First up was the 357's. I shot the identical load of 15 gr. of Lil'Gun with a mag primer in my Rossi 92 with a 20" barrel and my Ruger Blackhawk with a 4 5/8" barrel. The load clocks 1750 fps from the Rossi, and 1240 from the Ruger. The bullets are cast from straight wheelweight alloy.
The bullet fired from the Rossi penetrated 18" and upset perfectly with very good expansion. The same load fired from the Ruger penetrated all 25" of books and just lodged itself in the tree that was backing the books, and didn't expand at all. Both bullets retained 100% of their weight.
Next up was the Hornady 240 gr. XTP. Same load again for rifle and revolver, 24 gr. of H110. I have not crono'd this load from the Marlin, but it's 1340 fps out of my 6" barrel S&W 629. I was very surprised that the bullets fired from each gun are almost indistinguishable from each other. The bullet fired from the Marlin still weighs 223 gr. and the revolver bullet 226 gr. The bullet from the rifle did peel back more, but just ever so slightly. Both ended up in the same phone book, some 18-19 inches deep.
After this exercise I won't have any problem stuffing the Marlin full of this bullet for deer hunting this fall. I had some concern about the Hornady hollow point at rifle velocities, but apparently it's not something that bullet can't handle, and do so very well.
I won't be using that 357 bullet in the Blackhawk for deer hunting. But it has proven itself a very effective bullet on deer from the Rossi already. Looks like a softer alloy is needed to get some expansion at handgun velocities. Another project for another day.
