I have an sp101 357mag and saw a 357mag rifle at my local gun shop. Can anyone attest to their effectiveness. What type of ammo for hunting deer, grain weight, effective range.
Thanks
Are you handloading or buying commercial ammo?
It used to be that Lil'Gun powder gave the highest velocity of pretty much anything (no guarantees of it being best accuracy, though). There are stories of it being too hot in revolvers but OK in rifles. I've used it sparingly and got some ammo that felt quite spicy; can't remember if I chronoed any of it. Not sure if the newest powders (Alliant MP300, Accurate 11FS) might have equaled Lil'Gun. Of course, if you're not greedy for that last 75 or whatever fps, good ol' H110 should do fine.
Look up the twist rate of the rifle you are interested in before you buy too many bullets. My Rossi 92 is too slow-twist to stabilize the longest bullets (200 grain+). It's fine with 158 grain. I can't actually remember how it does with 180s. I'm almost certain it fed and fired the true Keith SWC (mold 357429) bullet OK, which is usually said to be 173 grains, but I can't find any notes to confirm it. I know it fed fine with Xtreme plated SWCs, but those are very short-nosed, so that proves nothing. Sorry not to have more specifics, but I'm not a big rifle shooter. Also, my Rossi has a Skinner aperture rear sight installed by the previous owner, which is nice except that it needs to be paired with a taller front sight. All bullets heavier than 125 grain shoot too high with this sight combination. I've been procrastinating for years about getting a new front sight. I've run small amounts of heavier ammo through it, but I have to aim at the lower edge of the bullseye.
Only shooting paper, so I can't say much about hunting other than that a DuckDuckGo search for ".357 rifle deer hunt" turns up a lot of positive articles and I didn't see a bunch of things saying "that's crazy." Certainly not something I'd try at over about 75-100 yards with irons or maybe 150 with a scope. Those chubby bullets are going to slow down pretty fast as they get out there farther.