.357 Deer Load

My pop gave me some hard cast, gas checked 180 grain flat-point bullets recently. They are a bullet originally designed for use in the .35 Remington round.

In the early days of the internet blogs, dad and a few internet buddies got Lee to re-create an old Lyman bullet in a 6 cavity mold, the TL358-180. Several bloggers did some figuring, and decided it would be good deer medicine loaded hot in a .357 cartridge for handgun hunting. They put in a collective order to Lee for enough of the molds to make it worthwhile for Lee to make them, and ordered a custom lot.

Dad worked up a recipe using this bullet over Lil' Gun powder. He played with it for a few years, and moved on to other pursuits.

But it was a heck of a load. Out of a rifle barrel (16 inches) the load Pop developed was pushing slightly over 1600 fps. That's close to a mild 170 grain bullet loading in 30-30, which has taken more than it's share of North American game animals.

Under 100 yards, Pop's load shot like a laser beam, and hit like a hammer.

Well, like I said, Pop gave me some bullets, and loading data. I made a batch of 50, and tried them out.

Out of a Marlin 1895, the bullets shoot into the front sight (a 6-moa dot) with boring regularity, and they hit the steel plate hard enough to foul it on it's chains, necessitating going downrange to unwind the target from it's stand.

From a Uberti El Patron, they make the palm of your hand tingle with each successive shot.

I was pleased.

I saw Pop this weekend, and gave him thanks for the bullets and the knowledge. As is his way, he nodded matter-of -factly, and headed for his reloading bench. He pulled down several boxes, and told me he was pretty sure he was done playing with that load, and since he gave me his Marlin 1894 a few years ago, I might as well take care of his mold for it.

I'm now set up to reload that mean-ass .357 load, and I got Pop, once again, to thank for furthering my knowledge.

I appreciate it, Pop. I really do.