Haha, you let the cat out of the bag, George!
Not being too terribly impressed with its accuracy thus far, I did what I should've done in the first place - I did a cerrosafe chamber cast. Lo and behold, it turns out not to be a .357 Magnum, rather it's a.357 Maximum, with a long throat to boot. (The barrel says ".357") Silly me. My bullets have been rattling around over a half inch between the case mouth of a .357 until it hits the rifling. Chamber dimensions, throat diameter (though a bit long), groove diameter (.357), and twist are all normal. A .223 cartridge makes "the bend" down over the breechblock and into the chamber so I'm confident a Max cartridge will too. It's back to square one now, as soon as the sampling of Max fixin's (some brass, and some more bullet samples) arrives from Oregon. A public shout-out and thank you, George.
You know what they say about the word "assume"? Well, it certainly made an ass out of me!
The .357 Maximum is one that has eluded me. Try as I might there are a couple that have gotten past me and it's one of them.
"Onward, ever upward!"
