Home Forums Reloading Handgun Reloading .357 RM Handload (Hardcast) for Zombies and Other Soft Targets

158-grain/.358″-sized LEE WFN/PlainBase from the 6-cavity mould, hard alloy, water-dropped.
Powder-Coat painted with Eastwood Ford Light Blue.
R-P brass case.
Winchester Small Pistol Magnum primer.
4.4 grains of BULLSEYE … thrown charges good to +/- 0.1 grains by my check: OK for Zombies
Filler: 3/8″ foam wad 1/2″ long, from caulk backer rod and fillet knife
Max brass length allowed = 1.290″
COL = 1.580″

Six rounds chronographed at 5 yards instrumental distance,
from a 6″ barreled Colt Python of August 2021 make:

1. 1044 fps
2. 1019 fps
3. 1018 fps
4. 1016 fps
5. 1014 fps
6. 1040 fps

Mean = 1025 fps at 5 yards
Fast as I want to go with cast lead.
1590 rounds per pound of BULLSEYE.

Good thing about this load is that it shoots to same POI at 25 yards as the old
Remington Golden Saber 125-gr JHP at about 1250 fps, with accuracy as good as I can manage for both,
two-handed, single-action from sandbags on a benchrest.
I tried in both the 6″ Python and a 4″ Ruger Security Six, my Pop’s briefcase revolver.
I like the feel of both loads in the S&W 360 PD .357 Snubby also.
It might even equal a 4″ .38 Spl +P in the sub-2″ pocket revolver.
OK for Zombies.



Pleasant loads for pleasant guns.



I bought a 4" Python high gloss stainless in the late '90s. Shot it and thought it was a sissy gun.
Traded it in on a rifle.
Snow on the roof has made me appreciate a Python with pleasant loads.

Those should chop some nice holes through a zombie skull and give you quick recoil recovery so as to address his pals.

Hopefully when they come they'll be the slow moving ones like the originals, rather than the more recently portrayed fast running ones.

Those fast ones do give you the creeps...

Yeah, if we're gonna have them, give me slow.

I'll bet those are quite pleasant out of that 6".

Yes, quite pleasant.
Do not fear BULLSEYE and a filler in the .357 RM.
Fear the running dead !