Reloading 357 sig

[Guest Terry J]

After much reading and experamenting I think i finally got a pretty good procedure for reloading this round. The really short neck on these cases was a challenge but I overcame that. Does anyone else reload this round and do you do anytthing special and what bullets do you use. Heres a vague rundown of what im doing.

Im using 115grn winchester hollow points with 8.0grns of power pistol Thinking of trying AA#9 next. First i lube the cases with one shot then resize and deprime them. Then I run them through the tumbler to remove the oil and shine them up a bit. Then i bell the case just ever so slightly. Just enough that a bullet can be started with a little help from the press. Then prime the cases and add powder and seat bullet to max COL which if memory serves is 1.140. Mine usually come out 1.139 or 1.1395. I set my seating/crimping die to crimp the case buy setting a blank case in the shell holder and running it all the way up then running the die down till it touched the case then going 1/4 turn more then locking it down. So far this procedure leaves me with no bullet setback when chambering and a very accurate shooting round.

Any suggestions and or comments?

[molonlabetn]

You'll be hearing from me if I ever finally get set up... I intend to reload .357sig in the future.

[Guest Terry J]

I did a ton of reading manual after manual after website after website and one of the major don't which i found out the hard way is no not load round nose bullets. Load either flat point or hollow point. Ranier works ok for slower speeds but for max loads and high power load jacketed bullets. Ill be here if you have any questions. My email address is johnsons@bigriver.net if im not on here.

[Marswolf]

Yeah, I'm not there yet, but I'm sure I'll be working on a good load for 357 SIG not too far down the line.

[molonlabetn]

I'd be interested try for a 124-130gr JFP loaded to mimic a hot .38 super...

[Guest Terry J]

I love my glock 31 357 sig. Its the best shooting auto round out of everything ive shot. Opinion of course since i like them all and shooting holes in things is great fun.

[Guest Terry J]

I'd be interested try for a 124-130gr JFP loaded to mimic a hot .38 super...

Im a small and fast person myself. the smaller the chunk of lead the faster itll go. Too much car racing i guess. but on the serious side I loaded some up like that and they shoot good but they werent as accurate as id hoped. Maybe try some different power sometime.

[Guest Terry J]

Well I loaded a bunch with 13grns of AA#9 and switched over to the lee factory crimp die. I must say Its the most accurate round ive loaded yet. I really like the factory crimp die. I just set my seater die so it just seats the bullet and then use the FCD to crimp it. Works great.

[Guest Mugster]

You might pull one and look at the bullet. In .223 its pretty easy to muck up the bullet up and make it look like a dolly parton with that fcd, especially if its not cannelured. Its pretty aggressive compared to crimping with the seater die, imo. I started with a 1/4 turn more from shellholder contact for non crimped rounds and then had to back off on sierra bullets especially. Not sure if this applies to .357 sig or not.

[Guest Terry J]

According to the instruction on setting it up it says to run it all the way to where the die meets the shell holder then 1/2 turn more. I found this to be way excessive of a crimp. I backed it down to about an 1/8th of a turn and it gives them about as much as the seater die would but over more surface area. Thats what i like about this particular one. I dont care for them on any other application I have found so far. I might pull one on the next round to see what its doing to the bullet. I use jacketed also so that helps to a degree.

[Guest Mugster]

You must be smarter than me. It said 1/2 turn in the instructions, so by God thats what i did. I was looking at one and it looked kinda smushed so i pulled it and calipered it. I messed up 50 bullets before I figured out what was going on.

[Guest Terry J]

Not smarter just had a really good teacher. I have been reloading with my dad since i was big enough to pull the handle on the press. I still have lots to learn and really miss the fact that I cant just call him and ask him any question about reloading I had. He had been reloading for 30+ years and was the most knowledgable person ive ever ran across. He died at the end of april this year. But I did learn alot from him and now I just have to mess it up and learn from what i did wrong and believe me there has been many occasions.