de50ae

Thanks for constantly sharing your findings! 573m/s from a 6,5" barrel, Jesus! This what I got out of my M1 Carbine with an 110grs bullet and this has a 18" barrel. I haven't continued working on the 357/45 in the last year. Only shot a few of those cartridges which came with the gun made from the WinMag cases. Currently the Grizzly is at a gunsmith to modify my frontsight and optimize the .357 and the .45 WinMag setup for accuracy. In fall I plan to continue to look for a nice 357/45 load for me. Since the function already was pretty good with my loads the two things to be done are to fix that the cartridge is sometimes to big at the neck (would be hard to unload a chambered round) and to find an accurate load for the barrel. I am not aiming for speed records Pretty sure the big diameter can be solved by turning the case neck a little. A friend of mine has a neck turner und a annealing machine. So after fireforming the cases he will turn the neck a little and anneal the cases. Then I should have a nice set of cases for my barrel I will post here when I have found some nice loads and share my findings too Regarding your question to my last post... (sorry forgot to reply at the time) Yes we have dedicated classes for Magnum guns to .357 and over .357 bullet diameter. And it's even devided in pistol and revolver, so quite a few classes to make use of ones Magnum guns

Regarding OAL I think 40,3 to 40,5mm for flat point bullets is the way to go for the Grizzly. I've shot arround 800 to 1000 rounds with 158grs (factory and reloaded ammo) and 180grs bullets this summer with the .357 Magnum barrel. Won the national championship with the Grizzly by the way My experience is that with mild loads you could actually feel that with 40mm OAL the cycling was bumpy and with nearly 41mm it failed to feed. So the sweetspot is inbetween. Because of the same angle to the feed ramp I think that experience can be transfered to the .357/45 GWM too.

Hi @Grizzly45 nice hearing from you again Because the competition season started I haven't done a lot testing either in the last month. Only shot 50 rounds from the initial PPU cases. Here my last findings: As mentioned about I used the 158 SJSP Fiocchi bullets and N110 powder, OAL: 40,3mm. Tried folowing loads 17grs with av speed of 430m/s booooring don't need a 357/45 GWM for that 18grs av speed 460m/s 19grs av speed 484 m/s Gun worked fine with all loads used my double spring kit from the .45 WM. Accuracy with all loads was promissing but need further testing. Strangely the first two dummy rounds I've made fit perfectly to the barrel. They drop in and out of the chamber flawlessly. All other rounds I have made since have a tight fit on the neck. I don't know the why? Checked everything but could not determine the reason yet. With the gun there came rounds made from .45 WM Starline cases loaded with 18grs Aliant 2400 and 158grs SJSP bullet. Shot a few. Gun works fine even with the short cases but the stress on the case seems to be too hard. A funny thing happened... after one shot the next round failed to chamber half way. I unloaded the gun and tried to chambe a new round which failed again. Removing it it came out like this... The case was cut in two pieces, pieced by the next round and extraced by it. The wall thickness of these Starline .45 WM cases is very thin. Examining the other cases I recognized on a few a ring on the cases exactly where the other one was cut off. Seems that is a strechmark.

So that went quite well... On the weekend I have checked if I could load the PPU 7,92x33 kurz cases with the tools I have. Lukily expanding the case to 9mm went very easy with the expanding die which came with the RCBS die set. I don't know if it originally belongs to the die set but anyway it works fine. I can cancel the order for the .355 decapping unit. I chose not to start with a fast powder for fire forming. I played a little with the Gordon tool using the .357 AMP as a calcuation base. Using slow burning N110 and a Fiocchi .357 158 soft point bullet I decided to start with a load which creates around 2000 bar. So in the end I loaded 6 rounds with 18grs N110 OAL 40,3mm Today I fired these rounds and it worked quite fine. First two rounds I loaded as single shots, the other four round I fired in pairs from the magazine. Case ejection worked fine and both times the round from the mag got fed. The speed the slide opperates and the case gets ejected is crazy, but same kind of crazy fast like the .45 WinMag opperates with strong loads. My friends on the range were afraid to get hit by the cases Gordon's tool says 430m/s but from the sound I guess it was more. I've shot .357 Magnum rounds at about the same speed with my Desert Eagle and that sounded differently. I will setup the chrono next time to verify the calculation. I guess you are most curious about how the cases look now From left to right virgin PPU case, virgin PPU case expanded and calibrated, loaded virgin PPU case, once fired PPU case loaded again, once fired PPU case, calibrated once fired PPU case On the crimp rim of the bullet you can see as expected the case got a litte shorter. After all cases are fireformed the crimp die needs to be adjusted. A calibrated once fired case is now 32,4mm long. Perfect. I will load some more rounds and on Friday I will continue the trial. Next things to test will be function, if the bullet keeps in place, V0 measurement and accuracy.

Still waiting for my decapping unit... So I haven't tried the PPU cases yet Read a few weeks ago that the Automag pistol is in production again and Starline is making the brass for it. So that could be a good source for cases. Can the .44 Automag case be used for 357/45 GWM without reaming? Because I don't have the necessary vice and machine to ream the cases. I am happy to do a trial with the .44 AMP cases but I am located in Germany and as I understand you are located in the US I guess it will be not possible to get the brass to me.

Hmmmm that doesn't sound so good.... In about 2 weeks I should have the PPU cases. Will see if I'll have the same troubles...

Did you have the issue with buckled necks with the .308 based cases too or is this new with the kurz cases? Can you post a picture of round like this with a buckle please?

Sounds great I am currently waiting for the decapping unit. I haven't got a delivery date yet... Will see how the PPU cases behave... Some people say they are not good. Hope they don't crack quickly if so some annealing might help. I did a little reading about fire forming... Some people tell not to use reduced loads with fast powders, they advice to use min loads of the actual load data for the calibre. So to spare me the trouble with manual loading each round I tend to widen the case do a full calibration and then load it with a mild load of N110. Is there any argument against this idea?

Impressive how quickly you've realized the idea Cartridges look great Still putting the things togehter for my order, gonna order a few things more I currently need... My dealer has PPU cases in stock, are your's from PPU too? Did the bullets have a tight seat after the case has been expanded by the .358 Win expander or only after being calibrated by the CH4D die? I have made the experience before with the .30 Luger RCBS dies that the expander was to big and I've had loose bullets... RCBS is offering decapping units in .355 (for the .357 SIG) and one in .358 (for the 35 Whelen probably the same for your .358 Win too) Because of the .30 Luger experience I tend to buy the .355 one... May be even keep it constantly attached to the RCBS FL die... Or is it better to separate the steps?

Looks good Do you think it makes sense to anneal the neck after fire forming?

Yes that was my first thought too. But strangely the RCBS 357/45 die has no expander. Just a nut holding the decapping as it would be usual for standard pistol calibers. But that should be an easy fix. The .35 Whelen decap unit should fit to the die. https://www.rcbs.com/spare-parts-and-extras/decap-units-and-pins/replacement-parts/decap-unit--.35-whelen/16-9823.html .35 Whelen is .358 so it could be a little bit too large but that easily can be grinded down. Think I am gonna order this part. You're right that should achieve better results than forcing the .357 Mag expander into the case. Does your CH4d die have an expander?

Great you see potential in the 7,92x33 too! I expect the case getting shorter because the 7,92x33 has 34° neck angle the 357/45 40°. But the difference should be minor and from my experience bottle neck cases get substanically longer after the first firing anyway. After that the length should be fine, might even need trimming. Ideal would be to use cases already fired once in a rifle... I think we could use a regular .357 / 9mm RCBS expander die. Just did a quick and dirty trial with a .308 Win case which I after expanding did put partly in the 357 / 45 GMW FL die. The expander did widen the neck about 6-7mm cylindrically till it opened the mouth for seating. I think that should be enough. Further widening could be may be done by seating the bullet. One thing I discovered which is not so good... the neck respectively the mouth is not 100% straight anymore.. If the length of the formed and calibrated 7,92x33 is < 33mm how about seating a light and short 90grs 9mm bullet and do a little fire forming? After that the case should be fine. Then FL calibration evantually some minor trimming and the case should be ready to go

Hi Grizzly45, thanks for sharing your information in English! It is really one of the best sources for this rare caliber in the web you can find or at least that I have found A few weeks ago I purchased a Grizzly .45 Win Mag with 6,5” barrel which came with four 6,5” conversion kits including a 357/45 GWM kit So now I am looking forward to shoot this barrel and need to fabricate some ammo for it. The previous owner seems to have shot this barrel with formed .45 Win Mag cases. Along the gun came round about a hundred shot cases formed to 357/45 GMW. Looking on the condition of the barrel, I guess that might be the only shots fired from it. As I understand because the 45 WinMag cases are too short for crimping the bullet will not stay in place while the cartridge is fed to the chamber. So I am looking for cases in the correct length. When looking for base cases did you consider to use 7,92x33 kurz cases from the STGW 44? The case is very similar. Rim is just a little bit smaller than the .308 Win the shoulder a bit flatter and it's position about 1mm further to the front. After calibration I think we would end with a case length of 32-32,5mm with an unfired case. My hope would be that after expanding the neck to 9mm I could spare myself the reaming. Luckily with the gun came a 357/45 GMW die set (RCBS) so the important tool for making the cases I do have. A matching expander should be to be found in one of my other die sets. So create cases by just expanding the neck and then do a full length calibration of the case. What do you think about this idea? Would be great to get an opinion to my idea from you or somebodys else paying attention to this thread Cheers de50ae