If You Want to Learn Handloading, Get a .357 Magnum Revolver

By John Kleespies

I’m sometimes encountered with a conversation that goes like this:

The other guy: “I want to learn how to load my own ammunition, but I don’t know where to begin. Help me!”

Me: “What kind of a gun do you own?”

The other guy: “I don’t know! Just tell me what to buy!”

I might suggest to this gentleman that he’d be better suited to take up knitting, but he does provide a unique opportunity because I think that there is one firearm which provides an ideal platform for learning how to hand load – the .357 Magnum revolver.

Or, more specifically, I think it’s a great idea to take up hand loading by starting with .38 Special ammunition that is fired out of a .357 Magnum wheel gun. In fact, this is the exact platform that I used to learn reloading, myself.

For starters, there’s some benefits that come from simply using a revolver:

1. No bending over to pick brass off the ground.
2. No springs for tuning or rails for cleaning or confusing matters if the gun gets jammed up at the range – revolvers are easy.
3. Two words: “single” and “action.”

And the benefits of .38 Special ammunition:

1. No bending over to pick brass off the ground!
2. Light recoiling .38 Special out of a heavy revolver is a pleasure that every shooter should experience.
3. .38 Special pressure is so low, the brass pretty much lasts forever.
4. .38 Special brass is cheap to begin with, but if you find some on the ground… that kind of free pretty much lasts forever.
5. Lead .38 Special rounds are probably the cheapest bullets you’ll ever find.
6. .38 Special wadcutter and semi-wadcutter rounds make the coolest bullet holes in the history of ever.

Finally, this ammunition and gun combination can be graciously forgiving to somebody who makes an error at the reloading bench, such as:

1. If the handloader should accidentally put a smidge too much powder in the brass, then he’s got a super strong receiver to soak up that error.
2. If the handloader should accidentally put a smidge too little powder in the case, then there’s no moving parts to waste the ammunition’s energy upon, so the bullet will likely dribble out the barrel and everything will continue functioning just fine without a jam.
3. If the handloader should accidentally load the bullet too long, there’s plenty of space in that big ol’ cylinder to still fire the round without jamming anything up, unlike if it were loaded into a magazine or a firing chamber.
4. If the handloader should accidentally set the bullet too deep, the .38 Special case is mostly empty, anyway, so there’s less likely to be an overpressure situation.

And the most beneficial benefit to learning how to reload with a .38 Special? No bending over to pick brass off the ground!