what is the better choice for 357 magnum in a 4"
barrel H110 or lil gun behind a 158 hornady XTP?
greetings from germany!

Lil' Gun. I use it almost exclusively now for heavy loads in the .357, .44 Mag, and .45 Colt. You can get about the same velocity with less pressure than you'll get with H110 or WW296.

Andy

In a rifle, either powder produces the same velocity at the same pressure (verified with a strain gage).

In a 2 5/8" revolver, you can't stuff enough Lil Gun in the case to match normal H110/WW296 velocities.

I haven't tried it in a 4".

The Hodgdon data for Lil Gun in the 357 is totally bogus and should not be taken seriously. They still use a CUP gun for the 357 and their data is very suspicious.

H110/WW296 is never a bad choice.

I agree, H110 and 296 for top loads.

I prefer Lil-gun for the lighter bullets in magnum revolver loadings, and H-110 for the heavy for caliber bullets. 2400 is another excellent powder in the 357 with the lighter bullets.

I agree with adrook I use Lilgun for most everything. I get more or same FPS over H110 with less stress on my gun. I plan on buying only lilgun and never H110 as I found a better way. YMMV

Best of luck

Brian

Mu mileage varies considerably. I found Lil'Gun to be very slow and I will stick with my 296.

I use H110/W296 in my 45lc, 454 casull & SW460 mag Encores

I like BlueDot for the 357 mag. I've got higher velocities with less muzzle blast and lower recoil than 296 loads.
I haven't shot any in a rifle, only 4" GP-100 and 6.5" OM Blackhawk.

never tried little gun but absolutly love h110 in my 45 colt

Like Ms. Hitman Rob, I prefer 296. H110 is, of course, it's functional equivalent. It will only take 450 rounds or so to shoot up a pound; try one or the other, compared to Li'l Gun, then make up your mind.

A buddy and I were talking about Li'l Gun and 2400 in .44 mags. He said that Li'l Gun burns alot cleaner than the 2400 that I use.

Any opinion on that?

Be careful with H110, when I first bought my 44mag I looked for the lowest velocity load for a 240 JHP. I found one in one of the early Speer reloading manuals which I used to load 50 rounds. At the range I had near disastrous results, one time on the sixth shot I locked up the gun with a jacket separation lodged in the forcing cone...no problem cleared it then all of a sudeen I got a funny report with a lot of smoke from the between the revolver and barrel. I stopped and looked at it and I had a bullet lodged mid way down the 6 inch barrel

I wrote letters to the following manufacturers, winchecter (primer mfg), speer (bullet) and the powder mfg. I explained to them what I experienced and their replies in a nut shell was as follows
Winchester....primer either works or don't work it never half works...not their fault.
Speer..I miked the the bullets and they had a somewhat larger diameter than published they say within specifications...not their problem

H110....all previous data is obsolete when new reloading data has been published therefor I was at fault using outdated reloading info
I latter found out that 110 is very sensitive propellant only meant for max loads, as I recall most manuals state reduce load data by 10% and work up, H110 states donot reduce loads by no more than 2%


for what its worth
Either way I started a bon fire with the 110 and it worked fine-

That is correct. H110 and 296 are the same powders with a slight difference in burn rates specified by WW and Hodgden. Never go under minimum listed charges. Some people think you can reduce loads with H110 but not 296---NOT!
Hodgdens early info said you could.

I used the starting load data from a speer #7 manual seems to me the compant may have altered the burn rate, I since got rid of all my old reloading books so I don't recall the grains of powder although if anyone is interested I keep records of everyround I load in a master reloadingbook so I will have it.
I do not screw around with loads I follow them, I rarely use max loads since I never seen the need for them. Just be careful of older receipes and other people's favorites

I use only H110 in all Magnum loadings and have found that it burns the cleanest and with the best accuracy if the bullet is seated to just start to compress the powder.

That being said since I usually shoot 125 grain bullets from a .357 Magnum I have found that Blue Dot gets the same velocity without all the muzzle blast/flash.

Bob Makowski

110........

'Lil gun, same veocities, less pressure.