.357 AMMO and S&W 27-2 Range experience

[Master Blaster]

A couple of weeks ago I purchased a 1966 vintage .357 27-2 revolver with an 8 3/8"
Barrel. I have taken it to the range twice now and put about 300 rounds through it mostly .38 special but about 100 rounds of .357. The gun shoots very accurately and has an amazing trigger pull.

I have read different things about UMC ammo even that it was weak!!!!!

The .357 mag UMC I fired two days ago at the range was anything but weak. I also have fired abox of PMC .357 158gr hp and the recoil from the umc was about 2X the recoil from the PMC.

The UMC ballistic chart indicates a velocity of 1450 fps from a "vented barrel" for the .357 magnum ammo. Does anyone have an idea what the velocity might be from an unvented .357 8 3/8" barrel.

I Hva also shot .38 round nose lead by UMC, and winchester white box .38 fmj and rnl.

The winchester fmj 130 gr seems to be the most accurate.

Does anyone know a good source for information on revolver maintenance?
The S&W manual was underwhelming in its lack of detail.

------------------
Master Blaster

 

[singleshot]

While you're probably right in your perception of recoil until you chronograph those loads in your gun you can't do more than guess.

The industry uses vented test barrels for testing cartridges that are commonly limited to revolvers to simulate the barrel cylinder gap. There is a 0.004" spacer just forward of the chamber.

It is reasonably assumed that velocity will be lost due to gas escaping at the b/c gap. Unfortunately that is not often the case. There aren't too many cases where you can get a good apples/apples comparison of the same cartridge fired in the same length barrel in both a pistol and revolver.

I have even seen cases where the load from the revolver was faster that the automatic. Most of the time there is just no statistical difference between them.

The reason is that most of this sort of ammo is loaded with very fast burning powders and the opinion is that the powder has already burned as much as it is going to before the bullet crosses the b/c gap.

 

[James K]

That Remington load sounds good. Some PMC stuff seems to be lightly loaded. The 130gr FMJ is pretty puny (no, I wouldn't like to stand in front of it), as it was made for use in mostly old S&W Victory models and the like. If anyone wants to play FMJ, both .357 and 9mm bullets will do nicely. I know 9mm is supposed to be too small, but results say the bullets work very well in .38 and .357. (I said "bullets", not "cartridges"; I do know the difference.)

Jim