What good is .357 158-gr. JSP?
I have owned, shot, handloaded for and hunted with a 3-inch M66, a 6-inch M28, Contenders in .357 Mag and Max, and both Rossi and Marlin .38/.357 carbines for decades, so I know a bit about this subject.
Many of the loads in the Speer #8 and #9 reloading manuals were too hot. I don't think Speer owned pressure guns back then, and simply relied on subjective pressure signs. Be especially careful of 9mmP, .357 Mag and .358 Win data in those books; I still refer to them, but I start low and work up, or check top loads in a newer manual.
I understand that the manufacturers used the switch from measuring pressure in CUP to PSI, about 1990, to quietly downgrade .357 Magnum pressures, largely because of the 125-grain Police load/K-frame Smith problem. All of the reloading manuals cut their top loads by a couple of grains at about the same time. I would be surprised if current loads are hot enough to damage a K-frame, unless you fire a lot of them; they're held to 35,000 PSI or less. +P 9mm loads are hotter than that. And little J-frame Smiths are now chambered in both 9mm and .357. Surely a K-frame is stronger than a J?
On the rare occasions that I carry the M66 for self-defense--mostly on the way to/from a hunting trip (I have other guns that carry better in town)--I load it with Black Hills 125-grain (Remington) SJHP. I don't practice with those loads, but use inexpensive factory .38 SPLs for practice and small game. I cast a 130-grain RNFPGC for small game and practice, up to full power, loads in all my .380s, 9mms, .38s, and .357s (and .357 Max, .35 Rem, .358 Win, .350 Rem, .35 Whelen Ackley improved, and .358 Norma, for that matter
cast several larger .357 and .358 bullets for various guns/purposes (I love my .35s for precisely that handloading versatility), and so rarely use expensive factory ammo for practice. If you practice lots with .38s, and only occasionally throw in a few .357s (Remington's mid-range 125-grain .357 kicks and blasts less than full-power ammo, and is still about like good +P 9mm for self-defense, if far less efficient), you won't notice the recoil and blast of full-power ammo during either a self-defense or hunting situation, any more than I feel the otherwise-brutal recoil of my .358 Norma when shooting elk.
Even elephant rifles don't kick, when you're shooting at elephants.
While I'm hunting with a rifle, I usually carry the M66 in a shoulder holster. It's small and light enough to be unobtrusive, far easier to carry than my .44 Magnum or high-pressure .45 Colt guns, so I only switch to them when I might need more power than the .357 can provide. I switch the M66 to Black Hills 158-gr (Rem) SJHP, for expansion with better penetration than lighter bullets, when I use factory loads. I carry this load for finishing-off game as large as elk, for defense against cougar (a slim but real chance in much of the Western U.S., these days), or black bear, and for any other need I might have for a weapon while my rifle is for any reason unavailable or too much gun.
For small game, or a finishing shot that doesn't even require the power of a .357, I load two chambers with .38s. A quick turn of the cylinder dials me way back on power, noise, recoil, destruction of edible meat, and wear on the gun, and the ability to easily and cheaply change power levels is one reason I love the .357 so much. The other is versatility in another way; I load several of the .357s I cast, as well as the 158-grain Speer JSPs, in my larger .35 caliber rifle cartridges. I keep loads to .38 Spl. (not easy in a .358 Norma case) or .357 velocities for small game and coyotes. Useful.
When I'm hunting nothing larger than deer, I prefer 140 gr JHPs in the M66. I can safely push them to 1330 fps, from the 3-inch barrel, fast enough to produce good expansion and at least minimal cavitation, which seems to start somewhere around 1200-1250 fps with either flat-point or mushroomed bullets. The Speer, Remington, or Hornady 140 gr JHPs will completely penetrate a deer's chest cavity, even from the rear ribs to the front of the opposite shoulder, leaving a wound two or three times the diameter of the expanded bullet. They usually come to rest under the skin on the off side. 158 gr JHPs penetrate deeper and expand less, usually wasting some of the bullet's energy (of which you have just enough, with this cartridge) on the landscape beyond the target. The two bucks I've hit through the lungs (both previously wounded with a rifle) with the 140 gr Speer JHP dropped instantly. I think this is the best load for deer
in this gun.
I might switch to 158 gr JHPs for deer in the M28, with its longer barrel, depending on what the chronograph and some wet phone books told me. So many guns. So little time.
I have far less experience with the M-28. I will note that it's very accurate, especially with .38 wadcutters, and that surprisingly, it shows excess pressure signs far sooner than the M66. I attribute that to the K-frame's longer cylinder; if the actual combustion chamber is from the base of the cartridge case to the forcing cone in a revolver's throat, as I suspect, the K-frame would produce less pressure with the same loads. But anything that smears primers like bubble gum in the N-frame is no doubt too hot for the K-frame, anyway.
As for 158-grain JSPs in the .357, few of them will likely expand at revolver velocities. If they won't open up in sopping wet, soaked-overnight newsprint (something you can easily try for yourself: please clean up after), they really won't expand in lung tissue. You might use them where you need penetration more than expansion, but if the game is that big or dangerous, you need more gun, anyway.
Of course a .357 is always better than harsh language, as not a few black bear, grizzlys, and even polar bear have learned to their demise.
Where I have found great use for 158 gr JSPs is in .357 carbines. My Rossi Puma and Marlin '94 have put several deer, including middlin' large blacktail bucks, in the freezer (and rabbits, squirrels, and turkey on the table with .38s). Most of the deer were taken with the Speer 158 gr JSP, loaded hot, to ~1860 fps from a 20-inch bbl. Those loads
only go in the carbines (and I never load softpoints in the revolvers, as a safety measure) and the brass only lasts a few reloadings--only one, for hunting loads. But they do kill deer cleanly with decent hits. Hit poorly, and you're much more likely to lose a wounded animal than with any other cartridge that's remotely adequate for deer. And, yeah, I learned that the hard way.
The Rossi was loaded with Speer JSPs when a pair of feral dobermans--I kid you not--that had deserted their guard-dog duties and gone into business for themselves threatened me off the back of the family ranch. I hit the lead dog on the point of the shoulder at 20 or 25 feet, as he came for me; the bullet smashed through shoulder, ribs, lungs and gut, and exited through the muscle at the front of the opposite hip.
At these velocities these flat-point bullets splash an entry wound through the skin about the diameter of a nickle, and seem to expand slowly, leaving a wound about the diameter of a quarter, all the way through a deer's chest--or diagonally through this doberman's body cavity. That one dropped instantly, and I slipped a .38 wadcutter (load these only into the chamber of a .357 carbine; they
will jam it badly if you load them in the magazine) behind his ear, then went after his brother.
Apparently the second dog had been behind the first, and that first bullet had enough oomph left to give him a painful belly wound; he was laying in the middle of the trail about a hundred yards on. He raised his head when he saw me, so I shot him carefully through the heart as he lay 80 or 100 yards away. I performed a quick and dirty farmer's autopsy on the dogs, and left them lay. Two days later all the coyotes hadn't eaten were their spines.
The few factory 158-gr JSPs I've chronographed were 200 fps slower than my handloads. That cuts way back on maximum effective range, but they're still useful, even on deer, from the carbines, if you keep that in mind.
I found this link looking for 140-grain softpoints on the internet. 140-grain bullets shoot flatter than any others from a .357 carbine, and can deliver as much energy 150 or even 175 yards downrange as a revolver can at the muzzle. I've never shot a deer beyond about 90 yards with either carbine, and don't necessarily recommend doing so. But a .357 carbine makes the ideal trail gun, and I would like to be able to put venison as well as snowshoe hares, grouse, pikas, whatever, on the fire, in an emergency that justified doing so, from as far away as possible. I am concerned that 140 grain JHPs might over-expand at close range, at carbine velocities, hence my search for JSPs.
A friend who lives in a remote location has a cougar problem. A female and her cubs--and the male that no doubt visits when she's in heat--have devastated the deer herd on the tree farm he caretakes and lets me hunt. One of the cats even threatened two adult human males and a big male Akita from the brush as they walked by on the road recently. I'd like to lend him a moderately-heavy 7mm Mauser, which, to me, hardly kicks enough to notice, but he has a bad shoulder and can't tolerate even that much recoil. No one makes an affordable, hunting- grade bolt-action in 6.5 mm Alexander Arms Grendel yet (but wouldn't that, in an appropriately-sized action, make a sweet little minimum-recoil 300 yard deer rifle!), so the best I can do for him is one of the .357 carbines.
I'd like to make that carbine effective, for him, as far away as possible. The PMC 158-grain JSPs I had on hand only do about 1650 fps, so I told him to keep shots well under 100 yards. But I'd like to see what I could make a 140-grain JSP do. The Hornady LeverEvolution bullet seats too deeply, cutting powder capacity and velocity, to be what I'm looking for. Any other comments/suggestions/loads?
Meanwhile, if those 158 grain JHPs expand and leave a wound channel at least the diameter of a quarter in sopping-wet newsprint, as far away as you're likely to shoot, hunt deer with them. If not, use them for practice. I doubt very much if a couple of boxes of any .357 made in the last 20 years will hurt your K-frame.
One last comment; For deer and (slightly!) larger stuff, the Speer 170-gr Gold Dot SP might be ideal in the carbines. Speer punches a star-shaped hollow cavity in GDSPs, then closes it back up in the final die, so the soft point is pre-weakened to help it expand. Its mass should aid penetration. Anybody have any experience on game with it?
JO, PDX, OR
What is the best use for 158 grain soft point ammo in .357? 
