local caliber availability

[bwickens]

In your area, in your local (fill-in-the-blank)Mart, farm supply, hardware, or other non-gun store, what have you found to be more readily available, .357mag or .44mag? For a while around here (northern Illinois), you had trouble finding .357s.

[Erich]

How interesting. I don't really buy anything but 9mm and .22s at my [blank]Mart (handloader!), though, so I couldn't tell you.

[brucev]

At the local Wal-mart, .357 S&W Magnum is more easily found than .44 S&W Magnum ammunition, both in variety of loads, manufacturers, bullet weights and types of bullets. There are two gun shops available locally located 8 and 27 miles away. Each is very well stocked with ammunition. There is no real difference in the variety, etc. available.

[bwickens]

Was trying to make heads or tails of "The Pipeline" and trying to figure out why some stuff was more available than .357, a supposedly common caliber. Even now, I'm just as likely to find .38 Super on the shelf at my local Big R store as I am .357. Just strikes me as odd. Fourty four mag seems to always be in stock.

[Erich]

Might just be a local quirk: somebody local with more money than time buys up all the .357. My understanding is that .357 and .44 are both popular enough to have fairly regular runs by the makers - unlike, say, .41.