Gotcha, makes sense, I remember researching this over the years trying to find the right deer load in 5.56. Just guess I never seen it before. Thank you.
Yoni, I get what you are saying about using a HP in 357 SIG, I stopped chasing the dragon and went 10MM a few years ago. Never looked back. I am very fond of the 357 SIG, But if I need more power then a 9MM, I would go 10MM.
Bill Wilson gets into Leighi Defense ammo in this video
Most bullet manufacturers don’t make a bullet capable of using the SIGs velocities to full effect. I don’t know if you realize it, but Speers 357 SIG Gold Dot uses a 125 grain bullet based on their 357 magnum design, not a 124 grain 9mm design like most manufacturers. Do you reload? The obvious choice would be to swage factory 125 gr 357 magnum bullets down to about .356 or so and try loading them. This shouldn’t be a big deal, LEE cast bullet sizing dies may be able to deal with such a small change. I have had a P320 Compact in 357 SIG for several years and load most of my own ammo for practice. A lot of my factory ammo is the downloaded Hornady Critical Duty 135 gr, and Hornady 147 gr, also downloaded to keep the bullets well within their performance envelopes.
I am done with hollowpoint ammo, it is yesterdays technology.
Bill Wilson agrees with me because he spent a lot of money to buy Leighi bullet company.
I am stock pilling Underwood 357 sig 65 grain ammo, as long as I have this ammo my carry pistols are my jackal 357sig and it;s little brother hyena as it was named here AKA highly modified Glock 35 and 32. I even have the triggers where I am happy and I have given the soulless Glocks a soul and some class
That sounds expensive. I hope everything works out for you the way you want.
Best of luck!
If you compare this ammo price to yet say 9mm 115 grain ball, then yes it is costly, and compared to even Black Hill 5.56 ammo it is costly.
When you think about the fact that I will have a long gun that can fit in a backpack and it uses the same magazines and ammo as the pistol I am carrying. Also I am very big on the ease of carrying a PCC PDW, due to the smaller size of the magazines over rifle mags. I had my craziest incident off duty and I had a micro uzi with a ton of 32 round mags in a bag. Even a small SBR rifle caliber gun wouldn’t have fit, and I didn’t want to be visibly armed. But by the time that night was over, I had gone through all but one uzi mag, and an 8 hour surgery on my eyes. With this set up I can have the best of both worlds, rifle velocity and ease of carry.
So this is my truck gun for non road trip daily use, I carry 20 Glock 22 round mags, plus 3 15 round mags for the pistol for when I leave the car. The back pack also has what I need in case I need to walk home in bad times, including a chador burka. Nobody pays attention to a muslim woman
Kind of what i was thinking. I personally would rather be set up with a 5.56 carbine. But if i had to go with a pcc. Plus p 9mm is would be my route.
I have several 5.56 SBR, and they have a mission. I don’t think the 9mm +p 68 grain Leighi Defense is a bad choice it does around 1950 to 2000 out of an 8 inch barrel and it is 1/3 less in price than the 357sig.
Does a carpenter have one hammer? So I have different guns for different missions. Some might slightly over lap in missions, such is life. I am a fan of long gun and pistol that can use the same mags for some missions. With the Underwood 65 grain 357sig I get rifle velocity out to the ranges I would need to shoot in the USA in even the worse situation.
Things break. So if you have a 5.56 SBR and lets say a 9mm pistol and you are 30 miles from home and something happens where you must walk home. The day goes really bad, so beyond having to walk home you must defend your life. Your 5.56 rifle goes down on you. So you have to get home with the pistol only, so all the 5.56 mags and ammo you got are worthless.
Now I agree the above is not vary likely to happen in the USA, but I have been in situations where I needed a but load of ammo and to be honest the size difference between 5.56 and 9mm mags would have lowered the amount I could carry in my back pack.
For me the 357 sig for a little more money gives me more performance over the 9mm load. I can afford it, so why not?
Beside I think the 357 sig is kind of cool.
I get where your coming from. We all have certain needs. I have the same set up for my truck bag (g17 and keltec sub2k) But i seen more pcc’s go down then any top tier ar15 go down. And the extra strain from 357 would not help. And the extra price for the 357. I personally would stick with 9mm. I like the 357 sig. would love to have a pcc with it. I have 4 pistols in 357. But 9mm is king for me. Cheap to shoot. 124 plus p is stout. And cheap ass hell to reload. Specially when i legit never see any 357 in stores. I was excited when the round first came out. Like a modern 762x25.
I agree on a straight blow back gun the 357 would tear it to pieces. The guns that keep working from my research ar 357 sig DI guns or converted CMMG guns. I also have everything I have in 357 sig a copy of it in 9mm Glock 34 35, Glock 32 19, CMMG AR 9mm and when the work is done one in 357 sig.
I do 90% of my practice and training in 9mm, cheaper to shoot and easier on the guns.
But the 357 sig to me with the Underwood 65 grain ammo is a winner. I will say when we defeat the ATF pistol brace BS, I will by a KPOS to try it out with a Glock 357.
I would add that if the CMMG AR doesn’t workout, then I will rebarrel it in 9mm.
I will be honest and state really clearly that out of a PCC 8 inch barrel gun, I don’t know if the 2000fps in 9mm is going to be any worse than the 2300fps in the 357sig. These are with the 68grain Leighi Defense from Underwood and the 65 grain in 357 sig.
So I have all the parts from CMMG for the 357sig, next week the barrel is going to the guy that is going to ream the chamber to .357sig.
Now here is the great part that I just found out, CMMG has what they call action tuning kit. It is a series of 3 different weights that fit into the back of the bolt so you can easily fine tune every thing.
I now feel the CMMG project is going to be a great success, so the KPOS idea is off the table. If it does work I may get a second 5inch barrel so it feels the same in practice but in 9mm.
I ordered some Underwood 9mm +P+ 90gr Extreme Defenders for my Kel-Tec P2000. Yeah, I know, it’s a KT but it is pretty small when folded (maybe the new S&W might be a possible improvement?).
The 90gr +P+ Defenders, as per some Googling of chrono results, will get 1800+ fps from a 16" barrel. While 400+ fps short of Yoni’s 357SIG load out of a 16" barrel, it is 90gr and not 65gr.
Given the “carbine” choice of only one or the other going into a shootout I’d lean towards the 65gr +P+ 357SIG, but wouldn’t exactly throw in the towel if I got the 90gr +P+ 9mm either.
EDIT: I believe I read where the Underwood 357SIG in 90gr got about 2100fps from a carbine barrel. Now that is definitely one I’d pick for a PCC! Same bullet as the 9mm +P+ I ordered, but moving along 200+ fps faster.
I don’t think either grained bullet is a bad choice. I lean toward the lighter bullet because in all the testing that I have seen done, they both are barrier blind and all penetrate to about the same depth. I just think the extra velocity might help in getting better results in bad hits. But either way both bullet weights put us into that magic zone that Jim Cirillo saw with shooting real bad guys in the NYPD stake out unit. In Israel in certain units you will have the high number of shootings, but what we don;t have is the ability to try out different loads. This is a blessing and a curse, blessing because this is what we have get bust with it is good, curse because we might have found something better.
So I will have 2 uppers for my CMMG glock mag gun, the first is 8 inch in 9mm which gets right close to 2000fps with the 65 grain bullet in 9mm. Then the 5 inch 357sig which will be easier to carry in a smaller back pack and still give me around 2250fps with 65 grain bullet.
How do those rounds handle in the 357 sig pistol?
The velocity means nothing* unless it exceeds the temporary stretch limit. Is there any testing that shows this?
Slow motion videos of temporary cavities are NOT a good way to determine terminal performance.
*For terminal performance. Higher velocity pistol rounds can extend the useful range of a PCC.
I wonder by how much. Lighter bullets have poorer BC, and I would think that as badly as pistol bullets fly, the lighter bullets would scrub that extra speed rather quickly, flying flatter for a short distance, then just as rainbow-y, but with less retained energy.
I have an old wrist injury and 125 grain 357sig, made it hurt the next day. I don’t have that problem with the 65 grain rounds. I also have done 2 modifications, first I had the extended portion of the barrel magnaported I now can shoot 125 grain ammo with no next day pain. I think it cut recoil by 25%. The second thing I did was molded a accelerator pedal with JB Weld for my off side thumb, the pistol with both of these recoils fairly flat.
So far I have only shot them to 100 and they are very flat shooting about 6 inch drop
Is there a practice round with a good ballistic match for these lightweights?