HARD TO UNDERSTAND

[TDC]

Ya know..... What always seems to be missing on threads like this is a definition of what a magnum load is ... for any caliber.

There are warm factory magnum loads and hotter factory loads. There are warm magnum hand-loads, hot magnum hand-loads, hot-hot magnum hand-loads and then outer space magnum hand-loads intent on almost nuking any handgun in existence....

Everybody seems to include their undefined idea of a magnum round into the same universal category and that's the rub... How do we know what "magnum" ammo is to each poster.

If the load isn't tailored to the guns capacity no wonder there there is so much variation in the life expectancy conclusions we all have.

I shoot everything from a .22 up to a 500Mag. Believe me... I can shoot any of them loose - and even to the point of blowing any of them up with the components available to all of us.

The problem isn't the guns. The problem is those of us, especially hand-loaders like myself, who ridiculously push the limits of a guns capacity to way, way beyond what it was designed and intended for. Then when it can't withstand the ridiculous optimum pressures on a continual basis --- blame the gun...

Those issues, I believe, are the root cause of all the controversy over the S&W 44s and K frame 357s...

Most gun don't shoot accurately at anywhere near optimum loads. Give the guns a break and they'll serve you well for a long time...

JMHO

 

[M2MikeGolf]

A friend of mine at work shot nothing but .357 full loads in his 66 for over 15 years. It finally came apart.

Hey SgtSam, please, no offense or singling out here, but I'd like to weigh in on 18DAIs view of this (and some others) for one reason; his experience is his own. I'm not doubting your friend's experience, but I long ago stopped considering second hand reports of anything as having credibility. I've seen lots of posts that began with "I had a buddy" and then told some terrible catastrophic story, but it's interesting that it is really hard to find a poster say "I had one myself" and then end in disaster. Sometimes even friends exaggerate or have some bias of there own when relating an experience, and you may not know "the whole story", certainly you are getting only their view of it. I once worked in a shop that did custom work on high power hunting rifles (in the belted magnum and Weatherby range of cartridges) and often heard the "my friend says" kind of horror stories. In countless thousands of high powered cartridges that I fired through dozens of different rifles made by various manufacturers the only catastrophic event I ever witnessed was firing the wrong cartridge through a specific weapon (7mm Rem Mag through a 300 Win Mag). I won't even go into handload war stories, personally witnessed ones. In the military, I witnessed thousands, perhaps tens or even hundreds of thousands of rounds fired through automatic weapons, and only once ever saw a catastrophic event (machine gun bolt which split in half). The cause was determined to be metal fatigue, unique to that weapon.
I don't have a 66, currently own an L-Frame that I am very fond of. I've seen lots of opinions about the 65 and 66, but notice most that carried them and fired them a lot thing they are outstanding weapons and have few if any real problems with them. If it's true about 125 gr. loads, it's not much of a problem for me as I've always favored and used 158 gr in any .38 or .357, after all, it's really what they like the best, and pretty much what they were designed to shoot. I'll save those lightweight 125ers for my 9mm, which in +P can get moving a long pretty well. In the meantime, I'll just get along with my 619, which is really nothing more than an L-Frame version of a 65. It absolutely loves 158 grain loads, almost as much as I do.
I'm a big fan of the 65 and 66, and have some big plans for a 65 in the near future, and it better be ready for a steady diet of .357 magnum. I know I am.