.357 Sig

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sadly, 357SIG is now just a dirty lil secret amongst people of discretion... but nice snag...

I don’t understand why this cartridge is playing dinosaur. It feeds perfectly with that small bottleneck. It nearly duplicates .357 Magnum ballistics. Case diameter is the same as .40 S&W. So is cartridge length. Any pistol that can handle .40 S&W can handle .357 SIG. In the 1990s, some law enforcement agencies adopted .357 SIG.

It is a little bit tricky to reload because of the very short neck and little surface on the bullet. The only time I ever developed a flinch was when I started carrying an H&K USP Compact in .357 SIG and did some serious training - it is LOUD.
 
I don’t understand why this cartridge is playing dinosaur. It feeds perfectly with that small bottleneck. It nearly duplicates .357 Magnum ballistics. Case diameter is the same as .40 S&W. So is cartridge length. Any pistol that can handle .40 S&W can handle .357 SIG. In the 1990s, some law enforcement agencies adopted .357 SIG.

It is a little bit tricky to reload because of the very short neck and little surface on the bullet. The only time I ever developed a flinch was when I started carrying an H&K USP Compact in .357 SIG and did some serious training - it is LOUD.

It's because it's not a very good subcompact or compact round, not much gained over 9mm with a lot more blast and flash. And too many loadings are really at 9mm+P power levels (probably for this reason) making it redundant.

With actual .357 SIG full power loads, it starts to shine out of a full sized gun and really gets going with a Glock 35 or 24 sized auto. My G35 style gun has a 5.85" barrel. I've been procrastinating on working up a 90gr high velocity load, but 1800fps should be within reach from this platform.

One of my "to-dos" is to get a 10mm 1911 and put a 9x25 Dillon barrel in there...2000fps should be no problem with light bullets like described above.
 
With actual .357 SIG full power loads, it starts to shine out of a full sized gun and really gets going with a Glock 35 or 24 sized auto. My G35 style gun has a 5.85" barrel. I've been procrastinating on working up a 90gr high velocity load, but 1800fps should be within reach from this platform.

One of my "to-dos" is to get a 10mm 1911 and put a 9x25 Dillon barrel in there...2000fps should be no problem with light bullets like described above.
My 90 grain JHP leave my SIG P229 at just over 1700 FPS

2100+ FPS from the same handgun is very easy to achieve with the lightweight Total Copper Hollow Point

50%20gr%20TCH.jpg


I have several thousand of these .355" nickel plated hollow points. They weigh in at 50 grains

I have not yet tinkered with developing a load, but a nice charge of Ramshot Silhouette should do the trick
 
Underwood, with the 65gr Lehigh Xtreme Defender is rated at 2,100 fps...:eek: With 90gr it is 1,700!

Cheers!

P.S. I have (in the past) reloaded their 65, 68, 90, 115 & 118gr .355" bullets in 357 SIG: there used to be much more Lehigh load data for this caliber...:confused: Never really felt the need to load them to Underwood's levels.
 
Probably the best Law Enforcement round ever marketed...

Only started shooting the round a few years ago when I bought a barrel for a G23. Since then I have added a barrel for the G35, G40 and Kimber Stainless Target II as well as getting a no longer made SIG 1911 Nightmare Carry.

Shot one of the SIG P229 Sport Models 25 years ago on a visit to SIG. Was very impressed but just no "need" for the gun at that time. Recently found one at a reasonable price and bought it...shoots like a laser with very little recoil due to the stainless frame and comp...

Sadly overlooked round...

Bob
 
Underwood, with the 65gr Lehigh Xtreme Defender is rated at 2,100 fps...:eek: With 90gr it is 1,700!

Cheers!

P.S. I have (in the past) reloaded their 65, 68, 90, 115 & 118gr .355" bullets in 357 SIG: there used to be much more Lehigh load data for this caliber...:confused: Never really felt the need to load them to Underwood's levels.

Hitting 1700fps with the 68 grain Lehigh in a 3.5" 6904 in 9mm.

I think I hit 2100 or so with the same bullet in the 9x25 Dillon.

Didn't try in the 357 sig, couldn't get it to seat and crimp properly to where I felt it was going to stay put.

I did find that using the lehigh, it was best to not use a case mouth expander, just load directly after resizing.

Rosewood
 
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Good score. I'm down to my last personal batch of 7k rounds.
We've been waiting on Winchester since 2018 for about 80k rounds (ordered 20k each year) and they have been unable to deliver.
Last year, I supplied work with 10k rounds from my personal stash expecting to be repaid by work. Well thanks to Winchester not being able to deliver, we canceled all our backordered 357 and switched to 9mm.
 
It's because it's not a very good subcompact or compact round, not much gained over 9mm with a lot more blast and flash. And too many loadings are really at 9mm+P power levels (probably for this reason) making it redundant.

Unless loadings have been substantially downloaded over the past few years, this information would appear to be demonstrably false, as I've seen ammo tests on YouTube out of a converted Glock 27 which were getting upwards of 1300fps and 550ft-lbs, which is well beyond the performance of any 9mm +P load I've ever seen.

Heck, just search "9mm +P vs .357 SIG" on YouTube and it will turn up a number of ammo tests in which .357 SIG consistently outperforms even 9mm +P+, regardless of barrel length.
 
It is a little bit tricky to reload because of the very short neck and little surface on the bullet.

Didn't try in the 357 sig, couldn't get it to seat and crimp properly to where I felt it was going to stay put.
If you do not already own a Lee Factory Crimp Die for the 357SIG you need to buy one

The FCD imparts a collet crimp to the cartridge and will make many projectiles viable that you would have previously passed on because of the poor neck tension caused by the 357SIG's short neck and the ogive of many projectiles originally intended for the 9MM Parabellum and 380ACP cartridges

The projectile does not need a crimp groove to use this style of crimp

The Lee Factory Crimp Die was a game changer for me
 
It's because it's not a very good subcompact or compact round, not much gained over 9mm with a lot more blast and flash. And too many loadings are really at 9mm+P power levels (probably for this reason) making it redundant.

With actual .357 SIG full power loads, it starts to shine out of a full sized gun and really gets going with a Glock 35 or 24 sized auto. My G35 style gun has a 5.85" barrel. I've been procrastinating on working up a 90gr high velocity load, but 1800fps should be within reach from this platform.

One of my "to-dos" is to get a 10mm 1911 and put a 9x25 Dillon barrel in there...2000fps should be no problem with light bullets like described above.

I hadn’t thought about losing the cartridge’s advantages in a short-barreled pistol. That makes sense.
 
I hadn’t thought about losing the cartridge’s advantages in a short-barreled pistol. That makes sense.
It is not as great a loss as people expect.

Using the 125 grain Ranger SXT as an example, the projectile leaves my SIG X-5 Allround at 1,392 FPS while when fired from the short barreled SIG P239 the projectile only drops to 1,321 FPS. That is about a 5% drop in velocity with a 30% reduction in barrel length

That 1,321 FPS is still noticeably faster than a 124 grain 9MM+P Ranger SXT loading leaves the P239 (sorry I can not find my 9MM notes at the moment. Memory says it did not break 1,200)

This is pretty much the same argument that folks make when discussing the 357 Magnum and 38 Special from short barreled firearm. A faster cartridge is always faster no matter what the barrel length you are using

Chronographs
 
If you do not already own a Lee Factory Crimp Die for the 357SIG you need to buy one

The FCD imparts a collet crimp to the cartridge and will make many projectiles viable that you would have previously passed on because of the poor neck tension caused by the 357SIG's short neck and the ogive of many projectiles originally intended for the 9MM Parabellum and 380ACP cartridges

The projectile does not need a crimp groove to use this style of crimp

The Lee Factory Crimp Die was a game changer for me

That is what I use. Works great with a truncated bullet or a XTP. Round nose bullets ain't worth a dang in a .357 Sig. Found Gold Dots don't crimp as well. And the Lehigh don't have enough bearing surface to get a good purchase on that short neck. Seems like to get a good crimp, the bullet has to be seated out too far on the 357 sig and it won't fit the magazine then.

Rosewood
 
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