357 magnum Pro's & Con's

Originally Posted By: sumrifleOriginally Posted By: chefpierreOriginally Posted By: sumriflePros

good power for self defense
Good ammo availability
You can shoot .38spl

Cons

Unpleasant to shoot for some people
Only 6 rounds compared to 7, 8 10 15 or so for many autos.


I agree with that 100%, and it is very loud as previously stated.

The "unpleasant" I mentioned referred to recoil as well as noise level. So I am thinking we agree 100%.



huh?
 
I keep my house gun (9mm ) loaded with Speer 124GD. My wife and 12yr old son can shoot it and control it pretty well. You know just for info purposes Mossberg has a .410 shot gun for home defense that I bet your family could use. Alot of folks may think it`s a sissy gun but in the house I think it would be just what the Dr. ordered especially with todays ammo. Remington also has a 20 ga. 870 that I have looked at. Also with more points of contact it would be easier to control.
 
Originally Posted By: GCKAG,
If you don't mind me asking, why did your wife need to rack a round in the chamber of the P94 when she needed it?

BTW, please don't take offense, but I would never advise a woman home alone in a rural setting to leave the safety of her home or open a door to confront a trespasser. Wouldn't she have been better upon discovering the burglar/thief to have armed herself and then called the Sheriff's Department and possibly the nearest neighbor/family member? That would be my advise to someone in that situation. Opening the home garage door might have proven a big mistake if that had been really bad guys with different intentions.

The first question I don't understand. Unless because we don't keep rounds chambered. Keep in mind this happened over the course of minutes.

The second one is easier:
One of the many things I do is I own a small construction company and I send my guys that work for me from time to time to to my land / shop area (100 yds from the house) to pick up tools/ saws / equipment ...ect.. She saw him/them called me, I said no one should be out there getting equipment (I figure now it was an ex-employee who thought we were both at work). Local LE is at least 30 minutes away on a good day and we don't call neighbors who are mainly elderly to come save us when we can save ourselves, plus I was already heading that way. Now afterward we spoke with LE but had nothing of any value to give them except an old blue chevy truck and at least one 20ish white guy.

She did not mess with the Ruger long at all before going to the gun safe and getting her AR. As we are both ex-military with a couple of deployments each, she is more than capable. She raised the outside garage door from inside a locked sturdy doored house and correctly so, thinking he/they would see and know someone was home and haul @ss, which he/they did.

People can do as they see fit, I think she made the right decision.
 
AR!You go Girl !
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Originally Posted By: KAGOriginally Posted By: GCKAG,
If you don't mind me asking, why did your wife need to rack a round in the chamber of the P94 when she needed it?




The first question I don't understand. Unless because we don't keep rounds chambered. Keep in mind this happened over the course of minutes.



Are you gonna keep rounds in the revolver cylinder?
 
Originally Posted By: GCOriginally Posted By: KAGOriginally Posted By: GCKAG,
If you don't mind me asking, why did your wife need to rack a round in the chamber of the P94 when she needed it?




The first question I don't understand. Unless because we don't keep rounds chambered. Keep in mind this happened over the course of minutes.



Are you gonna keep rounds in the revolver cylinder?



5.... with the hammer resting on an empty cylinder chamber
 
Everybody please don't get mad at me for this, but years ago
I read something about the .357 mag, it seems somewhere some
time ago the army I think, done testing on pistol and relvolvers.
To see which had the most ( killing power ) it was tested
against dozens of other rounds including 45 acp, 44 mag, 41 mag
.32 special .38 special .25acp 9mm, 10mm, 40s&w and many many
others, they shot sheep,There was a problem with the sheep and
the had to be exterminated, so there's the test, 1 shot in the
vitals, the .357 mag was top of the chart 1 shot 1 kill 91%
also if i remember correctly the .45 was up there @ 88% or so
I know some people might of get on here and say the .45
and 44 mag as well as many other favorites have more killing
power, but I'm just remembering what I read......if i remember
there were thousands of sheep and hundreds of shots from each
weapon and they also tried different bullets. I do remember they
used common ammo and rounds, not .454 casull and .500 mags
and such other not so common,I don't remember when this was done or where,
for it has been some time ago.
Sorry I will do some reasearch and see if I can come up
with some info for you guys, if interested......
 
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I can see why looking at drawings of wound channels
on firearmstactical.com the .357 mag is devistating
looks simmilar to a .308 round buzzing in, one of the
.45s look like a .22lr channel, just a little bigger.
There's not alot of wound channels drawn out,
but they are interesting. Look at the 30/30 winchester.
and look at the .357 glaser round, bam it's over.....
They were done by dr.s and real cadivers, sick!!
I'm sure with the right bullet most could do alot of
damage.......
 
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Well, what I found with the wet phone books (we were out of cadavers, darn it) was that I hit a "sweet spot" with the Speer 140 JHP and it would mushroom perfectly around the open jacket without coming apart or shedding the core.
The lighter bullets all shed the core and the heavier ones wouldn't open up fully (though they would penetrate deeper).
That was a fairly stout load (below Speer's max, though) in a 6" revolver.
Everything faster shed the jacket and didn't get good penetration, and the heavier/slower ones didn't get full expansion.
We tried several bullets and looked at/measured the channels, plus inspected multiple bullets.

140 gr. Speer JHP with 8.5 gr. of Unique and a CCI SP primer (around 1250 fps in a 6" barrel) is the best defense load I could come up with. I spent a fair amount of time developing that, and it shot REALLY well in my Python.
And it's nasty loud.
 
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I've got a Ruger SP101 hammerless model in .357 mag. I like it alot, but make sure you've got your hearing protection on!!!! You're ears will ring for 2 days of you don't!!!
 
More than likely as I already have a box of 158gr XTP's thats what I am going to load up. The 125's and 140's I am sure in the future I will end up getting a box of each and load them to just see how it all works out.

I shoot XTPs in my muzzle loader and know they are quality bullets. The deer I shot last year with it did not like it. BTW...in my muzzle loader I kept one in the chamber...
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Down to only five 357 S&W's and one Ruger. Hmmm, do I like the 357 or not.

BTW, the second handgun I bought was a S&W M27 6" when I was a junior in HS. Let's just say, that is only a year or two short of a half century ago. OMG, that came out sounding worse than I thought.

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Anyone guess the first? Clue, it was also John Taffin's first. It was fairly new on the market in 1958.
 
Aaaah wish i still had my S&W 686 distinguished combat magnum,,,hands down the best ,smoothest,most accurate handgun i ever owned....................X
 
lol ,,,I spent the whole day shooting,,,figure since I am now the big 40 ,,i would do it up right....,,,does looking through a scope all day give anyone else a headache?



As far as the post,,,I have always lloved 357s,,the pros would be knockdown power,controlabilty,accuracy.


Cons,,as far as self defense goes,,there is none............X
 
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