My Colt Trooper MKIII .357 magnum has a 1 in 14 twist. If longer bullets need a faster twist, should I be loading a 158 gr. bullet?

I am looking for an intellegent way to approach the problem of finding a good target load. Matching the barrel twist to the bullet weight seem a good place to start.

This forum has really come through for me in the recent past so here we go again. Thanks in advance.

Colt nearly aways used a little faster twist than S&W but it's not enough to get seriosuly bent about. Will sometimes see a little bit of tipping with heavy bullets in 38specail loads out of a S&W at over 50yards...doesn't seem to hurt accuracy any, they dn't get unstable, just put slightly oval holes in paper.

IF eveything else was equal (and it never is) the faster twsit Colt would be more suited to long bullets than the slower twist S&W...even under prefect circumsances, doubt it would be any more than a theroitical argument.

Long as i'm at it, Colt barrels are usaully a tiny bit tighter than S&W barrels..again it's nothing to get too excited about, but it has prooven out over time that the Colt barrels that have crossed my bench average something near .001" smaller.

think all these years of shooting have pointed the right direction: at normal ranges, the basic 148WC is still the go-to load for target in either make.

A lot of guns end up inheriting twist rates from older rounds of the same caliber. The .38 specials all used to be 1:18.75", and I think that carried over to the S&W without any further investigation. The old 32 Long used an 18.5" twist, and that is still used in expensive European target pistols. I have seen the HBWC's keyhole out of a Walther GSP. It is really marginal for those long slow bullets. I saw an article several years back in which the author tried different twists in the .32 Longs, shooting HBWC's commercial match loads. It turned out 1:12" was most accurate and significantly more so than the slower twist in most guns currently made.

There really is no such thing as spinning a bullet too fast until you get to where it flies apart or the rifling turns so quickly it raises chamber pressure. These problems show up at high power rifle velocities and pressures, but I've never heard of a pistol having them. The twist rate you've got should be excellent with HBWC's. Fire some Federal 125 grain jacketed hollow points at a target and see how they compare to the heavier stuff? I don't think you'll find a problem.

Nick