.357 Magnum: Powerful Medicine for Home Defense

The .357 magnum came about as a result of the inadequacy of the .38 special as a police round. While the boys in blue were armed with the .38, the bad guys had more lethal weapons at their disposal. In a word, the police were out-gunned. A .38 special will not penetrate a car door. At certain angles, it won't penetrate the glass windshield. The .38 works just fine in a shootout with another person, except when that person is hopped up on drugs. There are many recorded instances of criminals being shot multiple times with a .38 special, and not only were they able to keep attacking, but were actually able to kill the police officer with their bare hands before succumbing to their wounds. (Unless they were shot in the head, which in the heat of battle proved not to be very practical or feasible.) Something else was needed.

In 1935, the brainchild of Phil Sharp and Douglas Wesson was born. It had the same bore as the .38 special (which by-the-way is actually .357) but was 1/8 of an inch longer and much more powerful. The first .357 magnum pistol was presented to none other than the Director of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover. It became one of the pets for Hollywood directors in police movies. In fact Hollywood glorified the .357 in quite a few movies.

The .357 has a velocity of around 1200 feet per second (fps) from a six inch barrel and using a 158 grain jacketed soft point. With the same bullet out of a six inch .38 special the velocity is around 750 fps. The foot pounds of energy at the muzzle is around 500 for the former and around 270 for the latter. The .357 has more raw power and of course kicks harder in recoil. But it is still a manageable firearm if the pistol is a bit heavier to help soak up the kick.

Of course it is the American way to have a large gun with a big boom. Other police forces around that time carried .32 caliber revolvers. That is if they carried any weapon at all besides a baton.

Before the advent of the 9mm and the .40 caliber autos the .357 magnum was the premier police round. In fact it was as American as apple pie or Hollywood. It ha(s) enough power to disable an adversary with one shot. In fact it is still the best man stopper when loaded with Federal 125 grain jacketed hollow points.

My father uses the .357 to hunt with and has taken game as big as a smallish whitetail buck at 50 yards. Some consider the .357 underpowered for deer. But my dad is a good shot and responsible hunter. He uses common sense and keeps his shots at close range and says he would not try and bag a large buck with the .357 unless it is very close.

I target shoot, and I can handle the recoil of this round. It isn't a dainty round and it does get to me after awhile for then it starts to sting my hands. And it needs to be treated with respect at the target range because it can penetrate many things a .38 special will bounce off of. It also has a louder report so it can be a bother to sensitive ears(you should always wear hearing protectors when firing a gun).

The .357 will in reality penetrate car doors and windshields and put the bad guys down. It is a good home-defense gun. Revolvers are inherently more reliable than autos which can jam or misfire. If the bullet in a revolver does not fire just pull the trigger and the next round is up to bat. But it only holds six rounds as compared to a 9mm semi-auto which can hold up to sixteen rounds. And the .357 magnum revolver has lost a lot of ground to these two newcomers because of this shortcoming.

But I have a feeling it will be around for a long time to come. It is just too good of a cartridge to fade away.