Lonny,
Congrats on your freezer filling adventure. I found my way over here and to this thread from the link at the bottom of your post over at the Contender forum where you responded to my question on 357 Max.
A little background on me:
I originally started looking for info on pistol caliber rifles because my son has moved to Indiana. He has been a better hunter than me since he was probably 14, but I am the resident "gun nut" of the family. He found out in late summer that his eight year old son can hunt there. My son has hunted with a Super Redhawk. but his son is a little small for the recoil of practicing with slugs and not yet a pistol shooter. I found out about this just before we came to visit them in Sept. I happened to have a Rossi single shot rifle in 44 mag. I put a low power scope and a youth stock on it and set up a second rifle the same way in 22 rimfire. My grandson has been shooting a pellet rifle and a youth sized 22 bolt action since he was five, but thought it would be good to practice with a rimfire that was identical to the 44. We went out shooting when I was down there and the grandson was told that if he could hit a five in circle 4 out of 5 times at 25 yards, the distance his dad thought would be his max range, he could go deer hunting. The target moved to 50 hards after the third dead center shot and he put all 5 in the circle. I had him shooting powder puff loads in the 44, not wanting to take any chances on starting a flinch, saving the full house loads for hunting and figuring he won't even notice the difference if he is pulling the trigger on a deer.
They got out the first weekend and several deer, but none that presented a good shot. They went to the other grandparents (non-hunting) this weekend, so no hunting, but hope to get out next weekend. Anyway, my whole reason for chasing the 357 Maximum Contender idea, was to have a better and longer range round for next year for my son. I did not think that the Rossi was capable of the kind of accuracy. Maybe I am wrong, or maybe a Rossi won't do what an H&R will. Any thoughts on this?
When I looked at the Indiana regs and changes of legal cartridge for 2012, I understood that the rifle had to actually be in a commerical pistol round, but am starting to think I misread. Is it true that you can have any cartidge, commercial or wildcat, as long as the case length is no longer than 1.8 inches and bullet is at least .357, with no max cartidge length. Could you take a 50 BAR case, cut it down to 1.8 inches, neck it to 357 and load a 500 grain bullet, with any overall cartidge length of three inches? Maybe a bit extreme, but want to make sure I understand the rules.
Hope I am not out of place or hijacking you thread. Let me know if I am and should go somewhere else.
Jackpine