Heavy .357 bullet load

[Panhandle]

Thought this load may be worth sharing for the few heavy bullet .357 shooters. My results are from a Uberti 1873 with 24” barrel. Fired from rests off the bench with aperture sights at 100 yard.

38 Special Brass - 10gr Buffalo Rifle, LY35-204-RNGC bullet sized .359, CCI small pistol, 1.58 OAL - very accurate 1” at 100y and very mild 960 fps.
357 Brass - 10gr Buffalo Rifle, LY35-204-RNGC bullet sized .359, *CCI small RIFLE, 1.58 OAL - 2.25” at 100y very mild 1030 fps.

it’s a rather unorthodox load but if the results are similar for others, to accurate to not consider for some use. I don’t want to fiddle with 38 brass so will do some more research / development around 357 brass. For starters give it a try with a pistol primer instead of the rifle primer used.

[DavidMBatts]

Back before I got a proper rifle caliber lever gun I used a heavy 357 magnum load that was good out to 200 meters. It would ding a ram here and there , but otherwise a good load.
193gr Hunter's Supply flat nose , CCI small rifle primer, Starline 357 magnum brass and 16.5gr of Reloder 7. This chronographed at 1350fps with single digit standard deviation. This load or one very similar was found in one of my (older) reloading data books.

[Panhandle]

Thanks, I have not tried reloader 7. I’ll load some and try it on the next R&D trip to the range.

[Panhandle]

Most of my load development in .357 for the 1873 was done with small rifle primers. That’s what I had during to last primer drought. My better loads with heavy bullets had been with Buffalo Rifle, AA5744 and AA#9. I have retested loads with magnum pistol primers and standard pistol primers. Every load has shown improvement with standard small pistol primers. The small rifle and magnum pistol primers have seemed identical in accuracy with Velocity being 20-80 fps higher compared to the standard primer.