Max For Deer?

R

roy reali

New member
Some years back I had a New England Handi-Rifle in .357 magnum rechambered to .357 Maximum. It is one handy little rifle. I shoot specials, magnums, and maximums out of it. I am thinking about using it for deer this season.

Any thoughts about using a .357 maximum out of a rifle for deer.

By the way, I do reload.
 
That gun will be juuuust fine...

If you hit em in the right spot you wont waste a bite of meat. A lot of Kodiak hunters shoot little bitty Blacktail Deer with cartridges as big as .416 rigby:eek: I've killed Mule Deer in Wyoming using a 444 Marlin and Hornady 265 gr. bullets with excellent results. My blacktail gun will either be my 45-70; this particular gun has already killed two with little meat wasted (one hit wasn't perfect) or my .338 RUM... That is, when I make it to Kodiak myself.

With the moderate velocity of any cartridge you put in your gun (compared to a high velocity 270 or something) you should kill with authority without any huge explosions of meat.
 
I read this story from another post on the Firing Line: http://357maximum.com/the-357-maximum-rifle-in-the-field/
My favorite rifle is my 357 1894C lever. I have a single stage reloading press and the 38/357 cartridges are the fastest/easiest for me to reload. This year I purchased a TC Encore 12 guage for turkey hunting - I hate the recoil but love the low weight and short length. After reading the above article, I wanted to get a 357 maximum barrel for the TC. The barrel is a backorder item from Midway - October 2009.
 
Plenty.

Deer are not that hard to kill, except the green, glow in the dark ones that live near nuke plants. A lot of guys talk about hunting those alot, I think. For those, you need WSM this or Magnum that, and always at least 1500 ft/lbs if energy but, for regular deer, like the kind my grandfather hunted, just about anything that will poke a whole will do fine.
 
Ballistic Jump?

I have several reloading manuals. I do realize that the figures in them are ballpark, at best. But I did notice something interesting.

They do have reloading data in both the rifle and handgun sections for the .357 and .44 magnum. With the same loads, there is a significant velocity jump going from a handgun to a long gun. There is .357 maximum data in the hadguns sections but not in the rifle sections. I am thinking that any similar velocity increase for this cartridge would make for an impressive round.

Now I need to figure out what type of projectile to use.
 
From what I've read and what the guys shooting the Max over on Specialty Pistol forums it is hard to beat the Horandy 180 grain single shot pistol bullet for hunting.
 
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