I recently purchased a nice little carry pistol in .357 Magnum, the 640-1. Last night was my first time shooting it...some friends and I went to an indoor range and ran .38's and .357's through it. All I can say is Wow! I didn't even aim...just lifted my arm to point and fired. It's not a target pistol...it is a carry pistol and it works great!

I ended up trying two different types of Magnum rounds. First was the 158 grain Speer Gold Dots...they had a lot of kick. Then I tried 125 grain Remington Golden Sabers, because I knew they were a medium velocity Magnum round. I didn't want to try the Federal 125 grains because those, reportedly are extremely hot and I don't know if this little gun was designed for something like that. Anyway, the Golden Sabers definately had less kick than the Speers, so conceivably, I could control those better in a panic. So...what advice do you folks have regarding these two rounds (or other rounds) when shooting this little powerhouse?

Thanks in advance, B

Those are great rounds if you can handle them. Personally in my 640 I use the short barrel gold dots in 357 magnum. They handle very nicely out of my 640. When those are gone I probably will go back to the remington 38+p 158 lhp. I like buying ammo in 50 rnd boxes.

John!

I run full power .357 Remingtons in my Taurus 605. It's roughly eqivalent in size and weight to your gun. Your 640, BTW, will handle full house 125 grainers just fine. Keep in mind two things. First, every round you fire in practice doesn't need to be a full power .357. A cylinder, or two, to finish up your practice sessions will keep you used to their recoil and blast. More than that may be a beating and make you start flinching. For most of your practice .38s will work just fine. Second, YMMV, but I didn't reach my full potential with full power .357s until I'd launched about a thousand of them.

Keep in mind that firing a lot of .38s then .357s can cause problems with a crud ring inside the charge holes of your cylinder. The ring caused by .38s can squeeze the case mouth of a .357 and cause elevated pressures, due to the .38 case being shorter. I control the problem by keeping my guns clean and starting each range session by firing a cylinder of .357s. I then do my .38 shooting. Before I finish with .357s, I push a fired .357 casing into each charge hole. That scrapes out the crud rings and allows .357s to chamber freely.

John961 raises a good point regarding Speer Short Barrel .357s. They are excellent snub loads and you might want to use what shoots closer to POA, them, or Golden Sabres if you want to go the managed recoil .357 route.