200gr - Heavy Subsonic 357 Mag for 200M

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TheBugFather
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200gr - Heavy Subsonic 357 Mag for 200M

Post by TheBugFather »

A few shooters have commented on my load for Rifle Cartridge (200meter) Lever rifle, so here is my load info and a little extra information. This load works in my rifle, but might not be safe for your rifle, please use safe loading practices :D
IMG_5684.jpg
L to R: 180gr Hornaday.357 - 200gr Sierra.358 - 180gr Speer.358 - 2 loaded Rounds to right are 38spl brass

please excuse the cut and paste job out of my PM's:

My load is with Sierra or Hornaday 200 grain round nose .358 cal bullet, Lee Tapper or factory crimp, most of the bullet is in the case.
Vihtavuori 3n38 powder, 7.0 grains and I use a CCI 550 magnum primer, the 500's didn't do so good. Starline cases.

Out of my 24" Win 1892, 1080 fps

Seating depth control seems to be the most critical, it can cause pressures to behave badly. I highly recommend, but expensive, the Redding spring loaded Micro adjustment competition seater for 357mag.

The 180 gr Speer does well with a little less recoil, but you are stuck with 38spl brass. I've actuality tried 38 Long Colt brass and it allows you to crimp on the grove, very cool looking but a bit of a headache feeding. I've not tested it as much for knockdown.

I’ve also tried a 200gr cast bullet from a place called Penn Bullets. Very nice guy.

6.0 grains of VV 3n38 powder but can probably take up to 7 grains.

This is from his website for his 200gr TC 357 bullets:

"12.5 grains of WW296 or H110 powder in .357 cases will make this bullet perform with accuracy of dime size groups at 25 yards. A superb performer!"

Another powder to try would be Hodgdon Lilgun, very forgiving for heavy bullet loads in 357 mag with top velocities and low pressures, but I've never actually tried it.

Winchester's are normally 1-18.75 and Marlin's are 1-16 and Rossi's are 1-30 twists. Winchester's and Marlin's should be okay, Rossi's probably should stick with 158's or below for the PC range. :((

I made a casting mold for a friend for the 357mag of a 216gr plain base bullet that he shoots subsonic at the rams, and has no trouble. I don't cast and don't like to deal with that stuff. I don't know his load but it is 5 or 6 grains of something and has no trouble with the rams.

I have only knocked down maybe 45-50+ 200 meter Rams with this load at Raton, My home club LASC and Phoenix so far, so it's not super tested. I of course used it also for Chicken through Turkeys with no problems, but I did ring one ram in Phoenix with a very low hit on the front leg. The animals in Arizona are resettables, so it some what common to ring an animal with a low leg hit, because of the pivot location on resettables. 30-30's will have trouble sometimes as well. Any free standing ram would have the leg normally kicked out from underneath it.

It's fun watching the rams get hit with the 200 gr bullets, you can actually see the bullet bounce off after it is done pushing the animal over. This tells me that most of the energy is used and transferring to the target to shove the animal over. This is because it is long and slow, so more dwell time on target. Most faster lighter bullets with weaker construction just "POP" on the target and very little of the energy gets transferred to the target to knock it over.

The 180 grain .357 "normal" bullets do very well, but with the same powder charge they actually go a little slower. I assume it is because they are .001 smaller in diameter and a little shorter, so less pressure build up.

Another person mentioned the need to be careful about using 38 spl in a 357 mag chamber, so please take notice, after shooting many rounds of 38 special in a 357 mag chamber, it will build a carbon ring at the mouth, it needs to be kept clean if you wish to go back and forth with shooting both in the same gun. Not sure how problematic this is in real life, the manufactures often advertise the fact that they both work in the same rifle. I would imagine that they would have all kinds of warning stickers every place on the gun, but who knows :-\

I might go the 38 SPL route down the road and call it a forever 38 spl rifle or have the barrel set back a little and chambered for 38 spl.That would of course open a giant can of worms on our sport, so I would say...no.

Thanks, fellow flincher

Dennis Ostler, Southern California
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Re: 200gr - Heavy Subsonic 357 Mag for 200M

Post by cedestech »

Good write up. We (wife) are using the 180gr Sierra Tournament Master... box says handgun only but shhhh.... :)

She too is recoil and weight (of the rifle) shy so minimum recoil with acceptable accuracy is the goal...

FWIW, your not the only one. One look at the 6mm popularity in high power shows just how many people would rather not have the
poop beat out of them.
Emmett Dibble, Houston, Texas. Where's my buddy Jason? Keeper of electronic records and banisher of little pieces of paper?
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Re: 200gr - Heavy Subsonic 357 Mag for 200M

Post by Ojaileveraction »

Seating depth control seems to be the most critical,
Don't you think the 357 case mouth crimps to far past the ojive on the 200g RN?
Similar issues with Barry's 158 RN. I did get a pierced primer, I wondered if the bullet got pushed back father into the case.
Occurred to me 38sp cases would get past that issue.
Tim
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Re: 200gr - Heavy Subsonic 357 Mag for 200M

Post by TheBugFather »

Emmett, I agree, my shooting skills have only gone from mediocre to far worse as I get old. Anything that helps me is good. The more I can reduce muzzle blast and recoil, the better I shoot. Main drawback is a slow bullet out of a long barrel requires better follow through. Kind of what air rifle shooters need. If I can figure out, and I love trying to, how to knock over a 500 meter ram with a marshmallow I would! That is why I shoot a 6.5mm Grendel at 500 meters. Like the 6mm crowd, I can push a 107gr 2600 fps and a 123-130 gr at 2400, all with only 28 grains of powder.

Tim, I haven’t found it to be a problem with the long 358 bullets. They have so much bearing surface on the inside of the case, it doesn’t seem to move at all once seated. Probably because of the low recoil. I’m planning on measuring the OAL of the first and the 5th cartridges to see if it does. I agree the 38spl seems a better and prettier solution.

Thanks for your interest,

Dennis
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Re: 200gr - Heavy Subsonic 357 Mag for 200M

Post by Sporty »

Dennis, another thing to do is measure the muzzle velocity with each subsequent shot starting with a full magazine tube. I found Winchester Super-X .38 Special +P 158 grain SWCHP velocity will increase with each subsequent shot FPS Max 1824, Min 1136, IS-D 337. The picture below is after a miss-feeding issue that made me aware of the problem firing that ammo in a rifle.
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-Charlie (Lee) Meli
Retired match director @ Piedmont Gun Club, Rutherdfordton, NC
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Re: 200gr - Heavy Subsonic 357 Mag for 200M

Post by TheBugFather »

Charlie, good to know.
I’ll keep an eye on that also.
Thanks, Dennis
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Re: 200gr - Heavy Subsonic 357 Mag for 200M

Post by TheBugFather »

Ram count update, came back from Arizona with only 10 more actual match Rams. Plus about 10 more in practice, so about 70+ so far. Even one on the ding dong went down and during the match a bottom of the foot Turkey hit and 3 Pigs in the feet, that can be a challenge on resettable targets. So far so good 🤞.

Thanks, Dennis
The Bug Father
...I don't like recoil, but I love to experiment.
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