly dependent on what it hits. Muscle and lung tissue is very resilient, whereas other organs like the liver have almost no resilience.
But yea, .357 from a 20" barrel is bound to do some real damage. You're almost at centerfire rifle energy levels, albeit with a slower, heavier bullet. Perhaps slightly less efficient than it could be, but able to get the job done nonetheless.
From T2C:
125 gr @ 2100 is 1200 fpe (20" barrel)
125 gr @ 1370 is 521 fpe (4 5/8" barrel)
Ballistics by the inch Corbon from Korth revolver:
125 gr @ 1500 is 625 fpe (4" barrel)
Their rifle velocities matched T2C's.
That is a real step up between handgun and rifle.
Last edited by AndyLate; 01-16-21 at 20:40.
I have chronograph results for Federal RTP38130 .38 Special 130g FMJ ammunition fired through an El Malo single action revolver with 4-5/8" barrel and a Winchester 1866 with 20" barrel. The chronograph was placed 15' from the muzzle.
El Malo/4-5/8" barrel - 765 fps
Winchester 1866/20" barrel - 1174 fps
The extra 15-3/8" of barrel length yielded an extra 409 fps muzzle velocity with factory ammunition. The propellant for .38 Special ammunition should have a faster burn rate than .357 Magnum ammunition, so the results are what I expected.
Train 2 Win
The 10mm was not designed to give similar performance to the 357 mag. Jeff Cooper designed it to be a choice between the 45 ACP and 9mm. The factory Norma loaded it a lot hotter. When comparing the 357 to the 10mm the 10mm is more powerful especially with heavier bullets.
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