Any Update on the .356 TSW project?

[Caballoflaco]

Hmmm. Shill? Really?? People have an interest in something and so you puff up and go on a disparage rant? Relax brother and stop with the name calling. We could accept that it should be slower in order to be effective but that's silly. What do you think it will do? Bounce off, fail to expand, or vaporize on impact? XTP's and Noslers are still good bullets. Why don't you post up some data??? Go shoot it into a car and some jeans and some 10% yourself and see what happens? You won't do it though because it's easier to just be nasty to someone on the internet. And who mentioned BB? He doesn't load it. No-one had unlimited cash to bring this back but if it ever develops a following then rest assured costlier bullets that perform ten percent better will be on the menu.

Here is video showing an Underwood 1600ish 125 grain 357 in 10%. Watch that and then look in the notes at the data and get an idea at what "old technology" does. This guy has some good stuff (no rock music in the background while is talking).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sANHuW27kiI

I would expect the currently loaded bullets to over expand and underpenetrate when driven too fast, especially if I had to shoot through somebody’s arm to get to vitals. Being non bonded I would expect poor performance through laminated auto glass, and I think we have seen several instances lately where shooting through car glass is quite relevant in relation to self defense ammunition.

I’m not going to use my time and money to test this product because several manufacturers have products on the market that they designed to excel in IWBA and FBI tests. They spent the r&d money so that customers would know they are buying a product that performs to a quantifiable standard. They didn’t ask me to verify that their product works for them.


The video you linked showed a bullet weight that I couldn’t find available in factory loaded .356 TSW being shot into clear ballistics gel which does not correlate to performance in properly calibrated 10% ordnance gel. Maybe you have a link for that load somewhere.

I’m all for innovation in the industry, but the way foward on this is not for you guys to tell people that untested ammunition using 30 year old bullet technology is good to go when they might be relying on it to save their lives. You need to do the testing and provide the results if you expect people to seriously consider this cartridge for self defense.

[jetfire]

They are best suited for the SD role. What specific loads do you carry for SD?

I too am curious about this, and am doubly curious what this will do that a 124 grain +P HST can't do

[RevolverRob]

What does a .356TSW do that a .38 Super +P or a .357 Sig (besides hold more bullets than the .357 Sig) do?

As for driving ball and cup style bullets out to 1600fps. Folks have tried and failed for years to get reliable expansion and penetration with mid to heavyweight bullets from both .357 Sig and 9x25 Dillon. 9mm bullets basically explode at 1500+.

The only bullets worth trying to push that fast will be monolithic type construction (e.g., Barnes, Lehigh, etc). And you're unlikely to gain a significant advantage from pushing them that fast (Barnes petals tend to just fold back, making expansion LESS than when driven slower). Add in increased recoil, wear, blast etc.

This game has been played before and 9x19 is always the winner.

When someone tells me they are smarter than a company full of ballistic engineers with a deep R&D budget, I generally view them as insane.

[spinmove_]

What does a .356TSW do that a .38 Super +P or a .357 Sig (besides hold more bullets than the .357 Sig) do?

As for driving ball and cup style bullets out to 1600fps. Folks have tried and failed for years to get reliable expansion and penetration with mid to heavyweight bullets from both .357 Sig and 9x25 Dillon. 9mm bullets basically explode at 1500+.

The only bullets worth trying to push that fast will be monolithic type construction (e.g., Barnes, Lehigh, etc). And you're unlikely to gain a significant advantage from pushing them that fast (Barnes petals tend to just fold back, making expansion LESS than when driven slower). Add in increased recoil, wear, blast etc.

This game has been played before and 9x19 is always the winner.

When someone tells me they are smarter than a company full of ballistic engineers with a deep R&D budget, I generally view them as insane.

Even if they were smarter than a company full of ballistics engineers with a baller R&D budget, what exactly is a 9mm sized bullet traveling at 1600fps going to get you over one that goes 1250fps? I’m just not seeing the point. Modern hollowpoint 9mm hits the sweet spot of performance and efficiency. Even if you were able to make it work, who’s buying it in mass quantities to drive cost down to 9mm levels? Not the US Military as they just picked the M17/M18. Not LE as the FBI just picked up Glock 19Ms. Not Joe Schmoe because none of the aforementioned organizations are adopting it. Competition guys? They have .38 SuperComp and *shudders* 9mm Major.

[okie john]

They are best suited for the SD role.

Folks here tend to define the above statement in terms of gel testing. Do you have any of those results?

Thanks,


Okie John

[JRB]

I'm all about pushing new boundaries and improving performance. Hell, I worked professionally in automotive high performance for a good chunk of my early professional career.
But all of this .356 TSW stuff feels like a solution in search of a problem.

For handgun hunting with Goldilocks perfect combinations there's a plethora of other options in more established calibers damn near identical in power factor and with established production ammo. Available in both (larger) semiautos and revolvers, no less.

For general personal defense, I'm not seeing an advantage over good shot placement from a vetted and established duty ammo choice in a common duty caliber. In the case of good old 9x19, there's a ton of good options on DocGKR's list that have been engineered to established FBI specs. Marksmanship when it counts is what wins the day in handgun fights, and blasty, heavier recoiling ammo to push a projectile outside of its design envelope is a straight run of 'minuses' for me.
If we need a wildly superior terminal performance upgrade, it's time to move to a rifle or braced pistol in .300BLK or 5.56 etc again with vetted duty ammo.

For defense/effectiveness against some specific threat, say, adversaries with soft body armor or terminal effectiveness at longer ranges or larger mammals that snack on humans - again, there's already vastly better tools for the job if that's the threat profile.

Please don't get me wrong - I'm interested in the final results. But without vetted production duty ammo with an appropriate projectile that was engineered for this caliber, or a vetted duty weapon in this caliber, this is an experimental weapon and not suitable for defensive use IMHO.

[RevolverRob]

Even if they were smarter than a company full of ballistics engineers with a baller R&D budget, what exactly is a 9mm sized bullet traveling at 1600fps going to get you over one that goes 1250fps? I’m just not seeing the point. Modern hollowpoint 9mm hits the sweet spot of performance and efficiency. Even if you were able to make it work, who’s buying it in mass quantities to drive cost down to 9mm levels? Not the US Military as they just picked the M17/M18. Not LE as the FBI just picked up Glock 19Ms. Not Joe Schmoe because none of the aforementioned organizations are adopting it. Competition guys? They have .38 SuperComp and *shudders* 9mm Major.

Yea there is the rub. At 1600 you're not fast enough to get rifle-like terminal performance, but you're fast enough to really mess with your ability to shoot a handgun quickly and accurately.

Go up in velocity towards the 2000fps mark and you're cooking with gas, but you need a bigger gun to shoot it.

So at some point you have to say, "Look I need to shoot this thing and put the bullets where I need them, because it doesn't work if you don't hit." And high velocity, heavier, mid-sized bullets aren't conducive to this. They don't gain you anything over slower pistol bullets.

If you wanna load up some .356s to blast deer with, cool. But we cannot seriously entertain the idea that cup and core non-bonded bullets pushed past their optimal velocity envelopes are more effective than bonded bullets fired in their optimal range. I love me some .357 Magnum, but there is no bullet at 1600fps that does better than a Barnes 125 at 1250 or a 140 at 1350. Nothing.

[john c]

Folks here tend to define the above statement in terms of gel testing. Do you have any of those results?

Thanks,


Okie John

I’m not the OP, and I could be wrong, but I interpreted his statement confirming that 9mm and .38 spl are best for SD.

I put this round in the same category as .45 super. Probably an awesome field cartridge. Though I’m not likely to get one or experiment with it, I think it’s cool. I’m glad he’s doing the work and figuring it out.

Not everything needs to be practical or SD oriented. Sometimes I can look at an 800 hp jacked up diesel truck and think that it’s bad ass. It wouldn’t be practical for my humdrum life, but I’m glad it exists and crazy guys are doing that.


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[okie john]

I put this round in the same category as .45 super. Probably an awesome field cartridge.

Hmmm...

What about gas-checked hard-cast bullets (like https://www.montanabulletworks.com/p...-150gr-fnb-gc/ but at about 120 grains)? They can easily go 1,600 in rifles so why not in a handgun? Being slippery, cast tends to run faster than jacketed of the same weight at the same pressure or can take a bit more weight to the same speed. That might get a bit more punch despite the lower powder capacity of the 356 TSW.

Although if Phil Shoemaker can deck a charging grizzly with a Buffalo Bore hard-cast 147-grain 9mm slug from a pocket gun (https://americanshootingjournal.com/...uts-down-bear/) then I'm not sure I need much more.


Okie John

[Wondering Beard]

While, like many others here, I don't see what it will do in flesh that a regular 9mm won't be able to do but, I wonder if the extra energy (with a properly designed bullet) can be used to get through stuff more easily than a regular 9mm and then do regular pistol-like damage to flesh.

"Getting through stuff", rather than damage to flesh, is the one thing that keeps me thinking about owning a .357 mag or a 10mm.