Thank you again for your messages and I’m happy I could bring a little laughter your way. https://gunnewsdaily.com/fk-brno-field-pistol-review/, http://www.answers.com/Q/What_gun_is_carried_by_secret_service_agents, http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com/357sig.html, https://www.turners.com/kimber/kimber-pro-carry-hd-ii-38-supe-5612, Disclaimer Policy And FTC Affiliate Disclosure |, Disclaimer Policy And FTC Affiliate Disclosure. I’d love to have a Coonan in .357 magnum too. Have shot rifles and shotguns since I was 8, but I'm new to handguns. Me personally I have thinned out my heard of 9mm pistols in favor of a few 357sig pistols. I’m not suggesting that everyone just carry a .22, but, if it’s all you have, it beats throwing rocks. They took the 9mm cookie to replace the .45 ACP to be in step with everyone else going 9mm for compatibility conformance. As Sylvester Stallone so eloquently put it in Rocky VI, “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows!” This is the sad truth, and doubly more so in the case of the .357 SIG. Life isn’t ever going to be that easy though, and superior ballistics doesn’t necessarily mean a particular cartridge/caliber is better than another. Plus the fireballs it makes at twilight hours is a bonus :p. Thanks for reading through the article. So please do not take this article too seriously. Which caliber will make it through the most boards? .357 Sig was out of the running. I’d argue that these lack power, which is what 357sig does best. The first was the 10mm Glock 20 and it did the job. Anyway, thank you for the reply and a great article. It is very coincidental that I own both guns you have pictured (sig p239 in both calibers) and enjoy firing the sig 357 much more (and find myself carrying that more) but your conclusion hits the nail on the head when it comes to availability and affordability. I’m cracking up on the heartburn/indigestion bit, lol. If bullet diameter, ammo availability and mag capacity were the main deciding points, then why not 9×18 or .380? @JD Donham 357 Magnum vs 44 Magnum: History. I can only assume Georg was tasked to redesign the 7.65x21mm and come up with the 9x19mm because of a few possible reasons: Since its introduction in 1902, the 9x19mm Parabellum, now more commonly referred to everywhere as the 9mm, has enjoyed a well-deserved reputation. I’d rather watch actors get into gunfights on tv. The following ammunition cartridge ballistics information and chart can be used to approximately compare .327 Federal Magnum vs .357 Magnum ammo rounds. Your comment made my day. My point is that I trust the cartridge, it does what 9mm does, but better, minus a little recoil and mag capacity. There have been many times I asked myself this question: If I survived a holocaust of some sort — like say a zombie apocalypse or a nuclear fallout — and there was only one semi-auto handgun caliber left in the world, what would that be for me? Cheers! You know as well as I do that the handgun caliber wars will continue until the Star Trek phasers come out, then it’ll start all over as to which phaser works best. The 9mm loaded to the extremes can produce similar (albeit a little lower) bullet velocities, case in point Underwood’s 9mm LUGER +P+ which can push a 124-grain bullet out of a 5-inch barrel with velocity at the muzzle of 1,300 feet per second. A cartridge that had less recoil than .357 Magnum Its cheap to shoot and easy to maintain. If you want the .357, get it. But, just as rifle cartridges that come out and are superior, sometimes far superior to 5.56mm and .308, they can rarely break into mainstream because the world is flooded with 5.56, .308 and 9mm. This will be a very subjective comparison based on my own logic and experience, and my opinions do not reflect those of the other contributing authors of Gun News Daily. Thanks for your input. You can buy bulk .38spl ammo and shoot it in your .357, and it's about a break even IMO. They come with a .357/.38 cylinder and a 9mm cylinder. Anyway, I will be purchasing a 40 cal and a Lone Wolf 9mm conversion barrel for my G31. That being said, 9mm vs .357 Sig is worth exploring, if for no other reason than to crush some ballistic myths. The bean counters had a hissy over the cost of 10mm and convinced command to go to .45 Glock 21SF with Golden Sabres and a +P. Whereas my Glock 19 was the equalizer, the Glock 32 that I have made my EDC gives me more comfort. It is ballistically superior to the 9mm. I would like recommend that you check always the latest price before … The .38 Special was introduced in 1898 as a military service cartridge as .38 Long Colt had insufficient stopping power against the wooden shields of Moros during the Philippine-American War. You just earned your self a NEW fan. If I want a “+P” 357 Sig I can purchase Underwood’s loading of Gold Dot which hits 1510 FPS. So, is more muzzle velocity better or is it not? Not sure if you’re still monitoring this discussion any longer but regardless, I think this is a good comparison article except for one point. They are all 35 caliber but the difference is muzzle velocity and only muzzle velocity. I don’t EDC everyday but when I do it’s a 9mm. As for ammo availability, I’ve got about 1800 to 2000 rounds of it and never had an issue finding it here in Texas. A cartridge equal to .357 Mag ballistics in guns that provide double the capacity I love my Taurus 689 in .357 magnum. To be honest, there wasn’t any significant observable differences in the damage done. If it did law enforcement agencies all over the country would’ve switched to it. Cheers! Colder weather or woods carry it’s always a .357 sig. ? 250 9mm Ammo Cost And 357 Vs 9mm Revolver Best Buy 2019 Ads, Deals and Sales. Anyway, long story short, it’s right back to “WHERE” someone is shot, not the caliber. Because it didn’t really catch on as far as popularity, partly due to it being released just a few years after the .40 S&W and partly due to it not really having any practical advantages over other more established handgun calibers, ammo availability tends to be an issue in some states. If you ask me, the sad, unfortunate, story leading to the inevitable demise of the .357 SIG came just a little too prematurely. AR-15 & AR-10. And for all the people who keep saying with today’s new bullet technology and new powders the 9MM is now better and faster, well guess what that same bullet technology and new powders also went into making the 40 SW, 357SIG and the 45ACP also a better round. Is it more expensive? 6 rounds of .357 mag or 16 of .357 sig? Yep, to each their own. 40s&w and 9mm barrels for the weapon, but one small fact keeps me on the 357. They advertise 1475fps, for 357sig but it chronos at 1500+ untill you put it in a Glock 33 then it comes in at advertised or slightly under. Ahhh so many guns, so little time. We discussed the .357 Sig but yet again, too costly on the Ammo. The 9mm vs. Location: Deep in the Heart of the Lone Star State (TX). Gun News Daily is the longest running gun news website in the US. The slight drawback of the 9mm +P+ having a bit of a lower velocity is mitigated by the fact that durable all-steel guns (e.g. Also working outdoors in the woods of Maine, it has its merits against…larger wildlife that a 9mm, .40 or .45 would just piss off due to less penetration. Get the best of all worlds....start off with a Single-Six or Bearcat in .22lr to learn the basics. I was just wandering if the .357sig load would be of much use in the short barrel of the Shield pistol? Essentially, the .357 SIG is a round that uses the same sized bullet as a 9mm round but in a cartridge casing that is similar to a .40 caliber case. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find a 4-inch barrel 1911 chambered in .38 Super. The cheapest box of 50 runs about $23 . 9mm vs 45 ACP Ballistics. I’ve spoken with many Ex LEO and a few Ex FBI agents at gun shows and every one of them said the same thing the only reason the 9mm was chosen by the FBI and LEO was not because the 9mm was a better because they even said it wasn’t, it was because there agents and officers were only hitting their targets less than 30 percent or less of the time (look up the report) which they the LEO and agents blamed on recoil of 40SW and 357Sig and with the 9mm you got less recoil for faster follow up shots and 2+ extra rounds yet know the standard FBI and LEO 9mm round is now a +p or a +p+ round which know that so called recoil that they blamed on the 40sw and 357sig is worse with the 9MM then it was with the 40SW and 357SIG. Maybe at some local gunstores. Price – it is difficult to compare the price between two different rounds completely. 5. Both were designed for semi-automatic handguns, both use a projectile that has a diameter of 355/1000 of an inch, and with modern bullet designs, i.e. I’m one of those guys that carriers a different gun and caliber every week just for fun, but if I’m going to a bad part of town or on a trip, it’s the 357 SIG for all the reasons ThePersonalProtectionSpecialist mentioned. The problem is the .357 SIG also has a reputation for being hard to reload, so while a few are able to successfully reload. We'll cover the pros & cons of 9mm vs .45 ACP, from stopping power to expansion, accuracy, price, capacity, and more. That’s what matters most for me. Boys can deprime & resize, while you handle the powder and bullets. Anyone would be hard-pressed to find .357 SIG ammo as cheap as 9mm online. Decided we'd probably go ahead and buy our first handgun. The company I purchased from also had a .357sig barrel. Nice article, nice effort. To say the .357 was trying to fix a non-existant problem is innacurate. The 10mm was their second hope followed by the .40. Maybe if I compare the most common handgun calibers two at a time and record all my thoughts, I’d be able to figure out what the answer to the above question is. Elmer Keith, an Idahoan gun nut among other things, got it right when he decided to hot-load the .38 Special for use in some of Smith & Wesson’s .38-caliber revolvers built originally for the .44 S&W Special. And thank you for taking the time to read through it all, Joe. I’m another latecomer to the article/party. use practically the same diameter bullets which punch holes that are pretty much the same size @Amado Garcia, thank you for the kind words. If you look at this link http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com/357sig.html you’ll see that there’s around ~200 fps difference in muzzle velocities when firing any of the specified .357 SIG loads from a 3-inch and a 5-inch. No question, the caliber wars will continue as long as firearms are being used. Handgun Caliber Showdown Round 1: 9mm vs .357 SIG. We chronied our guns (mine was SIG P229, 3.9″ Bbl 125gr at 1365 FPS) then took turns at shooting a ballistic dummy wearing body armor. Not sure why the .357 Sig is being evaluated as a hunting cartridge? I wish there could be more odd ones like yourself — then maybe the .357 SIG would get the popularity it deserves. this leaves guns like the 10mm glock 20’s, they are bigger, breach face is still 40/357/10mm brass sized, too large for extraction 100% of the time, mag lips are an issue. An average muzzle velocity of 9mm ammunition, that being the energy the bullet leaves the barrel with, is around 1,200 feet per second (commonly abbreviated as fps or ft/s). I think as a concept, it works great. The article was a nice read and had some good points. Why is that even a question? A great number of you reading this might be considering a conceal and carry weapon. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ If you searching for special discount you will need to searching when special time come or holidays. Now we all know an extra 200-300fps can flatten the trajectory of a round through glass, it can also give the extra umph needed to punch through a pesky folded steel door support. You can always buy a .38/.357 or 9MM later on. Damian, thanks for reading the article. However, being an online based air guns store I do not have many of the expensive operating costs of traditional stores. The 19 being the same size and feel as the 32 is still used for high volume range time. A difference of two cents per shot won’t drive the decision for most gun owners. It's also a good gun for kids to learn on. Thank you for the entertaining article. After the first round of tests everybody wanted me to go first because the force and cavitation shown by the dummy when shot by the 357 SIG was noticeably greater then all the other calibers. 9mm is cheaper/round, but I always end up blasting thru more of it than I do .38spl. Nice article. So, if cost is a factor to you, go with 9mm. I believe the 9mm is the best carry caliber for most folk because, just as the FBI report stated, most are too recoil sensitive for anything more powerful (from 10mm to 40 Cal to 9mm). The .357 Mag’s origins begin in the early 1930’s where the police force was in desperate need of a better terminal performing handgun load. Ill keep both 9mm and 357sig cuz I like them both. Location: home on the range; Vermont (Caspian country). Barrier penetration. I think carrying typical 125-grain .357 SIG loads is pushing it — I can be wrong as I’ve never had to shoot a bear before, but in such scenarios it’s better to err on the safe side. https://gunnewsdaily.com/fk-brno-field-pistol-review/. I currently carry a p229 chambered in .357 sig. Thanks, glad you liked the article. From the .38 special, modifications began to be made by Phil Sharpe, Elmer Keith, and eventually the guys at Smith & Wesson. Thanks for taking the time to read the article. I imagine it’ll have more felt recoil too. But its biggest Achilles’ heel being it can be expensive/difficult to come by/hard to handload in my opinion makes it inferior than the readily available but ballistically weaker 9mm. I’ve had a few others that I didn’t keep, because I didn’t care for the gun itself. It seems I shoot at a slower pace with the revolver because I have to reload more, and it seems more enjoyable. Plus, you might not have made your mind up about whether to get a pistol or revolver. But it’s really up to you. Why, if that were the case, then I say we get rid of all types of ammo save the almighty .50 BMG, gather them and burn them all. Even .380, .32 auto, .25 auto, none of them are as cheap as 9mm. Hence, the 9mm was their “first hope” for a superior man-stopper bullet, and the 10mm became the “second hope”. ...the 9mm is the cheapest of any handgun to shoot often other than the .22! I’ve been hunting for a place such as this for quite a long moment. Too much thinking and analysis is sometimes not good. I’ve been a Armed Security patrol officer for over a decade, carried everything from Sig p220s, 226s, 229s, Hk USPs, M9s, old steel 3rd gen Smith’s and every caliber from 9mm to .45ACP including the failed .45GAP. I’d like to point out that the 357sig’s case shape also adds to reliability since it is a bottle necked case. As a retired Federal Agent who worked in three different agencies, all of them as a collateral FI, and retiring as a Division FI, the .357 did all it was intended to do and outclassed the 9, 40 and 45. And before I forget, I downloaded that link you sent and I’ll read it later today. In that same year the Smith & Wesson Registered Magnum (M27) was born. Scant amounts of .40S&W, .45 ACP, and a relatively available amount of the obscure and much maligned .357 SIG. IIRC the .357 SIG was designed to be fired from barrels around 4 inches in length or longer — though it’s still faster than any 9mm load I know when fired from a 3-inch, I really don’t see the point. It was addressing issues during that time of trying to create the best manstopper afyer yhe FBI claimed the 9mm failed in 1986. So rather than offering better training for their officers and agents (which they do need) with the 40SW and 357 sig both which they all said was a much better and more powerful round at taking down people especially the 357 sig when loaded to where it originally was supposed to be (which originally was 1,450 + feet per second) for a 125 GR bullet and it still out performs any 9mm +p or +P+ round) and even after being watered down by ammo companies to 1350-1375 the 357 sig still out performed any 9mm +p and +P+ round that they the FBI and LEO had and they still opted to go with the less powerful 9mm which is under gunning there officers to a less lethal round. I have one problem though and I see it in almost every pro/con evaluation of the .357 sig. It was designed by Elmer Keith, Phillip … If it’s good enough to guard the President, it’s good enough for me. In a perfect world where money is never going to be an issue, I’d tell anyone who asks for a recommendation to buy any handgun chambered for this round if only to give it the chance it deserves. There are folks who have no issues forking out a couple more bucks and us cheapskates can only envy them. The .357 Mag’s origins begin in the early 1930’s where the police force was in desperate need of a better terminal performing handgun load. That being said, I personally choose 357 Sig over 40S&W because it shoots flatter which means more accuracy for me.