Effectiveness of .357 maximum?

[in2anity]

So I have my eye on a martini action rebarreled to .357 maximum. I intend on using this rifle for medium-range target work (300m+) and centerfire (scoped-rifle) metallic silhouette. Whilst I have zero experience with straight-wall centerfire cartridges, I like the idea of the .357 maximum straight-wall caliber for the following reasons:

• Brass life (superior to bottle-neck)
• Practicing with cheaper .357 Mag and 38 Spl
• Cast-lead abundance in LGS's
• Factory ammo cheaper (boxes of 50)

So my questions are as follows:

• What of my above assumptions are valid?
• What sort of long-range accuracy could I expect out of such a rifle? (the rifle appears to be a fairly heavy, long barrel)
• Is it realistic to expect such a rifle/projectile to make it out to the 500m rams?
• Considering the longer distance between the lands and projectile, for the shorter 357mag and 38sp, would accuracy be badly effected?

Any advice would be appreciated.

In2.

[duncan61]

A mate of mine had one that I fired a few shots out off.If you can land all of them on a dinner plate at 200 metres you will be doing good.15 plus inches of holdover is a lot.At 300 you will be able to pick them up and reload them
This is a ballistics chart for the 357 Magnum rifle cartridge:
Bullet diameter: .357 inch.
Bullet weight: 140 grains.
Bullet ballistic coeffecient: .169.
Bullet muzzle velocity: 1,850 feet per second.
Bullet muzzle energy: 1,064 foot pounds.
This is a bullet velocity chart for the 357 Magnum rifle cartridge:
Range
25 yds. 1,744
50 yds. 1,643
75 yds. 1,548
100 yds. 1,458
150 yds. 1,296
200 yds. 1,064
This is a bullet trajectory chart for the 357 Magnum rifle cartridge:
Range
25 yds.
50 yds.
75 yds.
100 yds.
150 yds.
200 yds.
Yards
Bullet Drop:
0
+ 0.8"
+ 0.7"
- .2"
- 5.3"
- 15.6"
in.
This is a bullet energy chart for the 357 Magnum rifle cartridge:
Range
25 yds.
50 yds.
75 yds.
100 yds.
150 yds.
200 yds.
Yards
Bullet Energy:
945
839
745
660
522
422
ft. lbs.

[in2anity]

A mate of mine had one that I fired a few shots out off.If you can land all of them on a dinner plate at 200 metres you will be doing good.15 plus inches of holdover is a lot.At 300 you will be able to pick them up and reload them
This is a ballistics chart for the 357 Magnum rifle cartridge:...

Just having a skim of available projectiles; BCs are low aren't they One possibility is running a 35cal projectile; they're up towards the 0.3 mark. @ 1900fps I get:

yds inches fps energy
0 -1.4887 1900 1603
50 0.6369 1779 1405
100 0.0113 1664 1229
150 -3.7586 1555 1074
200 -11.1267 1454 939
250 -22.6140 1359 820
300 -38.8094 1274 721
350 -60.3608 1199 638
400 -87.9557 1135 572
450 -122.2900 1082 520
500 -164.0392 1038 478

Wonder if that would cut the mustard?

[duncan61]

Is it a cadet or its bigger brother.Its a great plan and you are going to enjoy learning it however the pistol round rifles do struggle to go any distance effectively compared to HPBT skinny pills belting out at plus 3000.Its a bit like trying to get a stock car to beat a sprintcar at speedway.You can try and experiment and try some more but you wont catch the sprintcar with a stocky.Look forward to seeing some groups at 100 metres

[in2anity]

Is it a cadet or its bigger brother.Its a great plan and you are going to enjoy learning it however the pistol round rifles do struggle to go any distance effectively compared to HPBT skinny pills belting out at plus 3000.Its a bit like trying to get a stock car to beat a sprintcar at speedway.You can try and experiment and try some more but you wont catch the sprintcar with a stocky.Look forward to seeing some groups at 100 metres

Pretty sure it's a cadet; what are you referring to when you say "bigger brother"? It's got one of those fancier stocks on it with a cheek riser, almost like the BSA Martini Internationals. He's asking for $650 but I'm not going to pay that for it (all points considered).

[Gamerancher]

It is a pistol cartridge, designed for pistol silhouette out to 200m. You will not have any luck trying to get it to shoot 500m rams as it won't have the energy left to knock one down even if you could get it to hit one. Rule of thumb is 1000ft/lb @ 500m. That is why even a .243Win is inadequate for the job, not enough retained energy.

[in2anity]

It is a pistol cartridge, designed for pistol silhouette out to 200m. You will not have any luck trying to get it to shoot 500m rams as it won't have the energy left to knock one down even if you could get it to hit one. Rule of thumb is 1000ft/lb @ 500m. That is why even a .243Win is inadequate for the job, not enough retained energy.

Fair enough - thanks for the tip GR.

[duncan61]

The big brother is the Martini Henry in 577/450 boxer AKA zulu wars