Anyone have a good load for a 357-44 Bains Davis? Nothing i have tried so far is working very well.I have been using Hornady 158gr XTP and Sierra 158 gr soft point with W296,AA1680.Any ideas out there?Thanks.

May I ask.... what's "not working very well" to you? How bad?

Ok... I have no magic loads for you really. My 357/44 has never been a tack driver either, but I've never asked it to be. Best groups ever were from Remington 150 PSP they don't make anymore. Would give one hole groups at 25 yards. With "normal" pistol bullets it never came anywhere near that. I always wonderd why that was... they were .358" so they fit the bore tighter? they had a very short bearing surface and didn't need a real fast twist.. 357/44 is pushing the same bullets 4-700 fps faster than the round it was originaly set up for... manybe it's a stabilization issue? That's why the short stubby bullets shot so well? Those same bullets wouldn't shoot at all in my 358djdj (35 rem rechamber) I don't know.

One thing I learned, trying to set the bullets out close to the lands, and gain case space DID NOT HELP me... gained no spped and accuracy went down. May just be my barrel though.

99% of my loads have been with W296 and Remington or Noslar bullets.

Well I just bought a .357-44 Bain & Davis barrel myself (not sure why), so I am watching this thread with interest. Does anyone have a .357-44 that does shoot accurately? I'm debating now whether to try to search out a set of dies or pass the barrel on. Does anyone have a good used .357-44 die set they would sell reasonably??
Thanks, Mike

As I said in the other thread, I really don't know what my barrel can do. I have an old 10" 357mag barrel that I had Bain and Davis rechamber. 95% of the shooting I've done with it has been with open sights or dot sights. I used it as a woods hunting round where my shots would be 25-75 yards, so super accurate loads weren't needed. So I never botherd to try and find any. For that easy task (deer vitals @ 25-75 yards) I was willing to give up some accuracey for some added FPS.

So I'm not saying mine won't shoot tight groups... I just never botherd to find out.

Cas, I tried to send you an e-mail with some load data but your e-mail address came back unknown both times.

[ 11-12-2002, 00:47: Message edited by: Steve E. ]

Ok.... never updated it. Well... my 357/44 barrel is laying sightless and jobless at the moment....

cas

Did you hunt using the 150 Remington?
Sucessful?
How did it perform?

Any idea of velocities with the B&D.

Capacity seems close to the 357 Max so velocities obtained should be comparable.

LouisB

I hunted with them one season. I watched a doe @ 50 yards for 45 mintes one day but didn't shoot.
I did test them in our homemade hair-on deer hind, play-doh, bones and soaked phone books medium... expanded a lot at the impact velocity of 2050-2100fp but stayed together and still pentrated pretty good. I was more worried about them coming apart, than not expanding.

[ 11-12-2002, 09:05: Message edited by: cas ]

Why is it when I edit a message it just makes a new copy of it rather than changing the old?

[ 11-13-2002, 02:20: Message edited by: cas ]