reloading: first test rounds of .357

loading

158gr Berry’s target hollowpoint¹ plated bullets in Starline brass. Win 231² since that’s what I have on hand.

Win 231 is usable in .357 at low-to-middling range. Which is fine for this use case since the plated bullets have a generic 1250fps³ limit before they start having integrity problems, and they will be shot out of a 16.5” carbine. There are two test loads, just below and just above 1250fps.

I promise the public land for shooting being a few miles away didn’t affect my decision to live here. :-) Might get out there this week to try them out, but I’d like to load some of those CNCed Lehigh bullets to see if they feed in the Ruger LCP. If so, I think they’d make a good carry round. Should penetrate more than an expanded hollowpoint but less than FMJ or unexpanded HP.

update - chrono results

chrono results from the 16.5” LWC barrel

• 158gr .38 special Armscor retail rounds - 1053fps / 389ft-lbs
• 158gr .357 Berry’s plated RN over 5gr of win231 in a .357 mag case - 1065fps / 398ft-lbs. This was ~100fps less than GRT predicted. At this throw the case is only 36.8% filled - I suspect this is causing Win231 to misbehave.
• 158gr .357 Berry’s plated RN over 6gr of win231 in a .357 mag case - 1252fps / 550ft-lbs. <- this is right at the stated velocity limit for Berry’s plated bullets. This is the strongest loading available for this barrel+bullet+case combo.

Since I have .38 special cases now I’ll try this next time:

• 158gr .357 Berry’s plated RN over 4.4gr of win231 in a .38 special case - GRT predicts this will be 1104fps / 428ft-lbs.

I suspect the smaller case will help the Win231 burn better and decrease position sensitivity. The 158gr won’t get much higher than 1125fps in a .38 case with Win231 because the pressure starts to reach the case’s limit. It could be downloaded with ~4.1gr of win231 but it’d be cheaper to hit that energy level with 9mm.

1. Regular hollowpoints are for expansion to increase terminal effectiveness. Target hollowpoints are built to increase accuracy over normal FMJ – the mechanism is supposed to be increased bearing surface engaging the rifling. Dunno. The Berry’s are for dorking around and 158gr XTP will be pushed harder. The XTP expands reliably between 1000-1400fps and the FP version from ~1200-1800. ↩

2. aka HP-38 ↩

3. the official position is 1250fps although reloaders report up to ~1400fps before the plating starts to suffer. ↩