Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 357 Magnum for deer

Don't be intimidated. The .357 will easily kill deer out to 100 yards. You say you're staying within bow range, so it should be a piece of cake, if you can shoot the pistol accurately.
Remember that the shorter barrel will affect velocity and therefore energy. Avoid bullets and loads designed for rifle length barrels which produce higher velocities. Go with a bullet that will expand reliably at pistol velocities and work up an accurate load for you gun using that bullet. Hard cast bullets won't expand well, but soft cast will, as will Hornady and Speer and Sierra pistol bullets. I'd suggest at least 140 gr., more is better.

I'm not a big Kieth fan. That said, he was dead on, in my experience, about cast bullets in handguns. The Keith design cast lead bullets have killed well for me. Full wadcutters and round nosed lead being absolutely worthless on game. Just my experience, yours may vary.

O

.357 wont seem to impress the deer when shot IE. They dont act hit very hard. I would say it is marginal for deer in all but the most controled broadside close range situations like you plan on using it for. So I would say go for it you should be fine. 1+ on the 158 gold dot ammo.

I shot one broad side with a 160 grn soft point 357. It went in 357 and came out 357. I would recommend a 158 hollow point to take advantage of a mushrooming bullet. It may or may not come out the other side but you want it to do it's work inside. Mine clipped the aorta out of the heart and it went about 110 yards and dropped over. An inch or two either way and I would have been chasing a wounded deer. kwg

Many put a lot of stock in deer 'dropping to the shot'. No matter where I've shot'em or what I've shot'em with, they all seem to make a death run. Exceptions being those shot with a .35Rem or a 9.3X62. In that regard I haven't found the .357 handgun to be much differant than the typical 'deer rifle'.

As a side note. I've prolly killed more deer with the .357 than anything else except perhaps a 7X57. Never kept an exact tally.

O

I'm right there with you. Good round.

Me shooting a deer with a handgun is like deer hunting with my first 45# recurve bow. I'll be talking in feet, not yards.

I think a .357 is just fine for deer.

My neighbor is Tom Henderson. Here is a piece I wrote about him. He uses a .357
http://www.castbullet.com/hunting/th.htm

Here is an account of my experiment in shooting deer with a .357 Wish I had the pictures Cousin John took that day.
http://my.voyager.net/~jhecksel/Deerseason.htm

One thing that is counter-intuitive is that slower moving bullets tend to penetrate more deeply. A bullet that leaves the muzzle at 1400fps will expand more violently at the expense of less penetration than one that leaves the muzzle at 1100-1250fps.

I don't know if you hand load but 1200fps with any reasonable 158 grain hollowpoint should give you two holes in the hide unless it has to bust a shoulder. And you won't need a great blood trail if you bust a shoulder because it will be a short tracking job. Win. Win.

-Joe

Shoot from a rest. Try to angle the shot through the chest and bust the offside shoulder with a fast 158-180 hollowpoint. Pretty much need to handload to get original ballistics, though Georgia Arms/BB/Corbon will get you close.

If you shoot cast try to bust both shoulders and clip the spine. A caliber sized holes through the lungs can make for a pretty long tracking job.

If you want a spectacular drop, punch one through the lungs at about 10 yards with a Federal 125 JHP.

What length bbl on your 586 BTW?

P.S. My 15-year-old son says he wants to take a deer this year with his 10-in. TC .357 with 2X Tasco. His uncle gave it to him several years back and he can shoot into about an inch at 50 yards. He's gonna use some Georgia Arms Deerstopper 158 Gold Dots. If I get motivated may chrono and see how fast that barrel gets them going. Sending that barrel off to be punched to .357 Max is a future project...maybe a Leupold scope with a BDC turret, too.

It's a 6".

Use that .357.....most of us got our first hand-gun deer with one.....watch the placement and use a quality projectile.

yes it will work,no it probably wont drop them where they stand.Nothing will including rifles with much higher velocities.the only time I would use a cast bullet is where I could not get enough penetration using a jacketed hollowpoint. there is a difference between cast and hard cast . a lot of people use the terminology hardcast for any cast bullet.use a cast bullet that has a hollowpoint and is soft enough to expand or a two piece bullet where you use 2 different dippers .one to fill the nose portion with pure lead and then the base of a harder material. then you will have the best of both worlds with a nose that will expand and if you hit a harder part of the animal such as a shoulder then the base will punch through the nose and continue to penetrate.Ross Seyfried has talked about this many times. you can read how a hard cast that doesn,t expand will kill as well as a bullet that does expand but it doesnt on deer sized game. hard cast is easy to make shoot well and are fun to make just either make them as soft as you can and still shoot well without excessive leading or make a two piece bullet as I described.you can either use two melting pots or do as Ross Sefried describes which is to use one large pot then take a tube and squeeze one end to seal it off then put the end in the main melting pot.put pure lead or something close to pure lead in the tube you just closed off. then use a small amount of that for the nose.Now I think maybe you are not that deep into making hunting bullets so i would suggest something like a 158 jhp . JD Jones head of SSK Industries which makes a lot of various different types of hunting handguns and has invented several different hunting and defense catridges refers to the 357 mag as a decent 50 yard tree stand type of gun. If my memory serves me correctly so does a man who writes for the sixgunner mag.I this his name is Doc hitman Rogers who regularily kills hundreds of deer a year with a variety of handguns including the powerfull single shot kaboomers,SSK.though long out of print ,Lee Jurras and George C Nonte co wrote a book on handgun hunting in which they described taking deer and hogs with blackpowder revolvers ,38 specials,45 autos , 9mm ,32-20,357 automag etc. Both claimed the 357 magnum was actually more powerfull than needed ! I expect that a 357 mag with good shot placement and decent bullet expansion will still kill a deer quite nicely! would I rather have a 44 mag or something similiar 41 maG,45 Colt ? yes . I hunted with various 44 mags exclusively for over 12 years but came no where close to the game that the men I have mentioned have killed!!I I hope the cast crowd doesnt lynch me because cast will kill, just hard cast doesn,t kill as well as soft cast or jacketed. I would endeaver to use jacketed 158 grain Hollowpoints,get within about 50 yards,place my bullets in the shoulder or lungs with as close to a broadside shot as possible. Now here is the kicker. practice from hunting positions such as sitting with arms across the knees ,leaning up against a tree, kneeling .of course this is an approximation but any range at which you can keep your shots within say 5 inches or so of point of aim will kill deer for you all day long. Keep in mind your limitations and your weapons limitations and enjoy yourself. too long winded I know but I just wanted to help you as much as possible.