Keith's heavy .38

[revchuck38]

@jtcarm - I got 1080 fps using a 170-grain SWC over six grains of Unique in .38 Special cases from my 4" 681. You could back that off somewhat and get 1000 fps from the Blackhawk with less recoil and unburnt powder. I personally wouldn't use slower-burning powder for that unless the improved accuracy merited shoveling all the unburnt powder out of the gun.

[ssb]

My 1961 edition of Sixguns lists 5.0gr of Unique and 13.5gr of 2400 as loads for the .38/358429 combo. The latter he specifies as a .38/44 load; the former is apparently totally safe in a J Frame .

I have some 358429 coming from Rimrock. I plan to work up to around 12gr of 2400. Somebody on another forum was able to pressure test that load at 12gr, coming in just shy of 29,000PSI. I’ll be launching them out of an N Frame.

[revchuck38]

The Lyman manual that came out in '61 (lost the front cover and first few pages, but they have a contest with first prize being a trip to the '62 NRA Nationals) shows six grains of Unique and 10.5 grains of 2400 for 358429, with the caution that they're for "heavy frame guns only". The ones I loaded are dedicated to my 4" M28-2.

This song came up on Pandora while I was typing.

[Outpost75]

Current SAAMI MAP is 35,000 PSI.
Current CIP MAP is 43,000 PSI.
Originally, the 357 MAP was listed at 46,000 CUP, approximately 43,000 PSI, but SAAMI decided that 357 magnum was too hard on some guns, and needed to be downloaded a bit. So now we're at 35,000 PSI.

So we went from having heavily built 357 revolvers, and now we have 357 Mag J frames?(I have one) I've been trying to wrap my head around that for years. Was this a safety issue, or a marketing issue?

There. I finally said it out loud.

Poor durability of K-frame .357s in police service is very well documented. J-frames even with .38 Special +P do not stand up to the duty cycle normally expected of cop guns in the 1980s. J-frame .357s are pure marketing hype to sell to the "mall ninjas."

After shooting the first couple cylinder loads of .357 from any .357 weighing less than 30 ozs. most sensible buyers will change to .38 Special ammo. VERY Few of these civilian revolvers will ever see 1000 rounds fired in their Iifetime. S&W is betting on that.

Back in the day for normal training and requal Federal Special Agents were expected to fire 600 rounds of full-charge duty ammunition annually. Whenever agents returned to the academy for any inservice training, issued and approved personal weapons were required to be turned into the gun vault for inspection, adjustment and repair as necessary.

No J-frames were ever approved for even for off duty carry. Therein lies a clue.

[revolvergeek]

Current SAAMI MAP is 35,000 PSI.
Current CIP MAP is 43,000 PSI.
Originally, the 357 MAP was listed at 46,000 CUP, approximately 43,000 PSI, but SAAMI decided that 357 magnum was too hard on some guns, and needed to be downloaded a bit. So now we're at 35,000 PSI.

So we went from having heavily built 357 revolvers, and now we have 357 Mag J frames?(I have one) I've been trying to wrap my head around that for years. Was this a safety issue, or a marketing issue?

There. I finally said it out loud.

I bought the first 640-1 .357 mag I saw when they first came out. I carried and shot it a lot, mostly with Remington (mostly) 110 / 125 SJHP or Federal 125 jhp. It started having problems and went back to S&W at around 3600 rounds and got completely rebuilt under warranty with a new cylinder installed. About 1900 rounds later it started having issues again. When I contacted them about sending it back for more work that refused to warranty it and said it shouldn't be shot that much. I sent it to Karl Sokol instead and he did nice things to it and I retired it to my mom for house gun use.

I have had several other j-frame .357 mags since then, but they don't get fed full power .357 regularly.

@jtcarm - I got 1080 fps using a 170-grain SWC over six grains of Unique in .38 Special cases from my 4" 681. You could back that off somewhat and get 1000 fps from the Blackhawk with less recoil and unburnt powder. I personally wouldn't use slower-burning powder for that unless the improved accuracy merited shoveling all the unburnt powder out of the gun.

I loaded some Matt's Bullets 178 LSW over 4.5 grains of Unique a while back and that did 834 fps from a 4 " and 762 FPS out of a 2". I liked that load a lot for a 2" Model 15.

[358156hp]

Poor durability of K-frame .357s in police service is very well documented. J-frames even with .38 Special +P do not stand up to the duty cycle normally expected of cop guns in the 1980s. J-frame .357s are pure marketing hype to sell to the "mall ninjas."

After shooting the first couple cylinder loads of .357 from any .357 weighing less than 30 ozs. most sensible buyers will change to .38 Special ammo. VERY Few of these civilian revolvers will ever see 1000 rounds fired in their Iifetime. S&W is betting on that.

Back in the day for normal training and requal Federal Special Agents were expected to fire 600 rounds of full-charge duty ammunition annually. Whenever agents returned to the academy for any inservice training, issued and approved personal weapons were required to be turned into the gun vault for inspection, adjustment and repair as necessary.

No J-frames were ever approved for even for off duty carry. Therein lies a clue.

The first 357 J frame I ever fired was a S&W 360PD, that whispery light weight made it seem like the ideal SD revolver. At least until I fired the first shot. The load was a hot 357 Silvertip (145 gr?), and I handed it back to its owner after only one shot. Still being somewhat clueless, I bought a 640 in 357. All I can saw is that it was more pleasant to shoot than the 360 was. So I went even heavier, a 649 in .357 came to live with me. It was even better yet, but I realized I was living up to Einstens definition of insanity and moved away from 357 in J frames entirely. BTW, a SAECO 382 158 gr PB works awesomely in 38 Spl cases over 5-5.5 grains of Unique. I need to try it with cast hollowpoints too.