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Today was my day at the house w/o kids, so I played with my gun. (get your mind out of the gutter, I'm talking about my 2 1/4" Ruger SP101 in .357mag.)

I set out the water filled milk jugs today to shoot a couple of reloads. First, on the left, is a Hornady XTP 125grn, shot at 1244 fps. It penetrated 3 jugs & stopped in the 4th.

The one on the right is a Winchester SJHP 158grn, shot at 1085 fps. It also penetrated 3 jugs & stopped in the 4th.

I'm too lazy to measure the expanded bullets, but you can get an idea from looking at them. Neither of them look too impressive.

I've read that the XTP bullets don't necessarily expand too much & this informal test confirms that. I did expect more expansion from this 125grn bullet. It did penetrate the same as the Win 158grn bullet.

Overall, I was a bit disapointed in the expansion from both of these bullets. I do intend to try some Speer GD bullets.

Robert in Tennessee

How far away. Both look pretty impressive to me at those velocities.

Pretty close. About 8 feet from the nearest milk jug. Close enough for me to get rained on. :-)

Robert

With a 2 inch barrel, I think the 110 gr in 357 is the way to go. CorBon makes a good one.

I have the 3" barrel GP100 and I keep the Speer GoldDot 135gr "Short Barrel" loads in it. No muzzle flash and still good "advertised" speeds from the shorter barrel.

Do you have a chrono or are your velocities just the advertised ones for the load?

I seem to have misplaced the pics of the test bullets. So I guess I'll just have to test again!