I agree. After spending a lot of time messing around with cast bullets in that gun, I've probably given up. Never hit the right combo of hardness, powder, etc. I haven't re-cut the forcing cone to the preferred angle for lead, so it always shot jacketed better and FAR cleaner. And at this point, I can probably afford to buy the fancier bullets to seat into my handloads - better use of my resources.
125-158gr all do a number on wild hogs up to 600lbs, so I'd assume they'd work fine for self defense against a 600lb sumo wrestler too
Have you checked the cylinder throats and for a frame choke? Those can do un-neighborly things to a lead bullet.
This was all several years ago now, and IIRC the cylinder throats were ok. Ruger tended to have undersized throats on the .45s anyway, but not so much the .357s. I don't recall checking for a constriction where the barrel screws into the frame. I'd probably be more comfortable doing that these days. And I recall learning that the hard-cast bullets are often TOO hard. Get them in a medium hardness and they stay bumped up, sealing the bore with less ablation and bore-plating from blow-by. But when you're up at rifle pressures, you really do need 'em pretty hard.
Fit is everything with cast but if the cylinder throats are small, there is a choke point and then the bore is at spec but you’re using commercial cast with crayon lube ... I cast my own and after a bit of learning curve I’m satisfied with the results I’m getting. I took four deer this year, three with projectiles that I cast, one with an arrow. That felt pretty satisfying. But I’ve killed deer with .44 XTPs too, they are my fallback jhp and seem to work like a charm.
Oh....I had a model 65 with bobbed hammer and round butt back in the 90s. Wish I'd never gotten rid of it.
Me too. Mine had the heavy 3" barrel, and Pachmayrs, and like you, wish I had never gotten rid of it.
Thanks Andy. Even though I had a nice Safariland holster for it, it fit in my back pocket very well also. The hard part was finding a Safariland holster for a 3" K frame Smith. Luckily, a friend had a gun store that had one.
So I'm sure you know how hard they are to come by. Most revolvers back then were 2", 2 & 1/2", 4", 6", etc. Strange to me, because like you, I think a 3" was ideal in certain situations.
Out here holsters for 3inch K frames were actually pretty common, many local makers (Hellweg in particular) as well as versions imported from the us (maybe we got them all ) as this combo was issue to a number of large agencies here so there was an aftermarket built around them.
My first pistols were semi-auto’s. That’s all I ran for years. At that time, I felt revolvers were antiquated. That notion was quickly dismissed the first time I held my soon-to-be 686+. Since then, it’s developed into quite the love affair. And I’ve added a Smith .460 and a .44 Super Redhawk. The .460 is quite impractical for NM, but it sure is fun.
Dang! Called out...haha. The .460 Mag on top, .44 Mag Super Redhawk and .357 Mag 686 + on the bottom. All great shooters. The .460 pukes an impressive fireball and is LOUD.