.357 Magnum Question

[Redux]

I have a ruger Blackhawk 357 (6.5") and love it. I put 5 38's and a 357 in the cylinder and let my buddy shoot it to see if he could tell the difference. He was very surprised (I wasn't) and it was very noticiable, even from my point of view. Mega-huge difference!

I had one of those in stainless and loved it. Yeah, there was a difference in recoil but handloading for it was good in respect that it was almost indestructible.

I graduated to a Redhawk for hunting purposes because a .357 is marginally adequate (and illegal here) for deer at best.

 

[Lawman]

You generally have good firearms gouge, but I'm raising a HUGE bullsh!t flag on one part os this post. The difference in recoil between a .38 Special and a full load .357 Magnum are HUGE. I have a 4 inch Ruger GP-100 stainless .357 revolver. Being stainless, it's a bit heavy. I shoot .38 Special out of it regularly and at times go to .357 Magnum. There is a massive difference. I've also shot in snub-nose revolvers. The ouch factor is MAJOR between the two. Please don't pass bad gouge.

In a full size handgun it just doesnt seem nearly as bad as people make it out to be. In a snub revolver damn that hurts. Maybe its because Ive shot .44 mag .454 and .460 revolvers often enough but the .357 loads just dont bother me. Not saying you can train with nothing but .38 special and use the Mag rounds without any issue but like I said I find that trigger dicipline and technique is a much bigger factor on my shooting a revolver accurately than the size of the pistol and round Im using.

 

[nittany03]

Since the thread is involving semiautos, Sigs, and .357 Magnum, I thought I'd put in a shameless plug. If you do buy a semiauto in .40 S&W, look into getting a second barrel in 357 SIG. It's a .40 S&W case necked down to take a 9mm bullet, and was designed to get as close as possible to .357 Magnum ballistics in a semi-auto cartridge. The barrel switch is usually the only thing necessary. Cartridges are more expensive, and harder to find. But it's fun as HELL to shoot!

 

[ea6bflyr]

My brother and I took my Taurus .357 revolver out and played a little training game. We mixed the .357 ammo with the .38 ammo and we shot....bam, bam, BOOM! Oh, the fun and it was a great way to prevent the anticipation.

-ea6bflyr

 

[Lawman]

My brother and I took my Taurus .357 revolver out and played a little training game. We mixed the .357 ammo with the .38 ammo and we shot....bam, bam, BOOM! Oh, the fun and it was a great way to prevent the anticipation.

-ea6bflyr

I gotta try that some time.

 

[insanebikerboy]

I gotta try that some time.

It's a great training tool, like he said helps train out the anticipation.

For guys that handload, try making dummy bullets, MARK THEM WELL, and then put them in a bowl/box with live rounds. Grab randomly and load. I did that a lot with my .357 Sig and 9mm and you'll see any tweaks in your shooting form immediately.

 

[Fly Navy]

It's a great training tool, like he said helps train out the anticipation.

For guys that handload, try making dummy bullets, MARK THEM WELL, and then put them in a bowl/box with live rounds. Grab randomly and load. I did that a lot with my .357 Sig and 9mm and you'll see any tweaks in your shooting form immediately.

You can do the same with snap-caps and their is no way you could think they're real.

 

[insanebikerboy]

You can do the same with snap-caps and their is no way you could think they're real.

Good point! Didn't even think about that, I just used old brass as I reloaded.

 

[Lawman]

Good point! Didn't even think about that, I just used old brass as I reloaded.

Good way to practice for clearing a malfunctioning weapon.

 

[deMontjoie]

Anti-Flinch Training

It's a pretty standard technique for pistol-training. Unfortunately it only works with wheel-guns (assuming a 6-chamber cylinder):

Load 2-adjacent chambers of the cylinder with live-rounds.

Load the next chamber with an empty case.

Load the next chamber with another live round.

Load the remaining chambers with empty cases.

Close the cylinder and spin-it to randomize the starting-point.

This drill really highlights any flinch that you may have developed. If you flinch when you (unexpectedly) drop the hammer on an empty case, you know there's something you gotta work-on.

Can be embarrassing though when shooting with buddies. :icon_tong

 

[deMontjoie]

Anti-Flinch Training

http://www.thefirearmsforum.com/showthread.php?p=303279

Decent forum.

Another reason why revolvers are cool.

.357 revolvers are WAAAY cool.

 

[Rocketman]

My brother and I took my Taurus .357 revolver out and played a little training game. We mixed the .357 ammo with the .38 ammo and we shot....bam, bam, BOOM! Oh, the fun and it was a great way to prevent the anticipation.

-ea6bflyr

Ball and Dummy is great training. Your version sounds like more fun than click, click, boom

 

[Flugelman]

It's a pretty standard technique for pistol-training. Unfortunately it only works with wheel-guns (assuming a 6-chamber cylinder):

Load 2-adjacent chambers of the cylinder with live-rounds.

Load the next chamber with an empty case.

Load the next chamber with another live round.

Load the remaining chambers with empty cases.

Close the cylinder and spin-it to randomize the starting-point.

This drill really highlights any flinch that you may have developed. If you flinch when you (unexpectedly) drop the hammer on an empty case, you know there's something you gotta work-on.

Can be embarrassing though when shooting with buddies. :icon_tong

Not really. We used the dummy round in a 1911A1 magazine trick when we encountered a Midshipman (Plebe summer training) with a flinching problem. It really brings home the "Slow-steady-even-pressure" mantra we used to teach trigger control. I must have used that phrase a million times.