Heavy Bullet 357 and 44 296 loads

Share your heavy jacketed pet loads for 357 and 44 mag rifles with 296!!

Currently I m loading 158 and 240 s but would like info on 357-180 s and 44-300 s. Re-discovered the fun of shooting pistol cartridges in rifles the other day.

Friend dinged the 650 yd steel plate with his Rossi 92 in 357... took 70+ MOA to get there. What a hoot!

Thx everyone.

The only 357 mag load I have used with 180 gr bullets is for my T/C Contender 10" barrel pistol. I use 13.5 gr H110 which is the same powder as WW 296. This is a max listed load. Super accurate and did a good job on deer out to 100 yards.

1st Shot... have seen others mention this as a good accurate shooting load.

U by chance have chrono readings out of that 10" barrel?

Thank you

It has ben a while but if my memory is correct I think velocity was around 1350s fps. I seated the bullet in the top toward the nose crimp groove and used Mag CCI primers. I shot a few deer with this set up and load. I only recovered one bullet. All my shots were inside 125 yards. The one bullet I recovered was from a 130ish lb doe shot at 108 yards. She was slightly quartering toward me with her right shoulder. I placed the bullet in the center of her shoulder and she took three jumps and crashed dead. When I skinned her out I found the bullet had broken through the scapula took out both lungs and as the line of the shot was an angle from front to back the bullet went through the far left side of the diaphragm and liver and exited the paunch and was found under the hide at the front edge of the left ham. Bullet was a text book mushroom down to the bottom of the second crimping groove. I killed a couple foxes with this load also and it killed them DRT at around 50 to 60 yards with both shots being center of front chest shots as they faced me which blew a golf ball size exit from their butts. I have not shot this 357 mag much in the past 5 years since I got my 14" 30-30AI barrel. It is a deer HAMMER. 125 gr. Nos. BT 2670 fps. Bang flop.

1 Shot, sounds like great performance with that 180 in the 357. I think my biggest struggle is whether the 180 is enough better than a 158 to take a 300 fps reduction in velocity. I guess no matter what it's a 150 yd cartridge tops.

Probably should let the accuracy comparison of the two make the decision!

Anyone else have experience to share?

frankm":110b1fna said:

1 Shot, sounds like great performance with that 180 in the 357. I think my biggest struggle is whether the 180 is enough better than a 158 to take a 300 fps reduction in velocity. I guess no matter what it's a 150 yd cartridge tops.

Probably should let the accuracy comparison of the two make the decision!

Anyone else have experience to share?

Click to expand...

One of the biggest problems we have anymore is finding a pistol bullet that will performs well at rifle velocities when it comes to shooting deer size critters and above. I shoot a 357 Maximum in my TC Encore, I can run a 180gr speer hot core flat point (rifle bullet) and it shoots very well out of the 24 inch MGM barrel I have I can also push this bullet over 2400fps. Pistol bullets aren't my cup of tea when u start running them over velocities they are designed for. If your looking for q deer size hunting bullet for the 357 magnum, even out of a rifle the pistol bullets should perform ok, if you want to play with" rifle bullets" in the magnum designed for the velocity you can run Hawk makes bullets and Fury Custom Bullets makes bullets for the speed we run, Fury just released 158gr flat point that should be a dandy at the 357 Magnum velocities.

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I have a 280gr 0.360" mould that has been HP'd and should drop a 235-240gr bullet.

in my 357, I hope to push that to about 1600fps, and if cast soft, should be an awesome bullet for bush hunting.