Forty years ago.

[The Evangelist Cowboy]

I personally am not a fan of 357 Magnum as I see it as a jack-of-all-trades but master of none, but the perception of it being an "all around" revolver maybe the other side of that same coin. A 3-4 inch K-frame 357 Magnum is small enough to carry comfortably all day (open or concealed), long enough to get good ballistic performance out of the 357 Mag cartridge and has a reasonable sight radius. The 357 Magnum cartridge is potent enough to be both an effective man-stopper and an adequate hunting cartridge for small medium game with the ability to use 38 Special for cheap plinking and training.

Small Medium Game huh? Someones gonna have to tell the black bear and huge hogs I've taken with a .357 that it wasnt adequate enough. Please this myth has been sounding off for a long time, is it a grizzly or african class round? NOPE!!! but it will handle mostly anything in the lower 48.

 

[mcb]

Small Medium Game huh? Someones gonna have to tell the black bear and huge hogs I've taken with a .357 that it wasnt adequate enough. Please this myth has been sounding off for a long time, is it a grizzly or african class round? NOPE!!! but it will handle mostly anything in the lower 48.

Typo on my part. It should have read "Small to Medium" game. I think 357 Magnum is more than adequate for whitetail or mule deer even the big northern variety and just about any other medium game you can think of. I think you could use even use it on some large game like Elk as long as your willing to use in at short to medium range with careful shot placement and probably launch it from a revolver with more than a 3-inch barrel to eek a bit more ballistic performance out of the cartridge.

 

[kBob]

Two of my three M19s were 6 inch with the patridge front sight. As an ignorant "user" (to put it in computer geek terms) I considered them my "car" guns, as in anti car. I carried one of those in Europe mainly in my brief case and given the threat of the 1980 or so era I carried it loaded with Norma 150 grain FMJ SWC. These had a relatively heavy jacket and a German Police officer had lead me to believe they would be more effective against body armor of the time and car bodies and windshields than any of my HP loadings or non AP 9x19mm. Some one gave me six rounds of Arcane that I passed along after a bad experience involving that bronze pointy cone AP ammo in .44mag in a RedHawk.

Being a longtime fan of the M10, the M19 seemed A-OK. I rather liked pulling out one of the six inch guns on a 200 meter rifle range and scaring the peasants.

One of these guns went with me the day I did range work with the Darmstadt Police while they were transitioning to the Sig 9x19 mm single stack from Walther PP in .32ACP. The instructor there thought police had no need for such a "Hand Kannonen". He was shocked that it was a same caliber used by most US LEOs at the time. I think he might have been one of the ones that wanted to keep the Walthers.

-kBob