.357 Special, anyone?

[Garrett]

I'll start off by saying I'm not much of a revolver shooter. I've got a few of them and I enjoy playing with them, but they are primarily for plinking.

But I've heard / read the discussions where people talk about the virtues and dangers of loading .38 Special cases to .357 Mag pressures. If shot in a .357 revolver, they should certainly be capable of safely containing the pressures. The revolver competitors say the shorter cases eject sooner / easier. While those against the practice argue you could potentially get one into an "old, weak" .38 Special and blow it up.

I'm in the camp of those that load my own ammo, and my ammo goes in my guns. I'm good with that, and I'm comfortable shooting my ammo in my guns. Not so worried about my ammo getting into someone else's gun. And I think anyone that loads Major 9mm or .38 Super probably falls into the same camp.

Having said all of that, it is nice if there is some way to visually determine what load you are looking at. Yes - I label my ammo, and keep it separated. But a second verification is always a good thing. I do load some ammo for use with suppressors. I like how Hornady puts a second crimp groove on some of their heavier bullets. They just happen to be in the right place so you can load a "magnum" length cartridge using "special" cases.

I've been doing this for a while loading .44 Mag ammo in .44 Special cases with 300 gr. bullets.

I just loaded up some 180 grain .357s in .38 Special cases. They are loaded out to 1.600", just like a typical .357 Mag. I'm going for subsonic velocities, so I'm not trying to hotrod these in any case.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

And for reference, I'm planning on running them through this:

[7mmb]

If loaded to the same COL the powder capacity should be the same. My question is why? If you want to shoot 357 power levels out of a 357 Magnum gun why not just use 357 cases? I stopped shooting 38 Special when I started reloading. Everything from mild to wild can be loaded in a 357 case, and with published data. I've never understood the desire to load to 357 levels in 38 cases that will only be fired in a 357 Magnum chamber. A 357 Magnum chamber accepts 357 cases. As far as ejecting sooner, I doubt anyone outside of a laboratory has a timer that can measure the difference.

[Justsomeguy]

I understand his "ejecting sooner" comment to mean that the shorter case will fall free of the cylinder more easily with a stroke to the ejector rod unlike a lot of guns using 357 brass that will barely clear the cylinders.

[ebg3]

A big reason for using special cases with heavy .357 bullets/loads is so the crimp groove can still be used and the round fit in a .357 cylinder.