barnfrog
Member
I'm assembling components to start loading for my new-to-me S&W Model 57, and am trying to decide on bullet choice. Loading for .357 Magnum, I felt I needed a JHP bullet for deer hunting, so I also loaded cast PC bullets for paperwork. But the .41 has a larger meplat than the .357, and therefore the expansion of a jacketed bullet may not be necessary for medium-sized game such as the white-tail deer we have in Central and Eastern New York (200 pounds is a big deer for us). So I'm thinking I could simplify my world just a little bit and load one hard cast PC bullet to different velocities, a lighter one for paper targets and a heavier one for furry ones.
My main concern is maintaining a sufficient level of lethality to hunt ethically. Ranges would likely be 75 yards at the far outside, more realistically 50 yards or less. It would be nice to save the money by not buying jacketed, but they wouldn't break the bank if they were the clearly better choice for killing antlered denizens of the Empire State.
I've done a heap of Googling on this subject, but I'm not really great at choosing the right search words to find what I'm looking for so most of the opinions I've found are sort of tangential and buried in threads that aren't really about bullet effectiveness. Knowing there will be a range of opinions, I welcome all of them.
What say you?
My main concern is maintaining a sufficient level of lethality to hunt ethically. Ranges would likely be 75 yards at the far outside, more realistically 50 yards or less. It would be nice to save the money by not buying jacketed, but they wouldn't break the bank if they were the clearly better choice for killing antlered denizens of the Empire State.
I've done a heap of Googling on this subject, but I'm not really great at choosing the right search words to find what I'm looking for so most of the opinions I've found are sort of tangential and buried in threads that aren't really about bullet effectiveness. Knowing there will be a range of opinions, I welcome all of them.
What say you?