Hi Folks,

As a newcomer to the land of revolvers, I'm after a bit of advice. I figured it's better to ask than blow myself up or damage my gun.

I'm in Australia and IMR4227 (sold here as AR2205) is readily available.

So... I've bought a pound of it and I'm considering loading .357 magnum cartridges with a 110gr JHP over 21 grains of IMR4227 with standard small pistol primers. (21gr is the max charge in the manual)

I use my 4" 686 normally for target shooting using cast bullets with small charges of pistol powder, but I wanted to load something hot, just for a bit of fun. I don't intend on firing a lot of these rounds through my gun.

My question is: should I use magnum small pistol primers with this powder, or small rifle primers? (seeing as it's a rifle powder) or will the normal small pistol primers do the job?

And I should probably start 10% under the max loads and check for signs of excessive pressure. Shouldn't I?

Cheers,

Gus