The same thing has happened to the guns. There was a time when you needed an N frame gun that weighed about 48 ounces to handle the fire and brimstone from a full house 357 load. Today you can buy a 10 oz revolver chambered for the same loads. I also recall that the advertising indicated that the recoil from the early magnums would take your arm off if you weren't careful. Now I seem to think shooting a full house gunload or two will break your wrist or hammer your palm into a throbbing mess.

Then there is the issue of light quality guns. I'm not even so sure the M19 is up to the hammering you'd get from continued full house loads. Worse, the M19 uses quality parts. I'm not so sure of some of the other 357s I've seen at gun shops and shows.

Then there's the issue of optimistic numbers published in advertising manuals. Often achieved by the use of solid breach pressure barrels 10" long or so.

For fun, I'd suggest you haunt the gun shows looking for older 357 ammo to test fire over your own Chronograph. See what kind of numbers those actually achieve. Then test some of the current production loads to see how they perform. Keep the playing field level.

There are those who felt S&W and the ammo companies took a big risk back in the day when they marketed 38/44 HD ammo. It would fit into and fire in all the old Spanish knock off revolvers. Often with disastrous results. Back in the day, the only 357 handguns you could obtain were quality. Better still, they were brand new. But over the last 3/4s century some aren't still pristine, and some never were.

We've been bombarded with comments that S&W 44s aren't up to much abuse at all. We're told we need a Ruger or Freedom Arms revolver to even fire the overloads being sold by some makers. It doesn't take skill to pour too much powder into a case. Really, we have no idea what pressures some loads achieve. Nor the real velocities.

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Dick Burg