Penetration tests for the heavy 357 magnum rounds?

L

Lambdebois

New member
I see tests for 44 mags and on up everywhere.

I have yet to see tests done showing penetration of rounds like the buffalo bore 180 gr lfn-gc or double tap 180gr and 200gr rounds.
Mike Mcnett told me that he has found his 200gr load penetrates about 10% more than his 180gr load.

Does anyone know where I might find some data on these heavy hitters?

BTW- If anyone in Colorado has a 44 or any other guns they are interested in testing penetration on....... maybe we could arrange a gathering and come up with some things and do some tests first hand. Sounds fun to me.
 
No, I don't know where you can find data on that, but experience tells me that my 180 grain handload traveling at 1200 fps will punch through any reasonable target. It'll ventilate a deer lengthwise.
 
If that 180 is hard cast it will have impressive penetration !!
Speer used to make a 3/4 jacket swchp [225 gr] and a swcsp[240 gr] for the 44 and IIRC also for then 41 and 357. They were very accurate and due to the 1.5% antimony core they really penetrated . The only recovered bullet for my 44 225 swchp penetrated through almost 30" of deer !!:D
Bullet construction makes a world of difference !
Today for penetration in large animals Speer 'Deep Curl', Barnes all copper, and Swift A-frame all give excellent performance capable of deep penetration with expantion.
 
the problem with full .357mag loads is they penetrate big time. Even with my tests with 158gr Federal, the rounds go right through 15" wetnewspaper, right through 6 water jugs, and those that do gel tests I'm sure don't stop the bullet. (Lower velocity loads do stop, but the subject here are full loads with velocities 1400fps and up)
The only media I've found that works is a "dirt pak". Some boxes filled with damp (not muddy) black, garden soil. Takes about 20" and will get expansion even with my Fed AmerEagle 158gr SJSP which has a big metplat. Velocity from my Ruger Blackhawk 6 1/2" barrel reaches 1490fps.
I said that was the problem....a very good problem!!

og
 
Well today I took a group of friends that all were interested in shooting but never do. One had never shot a gun before also. As most of you I get just as much satisfaction watch others shoot and having fun as shooting myself in ways. They all got to play with a bolt action 30-06, an ak/s, and then my glock 32 and my s&w 4" 686. Which now brings me to the point of my post.
I got to shoot the two handguns into some layers of white oak we slapped together. It was a 2x4 that we cut and made three layers thick. My friend is a carpenter and though it would defenately stop the rounds from my handguns. I took his word but he had virtually no experiance with handguns and I had shot other types of wood so I had doubts to say the least. After leaving his wood shop... We were off...

The ammo shot was 1 round of each. ( sorry we were short on wood and we wanted to shoot it with several types of ammo.

The ammo used was
357 mag
1. Buffalo bore 180gr Lfn-gc
2. Double tap 200gr Lfn-gc
3. Sellot and bellot 158gr sp

357 Sig
1. WWB 125gr fmj
2. Buffalo bore 125 gr fmj-fp
3. Double tap 147 gr fmj-fp

It's late and I will have to pull the bullets out of the wood tomorrow to look and measure penetration as well as measure retained weight if any fragmented or separated. But I can say to my surprise... None made it through three layers of white oak 2x4. I even started with the glock and ended with the heavy 357 mag loads....

Lesson learned so far:
4.5"s of White oak sure would make a good barrier for cover against anything up to a 357 mag.

I'll post what I find when I break it apart to find the bullets and how far they penetrated tomorrow.
 
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Will it penetrate both shoulders of a boar?
Click to expand...

Depends on how thick his shield is. I've seen the shields on some big tough old boars that are would definately keep it inside the body cavity.
 
I haven't shot any Buffalo Arms ammo so I can't say for sure, but from what I understand, BAs uses hard cast bullets.

I don't.

We can assume that a hard cast bullet will out penitrate a soft or moderate cast bullets.

I use wheel weights or wheel weights mixed with range lead. In a 150 grn SWC I can tell you my bullets will penitrate the frontal skull of a buffalo (if you get below the horns) and moose don't have bones that it will not penitrate.

My shooting of the above critters was out of a 4 inch Model 28.

Note: The same bullet, based on personal experience, will crash through the front of and out the back of a horse's skull when fired out of a 2 in model 642 @ 750 FPS. (it was what was available when I had to put down the horse).

I would find it hard to believe the hard cast Buffalo Arms ammo wouldn't out penitrate my medium hard cast, lighter bullets.

Now if we could come up with a reason for that much more penitration I'd like to know about it.
 
I love my 357's they are great carry guns and I love going to the range with them. I haven't had to put down anything that I wasn't hunting so far with them so I'm not sure as to their penetrating power. I did have to put down one of my cats that developed renal failure and was starving herself to death. I used my Bersa 22 Firestorm with a round to the base of the skull to put my kitty out of her misery. The 22 penetrated thru her skull completely and she only kicked twice, but I cried for half an hour over the lose of her as she was my favorite. So I'm saying that if a 22 will penetrate completely thru her skull from being placed against the back of her head, a 357 should penetrate a horses skull easily at what ever distance it was fired from.
 
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The .357 180 and .200 grain bullets have Secctional density figures that approach and even surpass some rifle bullets.

hard cast heavy full power .357 bullets will penetrate better than any other handgun, probably, other than full power .41 or .44 magnum, or super handloaded .45 colt.

The .357 maximum, loaded with ultra hard lead, out of a rifle, could reasonably be expected to go into the south end of a herd of elephants and come out the north end of that herd with plenty of power to spare.
 
Well I chipped the wood apart today taking pictures along the way as I could. I am going to wait to put what I found with the DT and BB 357 mag rounds until I weigh the bullets so I can make sure I know which is which.

Obviously I am aware these were only one shot for each bullet so I am aware they could act differently another time. Next time we will shoot more of each type of ammo and have more wood available. How every this gives me more first hand experience than I had before so it's still worth something to me. Especially since I haven't seen many if and tests for these bullets/calibers....

Each board was as thick as your standard 2x4... about 1.5"s....

357 sig results to come....
 

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357 sig

1. Winchester White Box 125 gr fmj - It made it to about the middle of the 2nd board for about 2.25" of penetration into the white oak. The jacket/lead seem to be intact still even though it did deform some.

2. Buffalo Bore 125 gr fmj-fp- This bullet was sticking out of the second board when we pulled the 2nd and last board apart for about 3" of penetration. I noticed that this bullet has a tiny metpat compared to the wwb and double tap bullets even though it is labeled as a flat point. When I pulled it out the only real deformation was the flat point was slightly larger as it has flattened from the impact. It was still no larger than the flat point of the other bullets unfired though and had very little deformation.

3. Double Tap's 147 gr fmj-FP- This bullet went about 7/8 the way through the second board and stopped before making it to the 3rd board for about 2.7-2.8"s of penetration. I had expected it to go the farthest honestly due to it being heavier but that wasn't the case at least this time.

It was a shame we weren't able to compare wound channels considering the different bullets... maybe we will do that next.....

In this pic.... you can see the BB 125gr and DT 147gr 357 sig rounds in the wood still. The dt bullet did not split the wood in half down the middle like you see in the picture. We did that to extract the bullets...Sure it created a crack.... but they all did that.
 

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357 sig bullets recovered left to right....

147 gr Double tap, 125gr Winchester White Box, 125gr buffalo bore
 

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I keep the BB 180 grain rounds on me when camping. I'm interested to know if they outperformed the DT 200 grain bullets. I'd also like to see what these bullets would do to a bear (black bear). I don't know how to simulate that though. Hope I never have a charging bear to find out on!
 
Well out of one shot for each bullet... I can clearly tell you which one penetrated the white oak further. However keep in mind that one shot doesn't tell us much considering different factors. This wood had no visible knots anywhere on it that I could see though. None of the bullets came into contact with any nails or other bullet paths through the wood either.
Give me a bit to find my scale and weigh them. I will say one deformed significantly more than the other in the mean time though....

The sellot and bellot 158gr sjsp 357 mag bullet actually broke up and some pieces fell in a pile of sawdust at the shop when we pulled the first board off making recovery hard. It penetrated the least of all the rounds even the 357sig ammo but it was also a soft point so I kinda expected it.
 
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Well the Buffalo Bore did in fact penetrate further.
The 200 gr DT 357 mag was stopped about a half of an inch short of penetrating the second board. I was surprised it didn't go further and also that it deformed so much. I am wondering if it did hit a nail and we missed it when we were looking. Guess I will just have to do it again sometime... Darn....

The BB 180gr 357 mag went half way through the third board... So clearly in this one shot unscientific test... BB was the victor in both 357 sig and magnum despite double tap using the heavier bullets.

This pic is the BB 180 gr stuck half way through the third white oak 2x4...
 

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