358156 GC

Creeker

Well-Known Member
A very generous offer, sir.

In my travels across this great land Rex has given me a place to lay my head & food for my belly on more than one occasion. I have fired his handguns & him mine. We are a kindred sort.

This is his 686.
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Rex

Active Member
Lynn isn't showing you the set of Miculek grips he gave me for this piece. He is more than generous.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Carried a 681 for many years on the job. That Smith and factory Remington 158JSP ammo accounted for a lot of coyotes!
 

CZ93X62

Official forum enigma
S&W FINALLY got their ducks in a row concerning "357 Magnum revolvers" c. 1980 with their L-frame platforms. A 4" 681 or 686 does a whole lot of jobs very darn well.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Yupper! They were good guns. Handled like almost like a K frame but had the strength of an N frame. Really nice cop gun.
 

Walks

Well-Known Member
Never owned an L-Frame. But I used to see a lot of 4" M686's offered for resale. Could never figure out why folks gave them up. If they were so great how come folks just sold them ?
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Never owned an L-Frame. But I used to see a lot of 4" M686's offered for resale. Could never figure out why folks gave them up. If they were so great how come folks just sold them ?

Back in the day a lot got sold so the owner could go buy a semi auto 9mm, 40/10mm, 45. And I imagine lots more got sold when Glock got "too cool" not to own. A 681/6 is heavy to carry, it's not a concealment gun. Doesn't mean there's a thing wrong with them, just that people want something different. There used to be gazillions of M10 Smiths and Colt Official Police 4 and 6" 38 Spec guns in the used racks when the 357 got real cool. Wasn't thing wrong with them, someone just wanted more "BOOM!".
 

358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
Never owned an L-Frame. But I used to see a lot of 4" M686's offered for resale. Could never figure out why folks gave them up. If they were so great how come folks just sold them ?
The 357 magnum cartridge hasn't gotten a lot of respect in the outdoors markets. Many hunters consider it either marginal or inadequate for deer hunting, and too powerful for small edible game. It's not a great competition caliber, and many people shy away from revolvers entirely because of their limited capacity for self-defense. Any they're heavier and larger than hi-cap 9mms. And then there's the recoil, and the ear-splitting muzzle blast. Revolvers just finished another renaissance, and seem to be on the decline in popularity. This will undoubtedly recycle again and again, as it has for the last thirty years or so. Compact revolvers in 38 spl class seem to be doing okay right now though, and larger caliber revolvers built primarily for hunting seem the be holding their own, but that's a funny market too. I had a 44 mag Super Redhawk for sale several years back, and a number of people looked at it and lamented that it was too bad it wasn't a larger caliber, suitable for deer!?!
 

Walks

Well-Known Member
The .357Mag doesn't get respect because of It's age. It's been around so long, and enough bigger Cartridges have come along. That I think most folks no longer consider it for much of anything.
I also think the vast majority of .357Mag Revolvers get shot with .38Spl's.
Few people are willing to practice with full power loads at 50-75yrds to get good enough to place a true killing shot.

The larger calibers will give you more margin for error.
 

CZ93X62

Official forum enigma
I would love to see the deer too big to engage with a 44 Magnum. Maybe deer are wearing body armor these days. I put one on the ground with a 586 x 6" in 1984, Speer 146 grain Old-School half-jacket HP. BANG/flop. Seems like it worked that time.

The magnum revolver calibers got some of their teeth pulled by SAAMI along about 1990. The pressure standards were "refined" from the old analog "Copper Units of Pressure" crusher interpretation/inference of 43K CUP to a transducer-derived Pounds per square inch (PSI) rating of 36K PSI. Experts say that the two measurements cannot be objectively compared......OK, I'll buy that. Mass and weight are two different things, too--but they are NOT diametrically-opposed, either.

Gotta inject some common sense into the comparisons along with the lab-coat bloviating. Today's 357 Magnum factory ammo is NOT anything like the Doug Wesson-level stuff that clocked 1450 FPS from 8-3/8" barrels using bullets much like Lyman's #358156. Today's 357 ammo runs with about 15%-20% less power. And that is a good thing, in some respects, given that J-frame S&Ws and repro Winchester 1873s chamber the caliber. At least one SAAMI load (Federal #357B, 125 grain JHP) is not recommended for K-frame 357s.
 

CZ93X62

Official forum enigma
The 357 Magnum's genesis had much to do with law enforcement seeking more powerful ammunition as counter-measures against more mobile crooks that came on scene in the late 1920s and early 1930s via wide acceptance & usage of automobiles. The 38 Special Heavy-Duty loads were meant for penetrating car bodymetal to reach the occupants inside cars that engaged cops in armed battle or were fleeing. "Metal-Piercing" loads in 38 Special and later in 357 Magnum were designed for this purpose. This heavy-load utility was not lost on outdoorsmen--and both Colt and S&W catered to these markets in some depth with their New Service and N-frame (respectively) wares.

But bad things happened when the H-D loads found their way into Colt Police Positive Specials or even S&W M&P in 38 Special. The guns weren't blowing up, but wear and fatigue accelerated markedly. So a case-lengthening occurred in 1935 to the 38 Special and the 357 Magnum was birthed. people still don't read and heed warnings on ammo boxes, and idiot-proofing of this sort just produces more egregiously-unwise idiots--but I digress.
 

Rally

NC Minnesota
I'm one of those that doesn't appreciate the .357 in a revolver. I always thought it makes a better rifle cartridge, and in a Marlin 1894 platform makes more sense to me. It just seems to me, that in a revolver, it's just too much bark and not nearly as effective on deer sized game as the .41, .44 Spl, or .44 mag. It actually makes a pretty good ride along as a "truck gun", or in a scabbard of a 4 wheeler or snomo, for that occasional encounter with a coyote, fox, wolf, or nuisance beaver. I own the .32-20, .357, and .44 mag versions of the 1894, and the .357 has been shot the least probably. The .32-20 is just cute and fun to shoot hunting small game. My .44 has been successful as a starter rifle for at least 6 kids in our family, my youngest grandson just this last fall. I shoot the .357 mainly to just target practice on ornery rocks.
 

Walks

Well-Known Member
I started My own Reloading setup in late 1975, out of the Navy and with My own place. My 1st New .357Mag was a NM Blackhawk. I started out with My Dad's old std .357Mag load of #358156GC over a heavy charge of 2400. I was used to that load as I grew up shooting it in My Dad's M27, M28 Colt .357 and Ruger OM Blackhawk. As a matter of fact I used that same load in His OM Blackhawk to take a Cougar treed by Dogs the year before I got out of H.S. in 1969. Taken Pigs and Deer with the .357Mag.
And more Coyotes and Jacks then I could count.
But the only Revolver I hunted with was a Blackhawk
6 1/2" bbl, either Dad's OM or My NM. I must have shot 10rds out of a Blackhawk for one out of any other.
As Dad said " Beware the Man with One Gun, He knows how to use it".
The Heavy Frame Revolvers could take the Heavy Load, but when I fired it in a newly acquired used M19. BOY HOWDY that was a wake up call. I dropped the charge of 2400 to then current specs from the Lyman 45 or 46, can't remember which. But it was a lighter load.

And still today the max loads are lighter yet.

As far as a Rifle goes. I'd rather carry a .44Mag then a .357Mag. Weight is just about the same.
Just My thoughts.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
I have been looking for a 357 Marlin 94 or Win 92 clone for a lot of years. I have yet to actually see one in the flesh. There's a good sized gun show coming up in a couple weeks up here and I will likely go and look some more. To me, a 357 rifle would be a great tractor/truck gun. I've killed a boat load of car struck deer out to 75 yards or so with a 357 Smith and rarely had a problem that wasn't a problem I would have had with a 35 Whelen too. I'm not much of a deer hunter (long story, really bad experiences in my youth) but I can't imagine a rifle is going to do any worse than a revolver and I wouldn't hesitate to take a good shot out to 75 yds or so with a 357 and adequate loads. If anything my eye sight is much more of a limiting factor than the "inadequate" 357.

I agree that the 357 doesn't get the respect it deserves. It's proven itself to me. Yeah, a 44 Spec/Mag or 45 Colt is more of the same, but I wouldn't feel undergunned in any scenario in the lower 48 I can think of out in the woods or in whatever urban jungle I might possibly enter with a 357. But lets face it, these days rounds like the 30-30, 35 Rem, 257 Roberts, 7x57, etc are not even considered good enough for deer. You need something Roy Weatherby might have recommended for Lion or Cape Buffalo to even knock over your average 140 lbs Whitetail these days. Must be climate change.....
 
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