My formerly huge stockpile of early 1980's Remington 125 grain SJHP is almost depleted. I never had a single problem with it but I've read a lot of horror stories about Remington ammo not being good anymore. So I need to find a new self-defense round. This pistol is my go-to self-defense firearm and has been for almost 40 years.

My needs: Rock-solid reliable. Frangible. Avoid over-penetration. Primary use is interior. Typical sheetrock construction. Two occupants. No kids or pets. Nearest neighbor's house is 250 feet away. 1400+ fps and 550+ ft./lbs. Velocity and energy are negotiable; I don't know what I don't know.  

I selected the 125-grain SJHP a long time ago when we had kids living at home, for frangibility. In the past, I favored a higher-velocity/lighter bullet over a slower/heavier bullet for better expansion and frangibility. Ammo has evolved since I last looked into it that I have no idea if that's still relevant.

I did several searches but what I found was all about 2" barrels. The FAQs were also about snubs.

I know there are probably a bunch of world-class self-defense rounds out there now that I know nothing about. I'm not too worried about cost-per-round since I likely won't stockpile a huge amount of them. At the range, I typically fire about 50 rounds of .38+P, 18 rounds of .357 target ammo, and at the end, two cylinders of my chosen self-defense round. I try to do this weekly but its usually two weeks out of three.

I'm happy to do research. If y'all can point me in the right direction, offer opinions and advice, and so on, it would be a big help to me.

Thanks!

I took a quick look at what's available today, (- Remington).  The old school 125 grain JHPs are still available from both Winchester and Federal.  there are some other 125 JHPs available, Fiocchi, Hornady, Black Hills for example.  All copper bullets are available in that weight, but I suspect they might penetrate more than what you want.

It is interesting, it looks like the tendency is for new .357 Magnum developments to be aimed more for hunting than self defense.  Or perhaps their market is self defense, but against bears.

If your happy with the Remington loads then stay with it.

Or golden sabers, or 158gr sjhp, or xtps, or silver tips, or critical duty.

We are not talking about trying to wrestle a tiny bit more performance out of a marginal caliber like 380 auto out of a mouse gun.

.357 out of a medium barrel with most any load is going to be as about effective as any pistol load.

Avoid FMJ and you are pretty much good to go. Get in some range time to improve your chances of hitting fast and accurate .

I carried a model 66 on duty in the 70’s-80’s with 125 grain JHP 357 Magnum ammo.  From finishing off injured deer and water testing I could tell no difference between Remington, Federal or Winchester 125 grain JHP at 357 velocity.   Towards the end of my time carrying the 66 I switched to Winchester 145 grain Silvertip 357.   The 357 Silvertip ammo had a flash retardant powder and a jacketed hollow point similar to a semi auto bullet with no exposed lead.  The Silvertip penetrated barriers better than the Semi Jacketed Hollow Point 125 grain 357 with exposed lead tip.  I found the 145 grain Silvertip had excellent accuracy and I had a little quicker follow up shots compared to the 357 125 grain JHP.

Good points. I got a case of TMJ .38 +P for range use. I'm going to start burning through it tomorrow.

I'll keep my eye out for the best deal on .357 self defense rounds among the reputable brands mentioned above and take it from there.

Thanks!

About what I was going to say. The list of .357 loads that are questionable is far shorter than the list of what’s going to work if needed

I've had good luck with current production Remington 158-grain SJHP.   Their wadcutter loads, not so much.   Underwood's .38 +P 158-grain SWCHP also a very good load that's a bit less 'blasty'.

Works well, easily available Hornady 125 XTP

How does the 125gr SJHP prefrom as far as penetration? I know the 125gr 357 has a rep but does that light of a projectile at that speed get deep enough?

About 37" in gelatin, according to Gun-Tests.com.

"Hornady XTP 125-grain Jacketed Hollow Point. Remington 125-grain Semi-Jacketed Hollow Point. Winchester Super-X 125-grain Jacketed Hollow Point. Cor-Bon 125-grain Jacketed Hollow Point. These four loads were too similar to be differentiated. All produced about the same cavities and muzzle energies. Their position in the summary table was determined by the cavity size produced by only one shot. We expect a five-shot test would have put them even closer together. Our rating of all four: Excellent."



Gun Tests review of .357 125 grain JHP

Wow that’s a lot more than I was expecting. Thank you for sharing that!

My pleasure.

Older K-frames where known get damaged forcing cones from hot 125gr.



I would feed it 140gr XTP handloads, or factory 145gr Silvertips






33 to 63 inches looks WAY off.

this seems more reasonable...

Thanks for the information! The differences in barrel length and type of gelatin make it difficult to compare the two tests head-to-head.

I don't fire a ton of hot loads. My weekly practice session is 50 rounds of .38 Special +p and 12-18 rounds of my home defense ammo. Cone is in great shape.

That penetration has to be off. It's probably 37cm for the Remington sjhp.

If I'm not carrying swc-wn at 1250fps then I'm carrying these

I'm far from an expert on shooting into gel. This is from the web page that produced the chart.

"Our test medium was Kind and Knox Ordnance Gelatin. It’s the closest practical medium to human flesh and blood. A live goat might have been better, but that is expensive, impractical, and performance would vary with internal bullet paths. Ballistic gelatin provides the same expansion medium for each bullet so that relative performance can be judged. It also provides a means to measure performance. The cavity, or wound channel, that the bullet leaves in the gelatin can be seen easily, photographed, and measured.

The gelatin was mixed at a 10 percent ratio by weight according to instructions furnished by Kind and Knox. It was cast in a 9-inch by 9-inch cylinder. When firm, it was set on end about 6 feet in front of the sky screens, 12 feet in front of the muzzle. The bullets penetrated the gelatin on a diameter line and exited into the water trap."

I'm not sure what to make of that but if the gel is only 9" long, penetration beyond that would be hard to report.

Hmmm.

"Total penetration—the distance in both gelatin and water that the bullet traveled—was also measured and reported, but it was not considered in our rating. All bullets penetrated further than necessary. In general, the energy expended after a bullet exits is wasted. Note that the bullets with shorter penetration generally created bigger cavities in the gelatin."

I've found the 125gr Golden Sabre to be the most controllable, by far.  Particularly in a snub.  They performed great against other brands in the Lucky Gunner tests.

Frangible & over penetration are meaningless to me, inside or out.
Bigger animals are on my menu so....
But I have no intention of firing a round that'll penetrate a evil human enough to put them on the ground (after going thru their extended forearm aiming a gun at me), yet magically not penetrating drywall.
Others do.
I want my bullet to go deep, if it expands some I'll take that.
XTP's in 357 are workhorses.

I actually miss read it at first as 37cm. Still if that’s is the case not bad penetration.

It's 37 inches but all but 9 inches of it is in a water trap. The gelatin was only 9" deep.

I need to find a better chart.

I've had good luck with Federal Fusion, HST & Gold Dots.

i don't use 125gr at all, I prefer 158gr hollowpoints. (125 gr to me is the perfect 38+P load though)  But there isn't going to be much difference in the performance of just about all the common self defense offerings.

If I remember correctly, from three or four decades ago when I chose 125 grain, it was because they came apart going through sheetrock better than a 158 grain. "Frangible" is the word they used. Of course, all I had to go on at the time were about three magazine articles and the wildly varying opinions of a bunch of people I didn't know very well.

I got a good deal on a case of Remington 125-grain SJHP ... the same stuff I've been using for years.

That having been said, I'm going to get one box each of all the different recommendations here and test them out at the range for reliability and accuracy. I can always use another excuse to shoot my .357.

I'm absolutely hearing the message that there are a whole bunch of good choices out there. And I totally agree that with a .357 in a self-defense mode, it's hard to find a round that's not powerful enough to get the job done.

Thanks, everybody!

Lucky gunner did some gel tests and write ups. It was interesting to see the difference between a 2" and 4"

Anyways I carry a load akin to Buffalo Bores 38spl 20A

Maybe Im a weirdo but I have a hard time getting full power 357 casings to eject clear. Sometimes have to pluck one or two here and there

The 38 casing on the other hand ejects clean every time

I'll check it out, thanks. I have some cases that I have to pluck out too but not very often. There's a noticeable difference in ejection force needed between .357 and .38 rounds in mine.

Yep, my favorite for snubs and used to be dirt cheap. Rated for 1220 fps. I recently picked up some Telos 105 gr fragmenting copper JHPs @ 1300 fps for very light recoil and they have great potential.

My favorite for 4" to 6" is Win PDX1 125 @ 1275 fps, although it is sadly discontinued. No need to have 1450-1500+ fps nukular loads with modern bullets, although they are fun to shoot...

I've never seen a test of a 158 JHP that didn't overpenetrate big time, although Fed has a brand new 154 gr HST that should be golden for  4" or more barrels.

I chronied some recent production (100 round "value" pack bought new off the shelf this year) .357 Magnum Remington 125 grain sjhp from a 4" barrel 686+.  My 5 round average velocity was 1,500 fps.  

Seems hot as ever!

You can't really do any better for terminal performance unless barriers are a consideration.  Then you may want to consider gold dots (or double tap loaded with gold dots) or underwood monolythic copper rounds.

I believe that the Remington 158gr sjhp will penetrate barriers better than the 125gr and still offer excellent terminal performance, but seem harder to find now.  Seems like a perfect woods load.