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.
"Onward, ever upward!"
The H&R pardner rifle/carbine 357 barrels are notoriously long chamber and throated too. Not quite 357 max length, but certainly longer than 357.
That allows you to seat the bullets a little long and gives you more case capacity too if you're trying to push and squeeze everything you can get out of it.
I have some 110 gr hornady jacketed pills that you can easily push to 1850 fps without breaking a sweat. I dont' remember what the 158's were doing. Probably in the 1600's if I were guessing, all depending on which powder you use. The slower burning powders will generally do better in the 16 and 18 and 20 inch barrels because they have more room to continue building pressure down the bore. I don't mind sharing my recipe with you if you'd like it, just let me know. Just remember that you can't use it in a cylinder because you won't be able to get it closed due to being too long for that.
357 is a staple for whitetail in my area.
