WFN 185gr. .357 = Keith .44

2990 Views 4 Replies 3 Participants Last post by William Iorg, Aug 21, 2010

Ralph McLaney

Discussion Starter · Aug 20, 2010

So a .357 can be the equal of a .44...
<HR style="COLOR: #1d4976" SIZE=1>In the context of Marshall's Tech Note:

Handgun Hunting Loads-A Critical View consider this:

The original "Keith" 250 grain SWC .44 Special/Magnum bullet and Marshall's "Next Generation" FNGC 185 grain .357 bullet share the same .280" size meplat.

Given identical meplat sizes, if both bullets are pushed to the same velocity and both offer complete penetration on the game sought, both would give essentially identical performance in the game fields.

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William Iorg

· #2 · Aug 20, 2010

Veral Smith reported on his testing of the Keith type bullet in his book Jacketed Performance with Cast Bullets. Smith coated his bullet noses with Prussian blue a die makers ink and shot them through deer hides. The amount blue worn off by the hides was minimal for the SWC bullet.
The weight forward LBT design allows more room for powder and the design of the meplat and ogive improves tissue disruption. There is a performance improvement over the traditional SWC bullet when using the LBT design.
Cast soft the traditional SWC bullet performs well on our small deer and pigs. The LBT design does appear to disrupt more tissue in similar shots though.

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William Iorg

· #5 · Aug 21, 2010

Veral Smith has spent quite a bit of time studying the stopping power of cast bullets. Much of his initial information was printed in the early Fouling Shot magazines from the Cast Bullet Association. Most of this data has been included in Smith’s book: Jacketed Performance With Cast Bullets. I have not read Marshals load book but from his posts, I believe his testing has parallel Smiths.

Allen P. Bristow in his book: The Search for an Effective Police Handgun encountered similar results when testing cast bullets. Bristow’s book was published in 1973 but he discovered as did Veral Smith that when driven to the same velocity he found the 32 S&W Long cartridge left the same permanent wound channel in ballistic gelatin as the .38/357 lead bullets. Bristow found the .32 caliber bullets penetrated far further than he thought possible. Smith has written of similar results.
A study of Veral Smiths results indicates his .38 caliber 180-grain LBT bullet left the same diameter permanent wound channel as the .44 caliber Keith type SWC bullet. The muzzle velocity listed in Smith’s book was 1,400 fps for both calibers.
Its interesting stuff to study.

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