357 bullet precision and quality thread

[PCPhack]

Let's look at out of the box quality and precision.

Measurements taken 4 times and if not all matching, remeasured until closest weight can be determined.

Scale: Frankford Arsenal DS-750

50 gram calibrated and 0 tare set with recheck every 10 minutes

1 minute "warmup."

[PCPhack]

NSA 142 gr .357

sample size: 103

19@141.7gr
34@141.8gr
37@141.9gr
8@142.0gr
5@142.1gr

quality: Consistent, but probably half with slightly deformed hollow points. The edges on these are very thin, so it's not surprising that some get pressed in a little even with the great packing NSA does.

[PCPhack]

Benjamin Nosler 145gr

Sample size: 25

5@144.8gr
5@144.9gr
6@145.0gr
6@145.1gr
1@145.2gr
1@145.3gr
1@145.4gr

quality: very consistent. Very expensive!

[PCPhack]

Pitbull 160gr hollow point

Sample size: 33
sized to 357 from 358 (they were all over the place before sizing too though)

4@160.6
1@160.7
1@160.9
3@161.0
3@161.1
1@161.2
4@161.3
1@161.4
3@161.6
3@161.7
1@161.8
4@162.0
1@162.1
3@162.3

quality: discernible non concentric centering of hollow point is visible with the naked eye on a large percentage

[PCPhack]

NSA and Nosler shoot the best out of my Bulldog so far, but the NSA are much better priced. The slight weight variations will not matter at my max 100 yard shooting goals, but I do believe the precision of their weights compared to something like the spread I see in the Pitbull ones speaks to the overall quality as well besides just my anecdotal comments on quality.

The next step is to also compare some other offerings, as well as some resized 38 special reload bullets. I am not really interested in bullet sorting, but I find sampling them interesting.