357-38 FACTORY LOADS

[Byron]

Looking for help in finding accurate factory rounds for my 1894Cl with the 24in Barrel.

Thanks in advance

Byron

[cslcAl]

Byron, Just a word of caution. A lot of the factory .357 mag loadings are excessively hot and will cause considerable target damage. Federal American Eagles are real bad. I would check them out before you go to a match and find out they won't let you use your ammo. Al

[Tlee]

Byron, Just a word of caution. A lot of the factory .357 mag loadings are excessively hot and will cause considerable target damage. Federal American Eagles are real bad. I would check them out before you go to a match and find out they won't let you use your ammo. Al

Al -

I agree... I let a guy shoot some American Eagle 158gr JSPs out of his 20" carbine one day at my mild steel Pig and Turkey swingers and they didn't fair well... A couple good 1/4" deep divots in the pig and well over 1/8" into the Turkey!

Bryon - FWIW, I've yet to find a jacketed load anywhere from 158gr to 180gr at any speed (900fps to over 1900fps) that didn't shoot into a 3" group or better at 100meters with my 24" 1894.... 125gr HPs at around 1500fps start to get unstable, but at 1300fps and below they'll group 2-3" or better.

OTOH, lead loads... well, "not so much"! Best plain based lead load I had was a Lasercast 180gr that went into about 8" at 100meters and was only about 1100fps. However Gas checked 180gr to 205gr truncated lead bullets will go 2" or better groups at 100 meters running 1600-1700fps at the muzzle.

my .02,

-Tim

[mordecai]

When not hand-loading, how prevalent are factory .38 loads vs. .357 at a match?

[Tlee]

When not hand-loading, how prevalent are factory .38 loads vs. .357 at a match?

I've only seen .38spl factory loads once at a match... The guy had found an old box of subsonic target wadcutters and decided to shoot them up. He did OK on chickens and pigs... But missed most of the turkeys and rams, which was unusual for this guy (he was AAA in PCCLA and Masters in smallbore).

-Tim

[GTKF]

I'd say half of the 357/38 shooters in our club are using either factory 38s or 38 reloads from one of the local shooters

[RockRidge]

At our club the only people shooting factory ammo are shooting .22 LR or .22 Mag.

Ed

[Another Dang 9]

Federal makes a good 38 spl. load in all lead that shoots very well. I used them for the first few years shooting and had good results. i shoot a marlin 1894 as well and leading was not a problem either.