Short Barrel ammo in 6"?

[ttocswob]

Question - I bought a box of Speer Gold Dot in .357 Magnum for my Dan Wesson 15-2V6. When I got home, I read on the box that it was optimized for 2" barrels, not my 6" DW.

Will the longer barrel affect the performance of these rounds? Good or bad?

[timcalhoun]

Question - I bought a box of Speer Gold Dot in .357 Magnum for my Dan Wesson 15-2V6. When I got home, I read on the box that it was optimized for 2" barrels, not my 6" DW.

Will the longer barrel affect the performance of these rounds? Good or bad?

I believe what they do for these rounds is load them with a very fast burning powder. So it gets the feet per second up quickly for short barrels.

My guess is that it will be fine for 6 in too. It might be a really sweet shooting load as well. I say this beause the theory we all use in the USPSA to create a very soft feeling load that still makes major power is: Fast powder and heavey bullet.

[glockster157]

Probably not much. Most revolvers and pistols develop most of their velocity in the first 2 inches of barrel. After that they gain 20-40 FPS for each inch of barrel. The big difference is probably going to be muzzle flash. To optimize a round for a 2" gun they must be using a faster powder so there is not as much unburned powder coming out the muzzle. Velocity will not normally be as high with faster powders but the factories can do some special things, like duplex loads or even custom burn rates, that the handloader or even small manufacturers cannot, so I would not worry about it and shoot it.

Of course, since it is a DW revolver, you could track down a 2" barrel.