2" .357 Powder/Bullet Combination?

[choprzrul]

Considering CCW with my 2" sp101. What is the fastest burning powder that I can safely use? Do lighter (110gr) or heavier (158gr) bullets help promote rapid and complete powder burn?

I realize that 2" isn't a lot of room to get a complete burn, but I would like to keep muzzle flash to a minimum.

I realize that handloads might bring legal questions in a self defense scenario, but I believe those questions are negated by a complete lack of factory ammo tailored specifically to snub nose applications (at least a lack of which I know about). Severe muzzle flash obscuring your target creates an unsafe situation, thus the need for handloading

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[21SF]

Speer makes Golddots for short barrels? IIRC

[choprzrul]

http://le.atk.com/general/speerproducts/handgun/golddotshortbarrel.aspx

They are getting 990 fps out of that 357 load. Is it just me, or does that seem a bit slow?

.

[Homebrew2]

A bit slow in general for a 357 or, a bit slow for a 357 2" bbl ?

http://le.atk.com/general/speerprodu...ortbarrel.aspx

They are getting 990 fps out of that 357 load. Is it just me, or does that seem a bit slow?

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[GeoffLinder]

Considering CCW with my 2" sp101. What is the fastest burning powder that I can safely use? Do lighter (110gr) or heavier (158gr) bullets help promote rapid and complete powder burn?

I realize that 2" isn't a lot of room to get a complete burn, but I would like to keep muzzle flash to a minimum.

I realize that handloads might bring legal questions in a self defense scenario, but I believe those questions are negated by a complete lack of factory ammo tailored specifically to snub nose applications (at least a lack of which I know about). Severe muzzle flash obscuring your target creates an unsafe situation, thus the need for handloading

.

I wouldn't be too sure about that rationale working in your favor when you are up against the wall in court. Any good prosecutor would have no trouble making a jury believe your hand-loads were actually all about increasing the lethality of the ammo no matter what you say in rebuttal. All of this type of stuff goes towards "intent" when a good lawyer is arguing the case against you. IMHO, factory fodder with names like SilverTip and so on are always the better choice for defense here in the great state of CA

[choprzrul]

Agreed on the lawyer stuff; let's just assume that I will be carrying the GoldDots on a daily basis.

This leads back to my original question parameters for practice ammo as I will want to closely mimik the factory stuff. He is what I am thinking: AA#2, 158gr projectile, and a heavy crimp. Start the charge weight at the minimum and watch carefully for bad juju.

My thought process is to use a very fast powder, heavy bullet, and a heavy crimp. The crimp will hold the bullet in place longer, and the heavy bullet will be moving slower. Hopefully these two will combine to give the powder enough time to fully burn before exiting the barrel. I suspect that Speer pulled back their charge weight until they had acceptable levels of muzzle flash. This would at least partially explain the 990fps. From what I have been reading, a 357 will lose 25-35fps per 1" of shorter barrel. So, a 1200fps load out of a 6" bbl will be 1060-1100 out of a 2".

Is my reasoning way offbase, not withstanding the legal crap?

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[AJD]

You're not going to get anywhere close to .357 mag performance with AA#2. You'll be lucky if you see 900fps, especially out of a 2" bbl. If that's the case just use factory .38special +p. Not to mention the bullets designed for .357mag won't expand at those velocity levels.

For practice ammo that will be a fine load. As far as duplicating factory ammo, that may or may not be likely. Ammo companies often use special blends of powders, and can taylor the load for less flash.

[Cowboy T]

Personally, I wouldn't even be using .357M ammo out of a 2" barrel. Yes, I know, an SP can take it, that's not the issue, it's the barrel length. I'd go for factory .38 Spl +P and then tailor my handloads to that ammo's performance. Matter of fact, that's exactly what I do.

For this purpose, I find ye olde classic Bullseye is a mighty fine choice. I absolutely love it for .38 Spl, from "powder-puff" to "slightly above +P" loads (for true .357M loads, I use 2400). WW231 and Titegroup are two other very good ones for this application.

[sigsr]

Some information about ballistics.

.38 special ballistics

http://ballisticsbytheinch.com/38special.html

.357 ballistics

http://ballisticsbytheinch.com/357mag.html

And then a write up about the difference. Snubnose Files has excellent information regarding snubnoses.

http://www.snubnose.info/docs/38-snub_vs_357-snub.htm

[T-Bear]

Anybody using 296 as a powder for the snub?
I was thinking of using for the time being for 125gr XTP