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To newbies; What you need to know about the 357Sig.....

11K views 104 replies 45 participants last post by  sunfish 
#1 · (Edited)
Today's 357Sig chambering has been dropped by many manufacturers and is now more commonly acquired today in a Glock then in any other pistol. Glock offers the 357Sig in 3 different models, (6 between Gen3 & Gen4), and I own a G33 myself. As happened to me, I'm guessing most newbies to this round will never be aware of the issue of "bullet setback" until they already owned the gun.....and even then they may not know.

To anybody contemplating the purchase of any 375Sig pistol, "Bullet Setback" is real with this cartridge and is a PIA occurrence with it more then with any other round that I've bought and/or handloaded in the last 40 years. While it would NOT stop me from still choosing this round again as my go-to carry gun, buyers should at least want to be made aware of it. Under the right conditions, if you are unaware and careless, it can lead to a KABOOM. The bottom line is, the 357Sig cartridge case has a very short and narrow neck to grip the bullet. Thus, it is not unusual for the bullet to be pushed a bit down into the case neck when the slide slams the cartridge into the chamber. I have experienced minor "setback" of the bullet in Speer Gold Dot cartridges with as few as 2 cyclings of the slide, and certainly almost always by the 3rd cycling. (the same with some of my reloads too). A bullet pushed down into the case far enough will cause excess pressure.

So be careful about chambering and unchambering the same one cartridge at the top of your magazine and into the chamber more then once.
And if you do a poor job with hand loading this cartridge, it might only take the first time that you feed the cartridge into the chamber that the bullet gets shoved all the way down into the case! ....and BOOM!

For more info on this, google "357Sig bullet setback".



BTW, this is not my photo, but I pulled it from Wiki to illustrate a severe case of "setback".
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#35 · (Edited)
This is not something I have experienced with my conversion barrel in .357 I shoot from my 23.
I have 19 conversion barrel as well as the .357. I don't have any scientific proof but way back when I bought my 23. I wanted a gun that chambered the ill-conceived round. I prefer .45 ACP, .357 Mag & 9mm. for self defense in that order.
When I found out about the KB in the .40 I polished the ramp and put a minuscule amount of MP7 on all carry ammo. I have done this with my 3 Glocks. I have a 23, 21 & 30. Gave my 19 to my son. I liked that you could use 3 different barrels on one frame.

I love the .357 SIG because of its accuracy. I carry the 23 .357 combo for a carry as well as the .40 When carrying Glocks. Both .357 & .40 can use the same mag. I don't carry the 23 as much as I used to, preferring the 1911 for semis. If have to go to Detoilet at night for any reason I have a .357 mag revolver in either my front pocket or jacket or coat front pocket. The 23 in .40 is a easy gun to master if you practice with it, to know the feel. But it is really easy with the .357 Sig barrel.

I just don't know a lot of people that carry the .357 SIG, in any gun make. I don't know if the polish & lube job I do has any validity but it is my cure for the potential KB. I also may just be lucky. I have had a good share of luck in my life...so maybe?

In my personal real-world experience. You just don't have time to react and aim at a violent attacker. I don't know of any attacks either on myself or all the people I saw in Detroit in the hospital that had been approached in time to react with even the 3-3-3 rule.
Bar fights and drug deals are not included in my personal experience since I don't do those.

Now, hopped up junkies, violent thugs and gangbangers are a different story. The D is full of them and it is shooting times in the city. Daytime is better with nighttime being a really bad place to be outside of the cattle call sports arena areas where Detroit's finest are the heaviest on those nights.

My hand is always on my gun in bad places. I used to use my retired jeans, pants, coats & jackets that I use for practice shooting through the fabric barrier and into the assailant.

When I worked with my wife and kids it was always in hand to hand physical contact using a gun.
Cheap rubber knives and guns can be a real asset when training a novice. And we are all novices until you have the real thing happen.

I don't spend a lot of time putting holes in paper for handgun work (my 1911 is an exception) as the 1911 platform is an absolute dream to shoot. But Glock makes a superb everyman's gun. I trust it almost as much as my revolvers for reliability. But for struggling with an attacker a snubbie wheel gun is a real good gun to have in the clinches. Carry and learn how to use a knife too it is a real skill and is diminishable like the gun skill you need to make it to the safety.

Give me a rifle for aiming and shooting and it is where I am now spending most of my shooting time. Fun too!
 
#58 ·
Drilled,

I am not familar with Sig ammo. My personal EDC choices have been narrowed down to Speer 125Gold Dots and Federal 125 HST. HOWEVER, I will refer you to YouTube to see some in depth tests to check those and other brands to decide for yourself. If you carry 3" barreled guns then search for the videos posted by shootingthebull410 in the YouTube search. He has done excellent ballistic gel test with and without denim. For 4" barrels, refer to tnoutdoors9 with more excellent tests. You can search by those names or enter "357Sig ballistic gel tests" or "9mm ballistic gel tests" and you will find pages of tests. Those two guys are my favorites with test closely related to my 3" & 4" length EDC guns. Most police departments use GoldDot and HST, and the excellent ballistic tests reinforce my reason to buy those brands. However, the Speer GDot can suffer minor "setback". I haven't tested the HST yet to know if they are about the same with setback.
 
#39 ·
The same thing happened to me in my Glock 23 with 32 barrel. I grew tired of the excessive torque .40 produced and bought a 32 barrel. I loved the ballistics and the recoil impulse of 357 being much quicker and more of a pop that helped me with accurate, quicker follow up shots. I'll never forget the occasion I noticed bullet set back because it was the night my niece was born. I loaded up my converted Glock 23 with 14 357 gold dots and put on 2 spare mags of 13 on my hip and walked down an savory area of Memphis TN to hang out in the hospital waiting room. I got back home (90 miles away) early in the morning and set my pistol on the night stand and went to bed. I went to the range later the next day and decided to unload my carry rounds for the Tennessse Cartidge company reloads the range sells. It was odd that I unloaded my carry ammo because I like to empty my carry ammo (when I can afford to) from my drawn pistol to ensure what I had been carrying would function when I really needed to. I unloaded my ONCE chambered 125 grain gold dot to find it had set back as much or more as the pictured above. Needless to say I traded that glock with 40 and 357 barrels as well as at least twenty 13,15, and 22 round Glock mags for a Glock 19 that I ran with standard pressure ammunition for almost a year before I decided to dedicate my EDC to something I could always have on me. Now, a Glock 42 is always on my person unless I am in the shower. I carry it in a Recluse two sided holster for pocket carry, a Crossbreed appendix ( in either the appendix position or at 3:30) OR a Smart Carry holster if the environment dictates that I MUST not print or if I'm wearing basketball shorts or sweat pants OR pajama pants. These three holsters with the Glock 42 ensure that I am always comfortable, concealed, and always always carrying. I pick the carry method to my environment. In a perfect environment, it is in the crossbreed for the quickest access. But my Glock 42 is undetectable aside from a metal detecting wand or a pat down. If I am not facing a security check, I am armed. To me, that is more comforting than 357 magnum ballistics from an autoloader. The bullet setback I experienced was a blessing because it removed my ego from my carry choice and allowed me to find a one gun system for all occasions. The Glock 42 is so soft shooting that it allowed me to become proficient with my off hand one handed. The Lehigh extreme penetrator round satisfies the effectiveness debate of 380 but I feel quite confident in the 10.5 inches that the federal HST delivers. There is nothing wrong with running Winchester white box flat nose as carry ammo either. I installed trijicon HD night sights on yellow and I love the contrast of the complete black rear sight to the big yellow tennis ball up front. I don't walk out of the house without my Glock 42, zero tolerance 0350, and a streamlight pen light. I also carry 2 or 3 back up magazines either in the pouch in the Smart Carry and or a Snag Mag. Life is good.
Wow. This thread was about bullet setback. HTF did it turn into a treatise on how and what you carry...?
 
#41 ·
Today's 357Sig chambering has been dropped by many manufacturers and is now more commonly acquired today in a Glock then in any other pistol. Glock offers the 357Sig in 3 different models, (6 between Gen3 & Gen4), and I own a G33 myself. As happened to me, I'm guessing most newbies to this round will never be aware of the issue of "bullet setback" until they already owned the gun.....and even then they may not know.

To anybody contemplating the purchase of any 375Sig pistol, "Bullet Setback" is real with this cartridge and is a PIA occurrence with it more then with any other round that I've bought and/or handloaded in the last 40 years. While it would NOT stop be from still choosing this round again as my go-to carry gun, buyers should at least want to be made aware of it. Under the right conditions, if you are unaware and careless, it can lead to a KABOOM. The bottom line is, the 357Sig cartridge case has a very short and narrow neck to grip the bullet. Thus, it is not unusual for the bullet to be pushed a bit down into the case neck when the slide slams the cartridge into the chamber. I have experienced minor "setback" of the bullet in Speer Gold Dot cartridges with as few as 2 cyclings of the slide, and certainly almost always by the 3rd cycling. (the same with some of my reloads too). A bullet pushed down into the case far enough will cause excess pressure.

So be careful about chambering and unchambering the same one cartridge at the top of your magazine and into the chamber more then once.
And if you do a poor job with hand loading this cartridge, it might only take the first time that you feed the cartridge into the chamber that the bullet gets shoved all the way down into the case! ....and BOOM!

For more info on this, google "357Sig bullet setback".



BTW, this is not my photo, but I pulled it from Wiki to illustrate a severe case of "setback".
View attachment 331712
I load my own and I use a 90 gr. .380 gaping hollow-point ahead of a case full of powder . The bullet touches the powder . It can't and doesn't set back .
 
#45 ·
The Texas Department of Public Safety has been issuing the round for almost 20 years and, to the best of my knowledge, hundreds of thousands of rounds later and not a single "kaboom." Same for USSS, FAMS, etc.

Don't re-chamber rounds (shouldn't be doing that anyway) and everything will be just fine.

As far as the guy that switched to .380, I'm glad to read he has found a kit that works for him and that he will carry always.
 
#46 ·
From what I understand, crimp has little to do with bullet setback in the 357 Sig. It is all about proper neck size/tension.
I use the Dillon die set, and a Lee collet crimp die for my 357 Sig hand loads.
I'm not even sure if Lee makes a crimp die (in 357 Sig!) other than the collet. Collet dies really lock things down, if need be.
But, in general, knowing that setback can be a problem here, for both 40 S&W and 357 Sig, I ride the slide back whenever I re-chamber a round.
Yes, I know, never ride the slide back! I only do it for that one particular action, with only those two rounds. It is only for CC rounds and I verify that the slide is in battery. I have cycled certain rounds more than 20 times, checking with a caliper each time, and finding no more than .002" setback.
Quality tools and technique...
 
#47 ·
I believe it only happens when a round is chambered several times. Like you chamber your first round and remove your magazine. Then you put it back into the magazine and chamber it again and again. I have had ZERO issues since I got my G32 back when they first came out. Secret service has used the .357 SIG for YEARS AND YEARS

I assume they handle heir weapons enough to cause a set back like the one mentioned here. Wouldn't they have dumped it ? That's some scary stuff.
 
#50 ·
Crimp has nothing to do with preventing bullet setback, in fact, over crimping can start the bullet on it's way down the case. The word crimp is not even correct, it's a "de-belling" step, only enough to remove the bell from the powder thru die. The Lee Factory Crimp die is a actually a floating collet that allows +/- .005" variation in case length. It's hard to tell that the neck has even been touched, and besides the bottle neck 357 doesn't really need crimp at all, except to chamber.

Reloading is a discipline, and if you are going to go that way, than understand the risks, especially if you load rifle and pistol on the same press. There is no faster way to blow up a rifle than to forget to change the powder hopper from the pistol.

Dillon 550 and SD, and RockChucker.



case rupture from a 9mm carbine, caused by bullet setback. Shooter, who was a new reloader, did not know the origin of the brass, nor had he miked the bullets. When the remaining 200 rounds tapped out, 7 went short. The powder was 3.5 grains of TiteGroup, a book load.



40S&W frag that I took after it hit a plate at 35 yards out. Only took 3 stitches, but they had to probe around for 30 minutes to find it because it went in .25" deep.



My buddy took a full weight 9mm to the cheek during a training session. Fortunately it didn't have enough energy left to do much damage



Had this one land on top of my head from 4 bays over



It was a 230 grain .45acp
 
#52 ·
Crimp has nothing to do with preventing bullet setback, in fact, over crimping can start the bullet on it's way down the case. The word crimp is not even correct, it's a "de-belling" step, only enough to remove the bell from the powder thru die. The Lee Factory Crimp die is a actually a floating collet that allows +/- .005" variation in case length. It's hard to tell that the neck has even been touched, and besides the bottle neck 357 doesn't really need crimp at all, except to chamber.

Reloading is a discipline, and if you are going to go that way, than understand the risks, especially if you load rifle and pistol on the same press. There is no faster way to blow up a rifle than to forget to change the powder hopper from the pistol.

Dillon 550 and SD, and RockChucker.



case rupture from a 9mm carbine, caused by bullet setback. Shooter, who was a new reloader, did not know the origin of the brass, nor had he miked the bullets. When the remaining 200 rounds tapped out, 7 went short. The powder was 3.5 grains of TiteGroup, a book load.



40S&W frag that I took after it hit a plate at 35 yards out. Only took 3 stitches, but they had to probe around for 30 minutes to find it because it went in .25" deep.



My buddy took a full weight 9mm to the cheek during a training session. Fortunately it didn't have enough energy left to do much damage



Had this one land on top of my head from 4 bays over



It was a 230 grain .45acp

9X45. You never learned to NEVER have more than ONE type of powder on the bench at the same time?
How about NEVER leaving powder in your dump measures.
Appears you've got a few tiny scars as "schooling", HOPE you learned something there. It could have been a lot worse you know, you could have been blinded. THEN what would you do or say?
 
#54 ·
A few weeks back I had a squib 165gr .40 stuck in my barrel of my G23 and didnt know it until I fired another 165gr right on top of it. I knew it then. So thats 330gr of bullet. Not even a bulged barrel. So it seems to me that just a few thou set back on a 357 wouldnt be much to worry about. Now major set back like those pictured may be a different story.
 
#56 ·
Wrong assumption. Have your bbl checked for a bulge. This happened to a friend of mine last month, locked her gun up solid, bbl was toast with a nice bulge about 1/3 down the tube. Yes a bullet setback with the wrong powder/bullet combo can be a catastrophic event.
 
#60 ·
TGT, I've only loaded and shot over 15,000 rounds thru my G31. That's pretty weak compared to my over 200,000 rounds thru my old G17. But no problems yet with reloads, although I have run into bullet setback on commercial loads.... I only know the results of what I shoot in competition, and if it works, I don't think about that much.
 
#61 ·
Interesting points of view and information.

From the perspective of a reloader, there are so many different powders available to us, I am shocked guys don't pick a powder with the burn rate and energy density such that they can achieve their desired velocity while having zero free space in the case, thus assuring it being an impossibility for the bullet to set back (mildly compressed load). I recently pulled a 9mm 124gr +P Federal HST, it had such a compressed charge of BE86 that I had to break up the powder with a drift punch before it would fall out of the case and into the pan for weighing. You could rechamber this round 1000 times and never have .001" of setback.

I am shocked Speer loads their 357SIG with anything less than like 110% load density. It would make setback impossible.
That's how I load all 20 or so rifle and pistol calibers that I shoot . I love the 357 SIG fireball with 90 gr . Sierra .380 h.p. bullets . The 9x25 Dillon has the same short neck and they're full also and the same bullet at 2200 f.p.s. [?] is a flamethrower . I've never had setback .
 
#63 ·
Drilled,

I am not familar with Sig ammo. My personal EDC choices have been narrowed down to Speer 125Gold Dots and Federal 125 HST. HOWEVER, I will refer you to YouTube to see some in depth tests to check those and other brands to decide for yourself. If you carry 3" barreled guns then search for the videos posted by shootingthebull410 in the YouTube search. He has done excellent ballistic gel test with and without denim. For 4" barrels, refer to tnoutdoors9 with more excellent tests. You can search by those names or enter "357Sig ballistic gel tests" or "9mm ballistic gel tests" and you will find pages of tests. Those two guys are my favorites with test closely related to my 3" & 4" length EDC guns. Most police departments use GoldDot and HST, and the excellent ballistic tests reinforce my reason to buy those brands. However, the Speer GDot can suffer minor "setback". I haven't tested the HST yet to know if they are about the same with setback.
TGT, Thanks for the links. I had to replenish all my ammo late last year. I try to go thru supply I buy in a years time. I have always used GD ammo for carry. I shoot Lawman for practice in all my hand gun calibers. I always try to shoot my carry ammo to when shooting HG's to always have the known predictability of my carry ammo.
I did a switch up last year for my .40 and .357 Ammo I went with Golden Sabers for my .40 and Sig .357 for that setup. The Sig ammo has proven superb so far and really like it's accuracy.
Thanks for the input.
 
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#66 ·
Left out is the "explanation" that the bottle-necked 357 SIG is a necked-down .40 S&W case and thus the neck is too short to hold the bullet....which is not true. The 357 SIG case is its own brass design. Never make 357 from .40 brass.
So far so good with 357 SIG in my experiences (admittedly limited compared to others). Guess I am reloading them correctly.
 
#69 ·
Today's 357Sig chambering has been dropped by many manufacturers and is now more commonly acquired today in a Glock then in any other pistol. Glock offers the 357Sig in 3 different models, (6 between Gen3 & Gen4), and I own a G33 myself. As happened to me, I'm guessing most newbies to this round will never be aware of the issue of "bullet setback" until they already owned the gun.....and even then they may not know.

To anybody contemplating the purchase of any 375Sig pistol, "Bullet Setback" is real with this cartridge and is a PIA occurrence with it more then with any other round that I've bought and/or handloaded in the last 40 years. While it would NOT stop me from still choosing this round again as my go-to carry gun, buyers should at least want to be made aware of it. Under the right conditions, if you are unaware and careless, it can lead to a KABOOM. The bottom line is, the 357Sig cartridge case has a very short and narrow neck to grip the bullet. Thus, it is not unusual for the bullet to be pushed a bit down into the case neck when the slide slams the cartridge into the chamber. I have experienced minor "setback" of the bullet in Speer Gold Dot cartridges with as few as 2 cyclings of the slide, and certainly almost always by the 3rd cycling. (the same with some of my reloads too). A bullet pushed down into the case far enough will cause excess pressure.

So be careful about chambering and unchambering the same one cartridge at the top of your magazine and into the chamber more then once.
And if you do a poor job with hand loading this cartridge, it might only take the first time that you feed the cartridge into the chamber that the bullet gets shoved all the way down into the case! ....and BOOM!

For more info on this, google "357Sig bullet setback".



BTW, this is not my photo, but I pulled it from Wiki to illustrate a severe case of "setback".
View attachment 331712
I HAVE had the same issues with the .40 cal, with the 135gr JHP,my main reason for buying a 27,tried once fired brass, NEW brass,made ZERO difference,set back occurs even in the magazine.(Loading on a Dillon 650),never had this issue with a 10mm,same bullet.
 
#79 ·
I do know that 357 is more prone to setback, but I've seen it happen with everything out there. For carry ammo in order to chamber I never drop the slide, that will affect it. You can ride it home quickly and avoid any chances of bullet setback and you can load it over again a thousand times. I think very highly of the 357 SIG and have often used .357" bullets in it, namely the 125gr, 140gr and 158gr XTP as they're very strong and have cannelures. It's a serious cartridge and absolutely one of my favorites.
 
#80 · (Edited)
I believe it only happens when a round is chambered several times. Like you chamber your first round and remove your magazine. Then you put it back into the magazine and chamber it again and again. I have had ZERO issues since I got my G32 back when they first came out. Secret service has used the .357 SIG for YEARS AND YEARS
It is all about neck tension. The temper and quality of the brass along with the pre-sizing operation done at the factory before priming and charging should be quality checked. The necks are too short on that round for my liking. I wouldn't repeatedly rechamber that round without caution myself. I choose .357 magnum. I did buy a .357 Sig barrel for my G23 and G27, but have never tried them yet. Some day....
 
#84 ·
If you reload that round, use only the same head stamped brass. We used to load the 357 SIG a few years ago but had problems with bullet set back also. It is more common with mixed brass due to the difference in composition and thickness of the different brands. With the short neck, you can't put a lot of crimp or you will destroy what little neck tension there is. I sorted a bunch of brass as a test and used only the same brand. The rounds came out great. Without changing the die adjustments, I loaded 5 each of different brass and they all had different degrees of bullet retention. So after that we just quit loading it as it is too much extra work sorting by head stamp to make it worth our while. Beware of this if you reload 357 SIG!
 
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#85 ·
Professing my ignorance, but if the shoulder of the cartridge is fully seated in the chamber and the bullet is properly crimped, has does the explosion NOT expand the case and propel the gases down the barrel. Doesn't this sound more like bad brass?
 
#89 ·
Today's 357Sig chambering has been dropped by many manufacturers and is now more commonly acquired today in a Glock then in any other pistol. Glock offers the 357Sig in 3 different models, (6 between Gen3 & Gen4), and I own a G33 myself. As happened to me, I'm guessing most newbies to this round will never be aware of the issue of "bullet setback" until they already owned the gun.....and even then they may not know.

To anybody contemplating the purchase of any 375Sig pistol, "Bullet Setback" is real with this cartridge and is a PIA occurrence with it more then with any other round that I've bought and/or handloaded in the last 40 years. While it would NOT stop me from still choosing this round again as my go-to carry gun, buyers should at least want to be made aware of it. Under the right conditions, if you are unaware and careless, it can lead to a KABOOM. The bottom line is, the 357Sig cartridge case has a very short and narrow neck to grip the bullet. Thus, it is not unusual for the bullet to be pushed a bit down into the case neck when the slide slams the cartridge into the chamber. I have experienced minor "setback" of the bullet in Speer Gold Dot cartridges with as few as 2 cyclings of the slide, and certainly almost always by the 3rd cycling. (the same with some of my reloads too). A bullet pushed down into the case far enough will cause excess pressure.

So be careful about chambering and unchambering the same one cartridge at the top of your magazine and into the chamber more then once.
And if you do a poor job with hand loading this cartridge, it might only take the first time that you feed the cartridge into the chamber that the bullet gets shoved all the way down into the case! ....and BOOM!

For more info on this, google "357Sig bullet setback".



BTW, this is not my photo, but I pulled it from Wiki to illustrate a severe case of "setback".
View attachment 331712
same with the necked down 10mm?
 
#91 ·
Not gonna lie, for the longest time I've had a lot of interest in getting a .357 SIG after I get my .45. But these posts are pushing me further away from getting one. I always wanted one because it's a unique and powerful round. But all this talk of bullet setback..
 
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