180 grain 357 cast bullets

When loading heavy .357 slugs for lever guns, you must pay attention to the over all loaded length. And, you need to pay more attention to what your rifle says than what the books or websites say about the length.

The heavy .357 bullets are long, relatively speaking and what works ok in a revolver cylinder MIGHT not work ok feeding from a carbine's magazine tube on to the lifter(carrier) and into the chamber.

Long ago, friend of mine gave me a box of 210gr LRN .38 bullets. He had gotten them to use in his Marlin carbine. I no longer recall what they measured (or even if I did measure them) loaded "to the groove", but they look long. He loaded I think 5 rounds, then "got smart" and decided to test them through the action before loading up the rest.

He put 2 rounds in the tube and worked the action. It froze, and he brought me the rifle to help him take it apart. I did, got the ammo out, and put it back together, the gun was fine, but those rounds were too long to feed. So he gave me the slugs he hadn't loaded. They'll work single loaded into the chamber, they worked in revolvers and in my T/C single shot, but not from the lever guns magazine.

SO, when you get some 180 cast stuff, I would recommend you only buy the minimum amount and do some loading and testing to see if they're ok for your gun and what you want to use them for, and IF they are, then buy in quantity. They aren't all the same, and different rifles can be different about what they'll run and what they won't. Marlin .357s (in my experience) are picky. I don't know about Winchesters (or copies of Win designs), never had one.

Good Luck! Hope you find what you want.
 
...And try to buy a stubby shape that holds nose projection down to SAAMI maximum COL. One warning on this point is that a 38 Special case is shorter than 38 Special COL by 0.405", while a 357 Magnum case is shorter than 357 Magnum COL by just 0.300". This means a bullet with a crimp groove meant to produce max COL in a 38 Special will stick out 0.105" beyond SAAMI max COL when crimped into a 357 Magnum case. For that reason, it may not feed in your gun. You want to buy bullets whose crimp groove is no more than 0.300" below the tip to roll SAAMI Max COL 357 Mag cartridges. Whether the Rossi 92 can work with the extra 0.104" of length, I don't know. You might want to contact Rossi CS and ask. You can also remove the magazine tube and spring and plunger and, with the action closed (you DID CHECK THAT IT WAS CLEAR FIRST!), drop a 1.695" length of 5/16" dowel down the tube to see if the lifter can raise it. If so, you can ignore which cartridge the bullet's crimp groove was designed for, but if not, you'll need to buy 357 Mag-specific bullets for 357 Mag cases.
 
I've loaded Cast Performance 180s for my GP-100. COL 1.59 with the crimp groove properly positioned. Should work for your rifle.
 
I'm not at my loading bench so I can't tell you which recipe and COAL I used for the 180s I have but they function well in the 93.


For a bullet source, BallardW suggested Oregon Trail Bullets. I found them on the net with an 800 number. The number is for a company selling medical emergency alerts. I paged to check out and didn't find a different number.

Anyone have a good number?

Does anyone have specs for the 180 grain lead bullet from Oregon?
 
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