357sig vs 357mag

[frigate88]

ok.. i think i got it now.

So i wasnt exactly sure on the ballistics of the 2 bullets before i started this thread, but i think i understand it now. heres a recap on what i have read.

If you shoot a 125gr of each through a 4" barrel the ballistics are going to be pretty much the same. but once you change the barrel length to a longer one the sig round becomes obsolete.

if youre going to shoot out at a 100 yds the sig rounds wont do anything really as compared to sending a magnum load down range at a 100yds.

if youre going to carry a 357 as a self defence round it is better to carry the auto seeing that you have 13 or so rounds at your finger tips as compared to a revolver only carrying a max of 8. if you want to magum 8 shot youre going to have a lot more harder of a time concealing it then an auto.

if youre taking 100yd shots with these rounds other then just fun plinking purposes and planning on dropping something, from what im seeing its better to carry the magnum because the sig isnt capable of doing so.

IMO im pretty sure that a sig round is perfectly capable of stopping a bad guy in his tracks even out to far distances. if youre one of those guys who disagrees with that, you might as well put yourself in the same class with the other guys who say that a .22 and a .25 will just **** someone off if you shoot them with it. as far as a protection load for animals while hunting its pretty much going to fall on shot placement with any round. i have a ruger blackhawk .357 mag that i carry as an anti pig gun while im hunting and have hit 250lb pigs with a perfect heart or lung shot with a 180gr round loaded hot. and i mean hot, and these big pigs still can cover a little ground beofore theyre bled out. so even sometimes the famous 357mag has a little trouble getting some jobs done. in the end, id say that both are doing what they were designed to do, and both do them well.

happy shooting!

 

[insaneranger]

Shoot What You Like

Wow, didn't think I was going to start a 357 war when I started this thread.

+1 From some of the defensive posts, it sounds like a lot of the .357 mag guys were affraid of being castrated by the SIG round. A few even went "cave man" & started beating their chests and bragging about 100 yard bad guy shots. It's funny....

 

[Nitesites]

Maybe, maybe not. The .357 Mag has been around for a good long while now and isn't going anywhere too soon. It's earned it's spot in history as a very proficient and versatile round. It's definitely a champ. The 357 SIG is a newcomer and most view it a as a challenger but I don't see it that way.

The SIG is very deliberate in it's purpose in that it is a combat round. With further development, it may eventually lend itself as a utility load in one form or another but that remains to be seen. For now though, the SIG is straight up combat. A fighting cartridge with no fat to cut off. From conception, the idea was for this to be a combat round. This is where I see most who argue against it miss the boat.

 

[cole k]

Yep, not muck dif at all between a .357 Sig or a .357 Mag!
So, shoot what you like and don't worry about it.

Buffalo Bore

Heavy 357 Sig. Low Flash Pistol and Handgun Ammo;
125 gr. Jacketed Hollow Point (1,425 fps/M.E. 564 ft. lbs.)

Tactical Short Barrel Lower Recoil Low Flash 357 Magnum Ammo;
125 gr. Jacketed Hollow Point (1,445 fps/M.E. 579 ft. lbs.)

9mm Luger +P+ Pistol and Handgun Ammo - (+P+);
124 gr. Jacketed Hollow Point (1,300 fps/M.E. 461 ft. lbs.)

 

[Webleymkv]

Quote:
...... Also, while 1450fps was the approximate velocity of older 125gr .357 Magnum loads, it is nowhere near the top end of velocity for that bullet weight in that cartridge....
Nor is it close to the bottom. Some 4" revolvers carried by LE produced less than 1400 fps. with the 125 gr. bullet. And some produced more.

My P229 produces 1400 fps with CorBon and Speer 125 gr. HP's
Federal is less @ about 1376.

My P226 produced velocities more typical of police revolvers at about 1450 fps.

Velocity variations of up to 100fps between one gun and another aren't particularly uncommon, but a velocity difference of 100fps or less won't have much effect on the terminal performance of most bullets. Assuming the same bullet type, I very much doubt that anything shot would be able to tell the difference between 1350fps and 1450fps.

My point, however, is that the .357 Magnum is an old cartridge that is commonly loaded well below its full potential with modern firearms and components while .357 Sig is a relatively new cartridge that is pretty well maxed out the way it is.

Something else to consider, is that the 125 gr. revolver bullets tended to shed their jackets. Nobody complained about the magnum's stopping ability.

Of course, if a bullet shed it's jacket today, it would be denounced as completely unacceptable. We all have to have ammo that perforates any barrier we might encounter and hold together at any cost.

CorBon's 125 gr. .357 SIG performs similar to that with the 125 gr. Sierra bullet or Nosler. Good grief, it can shed it's jacket and maybe even produce some small fragments while stopping Bubba in his tracks. Times have changed.

All other .357 SIG bullets were designed to hold together no matter what---that's what LE wanted and that's what they got.

You bring up an interesting point about fragmentation. I personally don't view fragmentation as necessarily being a bad thing as long as it doesn't come at the expense of sufficient penetration. Moderate fragmentation while maintaining adequate penetration is exactly what the old 125gr .357 Magnum loadings did and seems to be what the Cor-Bon .357 Sig loading you mentioned does as well. The Sierra bullet used by Cor-Bon seems to be somewhat unique as both the 125gr .357 Sig loading and the Cor-Bon 125gr 9mm loading which performs very similarly seem to be the only two loadings in those calibers than can both fragment and penetrate. This leads me to believe that, while obviously not impossible, that type of performance is still relatively difficult to duplicate with a fully jacketed bullet.

The SJHP used in the older .357 Magnum loads differed from many other JHP designs in more ways than just the length of the jacket. If you ever get the chance to examine one that has separated from the core, you'll notice that the jacket is relatively thin and comprises a fairly small portion of the bullet's weight. Really, I kind of think of it as more of an extended gas check than a jacket as it seems to be just long and thick enough to prevent the soft lead bullet from leading the barrel.

The fragmentation characteristics of this particular bullet are not unique to the 125gr weight either, in my own informal testing I've found that 158gr SJHP .357 Magnum loadings as well as 240gr SJHP .44 Magnum loadings fragment similarly but penetrate deeper.

As for the reason that fragmentation is looked upon in such an unfavorable light, I think it has a lot to do with the timing of studies on bullet effectiveness. Probably the work which is relied upon the most when choosing handgun ammunition is that of the FBI which, in turn, is based heavily on the work of Martin Fackler. These studies were done in the late 80's and early 90's when .357 Magnum (and revolvers in general) were quickly falling out of favor for police work but before .357 Sig was on the scene. At that time, the semi-auto bullets that did fragment significantly also displayed lackluster penetration and, as such, were deemed undesirable. If we look at Dr. Fackler's work on centerfire rifles, however, we see that he found that fragmentation coupled with adequate penetration actually increases a bullet's wounding potential greatly rather than working to its detriment. Unfortunately, semi-auto bullets of the time couldn't deliver this and magnum revolvers weren't studied as intensely because they were dropping in popularity.

Over time, the conclusions of Dr. Fackler and the FBI were oversimplified and people began to believe that any fragmentation at all was undesirable without truly understanding why. Many people, it seems, don't want to have to understand everything that's involved but rather want a simple recommendation of x amount of expansion with y amount of penetration and z% weight retention. Simply put, numbers are easier for most people to comprehend even though they often don't tell the whole story. The 125gr .357 Magnum, and by extension the 125gr Cor-Bon .357 Sig and 9mm loadings, are often misunderstood as a result of this. It is worthy of note that I've never been able to find a quote of Dr. Fackler, the FBI, or any other authoritative source describing the performance of the 125gr .357 Magnum loadings as inadequate or undesirable.

 

[mssurrey]

I own both. A Ruger Gp100 in the venerable 357mag. Also, I recently started cc'ing an M&P 357sig compact and love it.

However, as the old saying I wouldn't want to be in front of one (or either) of those being shot at!

 

[sam colt]

357 sig vs. 357mag

The 357 sig is the answer to a question that nobody asked.

 

[Hook686]

No. The 357 magnum is better in everyway. Except in capacity.

hmmmm depends upon the platform. The Desert Eagle XIX holds ten .357 magnum in the magazine and one in the chamber. That matches some Glocks.

 

[arentol]

People always forget size. If you are comparing these guns for Carrying purposes, which makes the most sense, a .357 magnum with a 2.5" barrel is about the same overall size as a .357sig with a 4" barrel. So when you compare power on that basis suddenly .357sig looks a lot better and is more powerful than .357 magnum, even in slightly heavier loads like 147gr.

That being said, .357sig is still a pointless round thanks to 10mm which already did what .357sig was trying to do, and more. Heck, since .357sig is necked down from .40 it doesn't even let you load more in a gun than you can with 10mm.

As for .357 magnum vs 10mm, 10mm lets you carry more rounds and gives the same extra 1.5" or so barrel length advantage as I mentioned earlier for .357sig. From a pure power standpoint 10mm, when loaded properly, is definitely superior to .357 magnum. Now if only it would become as popular as it should be so ammo prices would drop a bit.

 

[GlockedNLoded32]

I carry a Glock 32 chambered in the .357 sig round and i love everything about it despite what everyone else says but everyone is entitled to their own opinion

 

[silvermane_1]

i have a 357sig for sd, want a 357 rem mag for wheelgun, but also have 44 rem mag wheelgun, and 45 win mag semiauto, but i think thats another caliber war right there.