Anybody know where to get .357 gold dot short barrel ammo? Everybody seems to be backordered.

The Speer stuff seems scarce lately. Buffalo Bore makes some SB .357 loads using Gold Dot bullets. Remington Golden Sabre .357s are a managed recoil load also and might be worth a look.

If your near a gander mountain, the one near me usually has a good supply.

I was buying Speer Gold Dot .38 Special +P and .357 Magnum ammo for my carry. Price and availability has become a problem. I'm now buying DoubleTap ammo instead. I tested both and the DoubleTap produces the same velocities as the Speer ammo and both use the same Gold Dot bullets. The big differences are you can buy DoubleTap ammo directly from their site and the price is much lower. DoubleTap will cost you $26/50 rounds for .38 Special +P and $27/50 rounds for .357 Magnum. Speer on the other hand will cost you $24/20 to $28/20 rounds.

I suggest you give DoubleTap a try....

I've got some ammo coming from Double Tap this week. I'll have to see how my 340pd likes it.

I look forward to seeing more input here. I stocked up while Florida Bullets still sold to the public, but I'll need more someday. I didn't know that DT was doing a "Lite" .357 load. I'll have to go look.....Okay, so I looked, and I don't see anything in the .357 with 135gr. bullets, and the 125s are the full-house screamers. Am I missing something somewhere? BTW, I shot ONE cylinder full of DT 125gr. .357s through my 340PD, and that was enough for a LONG time!

I ordered a couple of boxes of .38spl from Double Tap and a couple of boxes of short barrel .357 from Buffalo Bore. As far as I know, all Double Tap ammo is pretty hot.

I just ordered and received some Speer Gold Dot Short Barrel ammo for my .38, but I can not find any in .357 mag.

Are all Gold Dot bullets short barrel? Speer's web site says only the 135 gr. GD bullets are short barrel. I didn't see any of those on the Double Tap web page, only 125 & 158 gr.

In December I ordered 2k of the 135 gr +P from a major Speer LE distributor, on departmental letterhead. They say we should get it in only 4-6 MONTHS!

quote:

Originally posted by Pioneer461:
Are all Gold Dot bullets short barrel? Speer's web site says only the 135 gr. GD bullets are short barrel. I didn't see any of those on the Double Tap web page, only 125 & 158 gr.

Not all Gold Dot bullets are short barrel bullets but the way Gold Dot bullets are manufactured causes them to expand reliable at somewhat lower velocities than other manufacturer's bullets. Speer is using the 135gr bullet in their Short Barrel rounds but it's not only the bullet that makes them short barrel rounds. The powder they use produces very low flash and they custom mix the powders to produce higher velocities without excess pressure.

The 125gr Gold Dot bullet DoubleTap uses in their .38 Special +P round is marker LV for Low Velocity. I wrote DoubleTap and asked them why they weren't using the 135gr bullet and they told me the tests they ran showed the 125gr LV bullet to expand more reliably than the 135gr bullet.

quote:

Originally posted by ArchAngelCD:

I wrote DoubleTap and asked them why they weren't using the 135gr bullet and they told me the tests they ran showed the 125gr LV bullet to expand more reliably than the 135gr bullet.

Not doubting what you say that DT told you, but I would be VERY surprised if what they said were true, given the obvious design differences between the two. I've done comparative expansion testing (in water), from a 1 7/8" M49, with 125gr.+P .38 Special Gold Dot loads and the 135gr.+P loads, both from Speer, and expansion is MUCH more reliable and complete with the 135s.

I was very sceptically too but they said the 125gr bullet they are using is Speer's LV bullet, not the 125gr bullet that's used in Speer's "normal" ammo.

Thanks for the information. If you can get a hold of the DoubleTap rounds and test them against the 135gr Speer SB round that would be interesting. I would hate to think a outfit like DoubleTap would lie to a direct question although nothing would surprise me these days.

quote:

Originally posted by ArchAngelCD:
I was very sceptically too but they said the 125gr bullet they are using is Speer's LV bullet, not the 125gr bullet that's used in Speer's "normal" ammo.

Thanks for the information. If you can get a hold of the DoubleTap rounds and test them against the 135gr Speer SB round that would be interesting. I would hate to think a outfit like DoubleTap would lie to a direct question although nothing would surprise me these days.

It may well be that the bullet Speer loads in its 125gr.+P loads is not the LV bullet; I don't know. Given that the very best velocity one can get with that load is still pretty slow, even from 6" tubes (around 1000fps. or so) it should be loaded with the LV bullet. The 125gr. load is actually slower from snubbies than is the 135gr. snubby load, by a good 50-70fps. in my testing. I doubt that the good folks at DT would intentionally lie to you, but whomever you spoke with might not have known, if you did not speak directly with Mike McNett. FWIW, I've chronoed a lot of DT ammo, in several calibers, and all of it but one load met or exceeded what they advertised, and it has all been very consistent. The only disappointment has been the 10mm 200gr. FMJ, which runs 150fps. or more below the advertised velocities.

I didn't speak to DT on the phone, I wrote them. The email was signed by Mike but that doesn't mean Mike actually answered it because anyone can sigh a name to a email. From what I hear about the company Mike probably did answer the email though.

Mike is using the 135 gr. bullet in the .38special loads. Speer does Nnot make a 125 SB bullet. The DT 357mag load is a 125 @ 1600 fps from a 4" barrel. They also make a 125 gr, 38special load or used to. BTW, DT is also loading Speers .44 200 gr. SB bullet in .44special. It has a higher velocity than Speers load.