357 magnum for deer?

O

old fart

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i have myself selling several guns lately and one was my deer rifle. i have been trying to figure out how to get another cheaper gun and ammo. i came up with the nef 357 magnum, i've owned nef's in the past and they have been good guns. since i have a 357 magnum revolver a 357 rifle makes sense to me as i can just get one kind of ammo and save money. i hunt in kentucky woods where my shots will be 100yds or less. so will a 357 magnum be a good whitetail deer gun at 100yds or less? thanks
 
A 357 mag. is marginal at fifty yards, a well placed hit at 100 yards iffy.
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Depends on the shooter, not the caliber.
A 357mag is more than capable of killing deer at the distances you are suggesting. Like any caliber of gun, shot placement is key to doing this in a clean and humane manner. If using a handgun limit your shots to the distances you are competant at. I have personally harvested over 50 whitetail with the 357mag. Almost all were with a revolver and a half dozen with a Marlin lever action. I have never lost a deer with this caliber but I have never had a bad hit with it either. If you can kill a deer with a bow and arrow (which is very doable) you can do it with a 357mag. Stay away from the lighter bullets. I'd suggest 158 to 180 grain bullets.
 
It is a simple matter to run a reamer into a Handi Rifle in .357 to turn it into a .357 Maximum. Same bullets, same powders, same primers. Different cases of course. Different ballistics as well. Much improved. Drive a 158 grain or 180 grain .357 slug a the velocities you will get with a rifle barrel in that caliber and you have a deer killer for sure. Inexpensive and quite a bit of component commonality.
 
common topic

We knock this around quite a bit.

Although a .357 carbine would be on the low end of choices for me as a deer rifle, I have no doubt that the correct bullet, applied correctly, would easily take a whitetail. Deer with a .357 carbine is not a stunt or as difficult as a bow or handgun, and I cannot come across as condeming it.

As advised, I'd stay with 158 or 180's, and I'd be prepared NOT to shoot on certain angles, or distances over 100, or any other distance you cannot reliably hit a kill zone size targer, say a 9" pie plate from field positions.

I carry my little Marlin on occasion, but a shot has never presented.
 
Out of my 30-30 Marlin a cast bullet (Lyman 311041 bullet cast with air cooled wheel weights is 175 grains) launches at about 2000 fps
KE=1563 ft-lbs and Momentum is 1.56 Slug-ft/sec

For grins/giggles I ran my pet boar hunting .357 revolver load through my friends Rossi lever action. Out of a 5" revolver the 185 grain LFN hits 1250fps It gets about 1800 from the Rossi
KE=1338 ft-lbs Momentum is 1.49 slug-ft/sec

I'm comfortable with the 30-30 out to about 200 yards on mule deer. The .357 I've taken a 200lb wild pig (sow) broadside at 50 yards. I'd feel pretty comfortable with a broadside or quartering shot out to 100 yards with a .357 mag rifle with this loading.
 
No respectable Wisconsin 200+ lb. (field dressed) buck is going down easily when shot with a .357 mag. Not unless you're 25 feet away and shoot it in the head.
 
As WB points out, kinda depends upon the deer in question a bit, don't it?

I drove through Maryland/coastal Virginia and saw some animals I did not recognize as deer at first, due to their size- I've seen larger German Shepherds .....

Dunno what size the deer are in your locale, but I have seen deer in western Nebraska take solid hits to the chest from various calibers (.243, .270, .30/30 at 100 yards..... go down and get back up..... true, they did not go far, but if they had been hit with a lesser cartridge, say a pistol bullet out of a carbine ...... "Use enough gun." .....
 
No respectable Wisconsin 200+ lb. (field dressed) buck is going down easily when shot with a .357 mag. Not unless you're 25 feet away and shoot it in the head.
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Do you speak from experience? How many have you shot with the 357 mag to verify that statement?
 
A 125gr bullet out of a 20" barrel does about 2100fps with the right powders.
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...... but due to it's abysmal BC, it's lost 1/4 of it's velocity and almost half it's energy (down to less than 800 footlbs) at 100 yards.... beyond that it gets worse fast..... with it's poor sectional density, you are probably not going to see an exit wound, and there won't be much of a blood trail ..... 800 ft/lbs won't make for a lot of hydrostatic shock ..... you'll be tracking him ...... hope you're up to that.
 
Do you speak from experience? How many have you shot with the 357 mag to verify that statement?
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Me?

Zero. .357 out of a carbine would not be legal for deer in my state .... and I would not try it if it were. YMMV.
 
I've never gone along with the same ammo for my rifle and handgun scenario....To me..they are 2 different tools for 2 different purposes....
30-30 ammo is cheap....It would be a better 100 yrd gun....I would hate for a really good buck to come past at 100 to 150 yrds and I only had a 357....
With a 30-30..he would be toast....my 2 cents....
 
100 yards with a 357 rifle works just fine. Stay away from the standard HP's and load 158 grain or heavier XTP's or SP's. I do mean load them yourself with LiL' Gun, H110 or something like that.

I've picked the meat from 5 deer out of my teeth from a 357, and out to a little past 100 yards. I use a 173 grain cast GC bullet, but they don't make that mold anymore. I've seen the heavy XTP's, Gold Dots and plain SP's work well
 
It will work fine. The 357 mag revolver was used to take every North American big game. The 357 Mag rifle will work even better. Buffalo bore is making heavy 357 mag rounds that are more potent then a 30/30. If you run into one of those Wisconsin deer just use a hardcast or SP round and I'm sure you'll be able to at least wound it.
 
The 357 uses about 13 grains of powder. The 30-30 uses around 34 grains.
This is a very rough thumbnail comparison, but it should give you the picture.
The 30-30 is simply more gun.

Go back and look at BB's 357 and their 30-30 ballistics....
 
The 357 should work fine as long as you keep it under 100 yds. My ex used to use hers for deer hunting and still does to my knowledge. Hers is a SS Blackhawk with a super lower and 7 1/2" barrel. She uses Sierra 158 gr JHP packed with W296.

Even though you will be using a rifle instead of a pistol and you will have a velocity gain, remember that it is a pistol cartridge and it would be an excellent idea to keep the distance short.
 
Just because a .357 has killed deer and has killed people and every other animal on the planet does not make it a good deer round. Sure, it will put a hole in a deer but unless you drill right into the major organs, and I do mean right into them, there's not going to be enough bleeding to kill one quickly.

I can drill the kill zones 100% of the time at 100 yards, and I still wouldn't hunt a deer with a .357 rifle, especially a single shot that doesn't allow me a follow up shot to a wounded animal.
 
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