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To: AnAmericanMother

You said it.

Years ago, I was one of the very first adopters (first 500) of the SIG P229 in the 357SIG cartridge. I was also one of the very first people to begin hand-loading for it, having obtained one of the first batch of RCBS dies.

Almost 15 years of experience with this cartridge left me very weary of new ones. Short case necks led to bullet setback and two KaBooms! (of minor damage).

While I really liked the power behind the bullet, the case had too many design flaws to continue using it. I’m back to 9mm, .40 and .45ACP for all my pistols.


64 posted on 12/18/2009 8:35:48 AM PST by SJSAMPLE
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To: SJSAMPLE
I've never done 9mm, the idea of a tapered case makes me nervous. Of course I reload .455 Webley, you've really got to watch that one because the case mouth is so thin, you can crumple a perfectly good case if you're not careful, and cases are NOT cheap for that caliber. But once it's in you can roll crimp the heck out of it because it's a rimmed round and overall case length doesn't really matter.

Of course, I'm a perfectionist (weigh every load, weigh every bullet - except for the cowboy stuff which is pretty quick and dirty, but I do put everything in a loading block and check twice to make sure the powder is in the same level in every case. I shoot a fairly average .38 Sp load, so a double charge would be obvious. Some of the cowboy folks shoot a REALLY downloaded charge, you could get a double charge in there and not notice it. I kind of think it's cheating when the bullet just rolls out the barrel, plus of course it increases the danger of a squib.

83 posted on 12/18/2009 5:16:19 PM PST by AnAmericanMother (Ministrix of ye Chasse, TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary (recess appointment))
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