357 mag carbine bullets for Deer

[R.W.Dale]

  I recently purchased a dandy little Puma 92 stainless carbine in 357 mag that I intend to use on deer. I have a load worked up that shoots 180grn XTP's at a velocity of 1325 FPS that should be a dandy deer load except for one problem. This loading shoots 6" high at 50yds  even with the sights bottomed out:'(  Right now it's too close to deer season to get into ordering and swapping sights, and while I can put a little downward english on this load to hit deer where it hurts I think a faster load shooting a lighter bullet should bring the POI down enough for me.

 What do ya'll consider some of the more deer compatible .357 diameter bullets in the 125 to 158grn range that deserve a shot?

[Questor]

Here's what I'd do: Try the 158s and if that didn't work I'd use another gun.

[Graybeard]

Jerry Lester is our resident expert on use of the .357 Magnum for deer hunting. It seems he's taken more deer with it in both handguns and rifles than anyone else on here. Perhaps he will see this in time and respond. But as I recall his bullet of choice is the Remington 158 JSP.

Slow and heavy means high and fast and light mean low in handguns but the same doesn't seem to mean much in rifles from my experience. I've changed powder charge in either direction and had POI shift inches up-down-left-right from that alone and different bullet weights might go anywhere. You just don't know until you try with rifles generally or at least that's been my experience.

I have one of the Rossi made .357 Magnum rifles but haven't gotten around to shooting it in the couple years since I bought it.

[Sir Charles deMoutonBlack]

What about exchanging the front sight for a taller one?  There is a neat table in the Brownells catalog, but I haven't looked for it online.  Just make sure you have a load you want to stick with before changing the gun.

I have worked with both a BLR 92 in .44 RM, and an original (1911) Win '92 SRC in .44-40.  The guns habits were identical.  With the same bullet, fast went low, and slow went high.  For hunting, you want FAST.

I didn't test different bullets, as I stick with the RCBS .44 200 FP cast bullet for most .44 work.  (My guess would be heavy = low, & vicky verky.)

[Jerry Lester]

 GB is right. I don't know about the "expert" thing, but I've definitely popped my fair share of deer with this caliber. It's actually become my all time favorite caliber for deer, and I'm guessing at this point I've likely killed more deer with the 357 magnum than any other caliber.

I just got in from working 12 hours in the sun, so I'm just gonna give you a condensed version of what you need to know.

I'd venture to say that "any" 158g SP would work good on deer. I've seen the results of several different 158g SP's on deer, and they've all been pretty consistent from my observations. The reason I preach on the Remington's so much is because they not only do everything you need as far as terminal performance, but they're very accurate to boot. They're phenomenally accurate in a lot of rifles, and revolvers! I've shot very expensive bullets that, although they shot good, couldn't hold a light to these bullets. Accuracy(extreme accuracy) in these rifles depends almost entirely on case prep though, so unless you're taking the proper pains with your brass, you may find it hard to see the differences in a lot of bullet designs.

Bottom line; order some Remington 158g SP's, work up a good stout load pushing that bullet to around 1700+ fps(muzzle), and keep your ranges within 100 yards. Put the shot where it needs to go, and you'll have a deer on the ground in very short order.


PS: If you don't have time for load development, go find a box of Mag-Tech 158g SP's(they're awesome, and cheap), or pretty much any other 158g SP factory load, and you'll be fine.