Crosshair
Member
I picked up a Gary Reeder Ultimate Encore barrel in 358 Winchester. It's roughly 10.5" of barrel and 2" of muzzle brake.
Put it on my SBR Encore frame and I have a handy little SBR with a 1.5-5x20 Leopold on top.
The question I have is what sort of loads to use to get the most out of this short barrel? I'm going to save cast bullets for my 357 Maximum barrel (Unless there are some that I can drive to 358 Win jacketed bullet levels.) Would be fun to get some of those 230 grain bowling pin bullets to work, but that ones that aren't an arm and a leg don't have gas checks.
Ideally, I'd just put in the heaviest jacketed bullets I can get and call it a day. However, those 250 grain bullets are generally designed for a full barrel length 35 Whelen and the 35 magnums. For range use they'd be just fine, but if I ever did hunt with this there could be concerns with terminal ballistics due to velocity.
Instead, I'm thinking that a 200-220 grain bullet would be the way to go, as many are designed for 35 Remington levels of velocity. Powder wise? Just use IMR-4895 and make use of that case capacity and get that slug moving.
So, anyone see any flaws in this plan or have better ideas? Thanks for any advice.
Put it on my SBR Encore frame and I have a handy little SBR with a 1.5-5x20 Leopold on top.
The question I have is what sort of loads to use to get the most out of this short barrel? I'm going to save cast bullets for my 357 Maximum barrel (Unless there are some that I can drive to 358 Win jacketed bullet levels.) Would be fun to get some of those 230 grain bowling pin bullets to work, but that ones that aren't an arm and a leg don't have gas checks.
Ideally, I'd just put in the heaviest jacketed bullets I can get and call it a day. However, those 250 grain bullets are generally designed for a full barrel length 35 Whelen and the 35 magnums. For range use they'd be just fine, but if I ever did hunt with this there could be concerns with terminal ballistics due to velocity.
Instead, I'm thinking that a 200-220 grain bullet would be the way to go, as many are designed for 35 Remington levels of velocity. Powder wise? Just use IMR-4895 and make use of that case capacity and get that slug moving.
So, anyone see any flaws in this plan or have better ideas? Thanks for any advice.
