Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots .357 Maximum ammo - need advice

I just purchased a .357 Maximum Contender barrel and want to purchase some ammo to try before investing in reloading components. Lonestar Ammunition has .357 Max ammo made by Ammo-Texas LLC. Has anyone used that ammo? Opinions? Any other suggestions for getting some .357 Max ammo? Thanks! I do have a little.357 Mag ammo so will try that as well.

Never used any factory. Wasn't any around when I got my barrels. Have a super 14 and a carbine barrel made by OTT. If you have mag dies you are good to go. Mine like 180gr bullets and are cast friendly. Lil Gun powder performs well. Small rifle primers.

Do you have a link? I can't find it listed. My H&R factory Maxi loves 357 mag ammo. I'm still working on a Maxi hand load it likes.

I could not find any link to Ammo-Texas LLC. It's for sale on Gunbroker; search .357 Maximum ammo.

I had a Handi reamed from mag to Max, and it was pretty finicky for Max loads. The only powder I could ever get to shoot well from it was 4227. That's one of the only rifles I really regret selling.

Call up Michi-gun in St. Clair Shores, MI and see if they’ll ship. They had some (I think Remington) on their obscure ammo shelf yesterday.

Old70

Reeds Ammo is also good ammo and they have 357 Maximum ammo in stock

https://shop.reedsammo.com/357-Maximum_c40.htm

None of their multiple choices are currently available but they did have big selection.

Local shop had some made by HSM that I bought last year and was really impressed with it

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I've ordered a couple boxes of ammo from Steinel; will report on how it does.

Following...... thinking about ordering some too.

Has anyone read the reviews about Steinel's 180gr 357 max ammo? I suspect they're using 180gr Speer bullets. They're hard bullets and tend to work better over 2200fps.

Has the ammo arrived?

It’s waiting at home 230 miles away. I’ll be looking at it by the end of this week.

The Steinel ammo is here. It looks great -- Starline brass and what appear to be Speer180 grain FNSP bullets. Velocity is listed as 1970 fps from a 14 inch barrel. Speer shows loading data for this bullet in the .357 Max of just under 1900 fps from a 14 inch barrel. However, the Steinel web site states that expansion may not be adequate at hunting ranges from barrels shorter than 18 inches. All reviews on the Steinel site are excellent but don't address the expansion issue. I will test it myself before using for hunting. My shooting at game with a handgun will be very close!

I just noticed on the Steinel site that they now have .357 Max ammo loaded with 140 grain all copper hollow point bullets that should address the expansion issue.

Muzzleloader deer season opens here in NH Saturday so it will be a while before I shoot any of this ammo.

They should work out of my 22" barrel then. With the extra 8" I'd guess 2300 fps.

Any updates?

Deer can be hard to find here in NH. I'm still looking so no chance yet to shoot the Contender.

How did they group or haven't sighted it yet?