357-44 Bain & Davis

[Roadtrash]

I've been reading about the 357-44 Bain & Davis round and it sounds like it would be a pretty good moderate range deer round.  Any of you folks have any experience with this round?  It sounds easy to form and should work good on deer in the South where I do get to hunt from time to time.  Any info on this subject will be appreciated.
                                                         Roadtrash

[RonF]

I used to have a 12" Fox Ridge barrel in .357/44 B&D.  It was a high quality barrel and more accurate than I could shoot, but it had a short throat that limited my ability to seat out the 180 gr bullets I wanted to use on deer.  I wanted to use AA 1680 with these heavier bullets, and capacity wasn't enough to get the velocities I wanted.  I have a Merrill Sportsman with a .357/44 B&D barrel that has a long throat and lets me get the performance I want with these heavier bullets, so I sold the Contender barrel.  This caliber is a nice round and is pretty much the equal of the .357 Max as far as I can tell, at least using bullets up to 180 gr. if you have a long throat.  If you plan to have a barrel rechambered, you'll find more smiths with .357 Max reamers, I suspect.

Hope this helps.

RonF