Best .357 round for Mtn. Lion?

[Grzyadms4x4]

I was wondering what the best .357 round would be for lion. I was looking for something that won't blow a giant hole into or out of the lion. Thanks for any help.

[catdogs]

hollow points

[Grzyadms4x4]

There are so many though and that is my problem. I am afraid of spoiling the hide. Will most hollow points prevent this? I figured they would blow a bigger exit hole maybe. What brands have you used with good results.

[bbde17]

i dont know anything about shooting lion, and very little about the .357 caliber, but what ur looking for is a very open ended kind of question. If youre looking for minimal fur damage you can either go with a very hard (full metal jacket) so the projectile has little or no expansion, wich in turn u loose stopping power. Or go with something really soft like a personal defense type round were the projectile enters and fragment with no or little exit wound. terrible for tracking due to lack of blood loss it all boils down to personal preference

[LBell]

I am not a pistol expert but in rifles I am a huge fan of Barns bullets for weight retention and energy transfer. The exit hole on my .06 is the size of a dime. A lot of damage/blood shot to lungs and no fready krugar style exit wound. I would try them I plan on loading some for my .41 when I get through these hornades. Lance

[TrophyHusband]

Look at Hornady XTP. I use it in my .44mag pistol for black bear. Hits hard and extremely accurate.

[brantpalmer]

I've had good luck with heavy solid lead cast bullets in my 44. Hit hard and the exit is just a little bigger then the entrance.

[tman308]

If you use soft points they don't expand as much as the hollow points. If you are a good shot you can use semi wadcutters as they create clean round hole straight through. I personally carry soft points in my 357. I also have a couple rounds of shotshell in my pocket for when the Bobcats go up.

[Trueblue]

Hard cast lead bullets. Companies like Buffalo Bore and HSM offer them.Plenty lethal and minimal damage as compared to expanding bullets. Recommended for bears as well..

[Grzyadms4x4]

Thanks for all of the replies guys. I appreciate the information.

[Mike Leonard]

The 357 Magnum is an excellent choice for lion, I have used it and seen it used on dozens of lions and with proper placement and the right bullet it never fails to deliver. Do not worry about ruining a hide with a low velocity round like this. When I say low velocity even the fastest 357 125 Gr. hollopoint out of a 20" carbine rifle barrel is under 2000 fps, and for several reason won't injure the hide. First lions have very rubbery hide and it stretches well and even with an exit wound will be easily handled by a taxidermist. Also with bullets designed for handgun velocity in a carbine they upset inside and are usually found under the hide on the off side. that being said in my 4" Smith model 66 I shoot 125 Remington Hollowpoints and it kills them like lighting with chest hits. In my rossi 92 rifle I use Atomic 158 Gr. hollowpoints and death is usually almost instant.

I shy away from hard cast bullets on lion due to delayed death and jump outs and also pass thru shots that could kill or injure a hound on a ground bay up situation. I saw a guy wade into a bear bayup one time with a 44 magum with hard cast semi-wad cutters shoot thru a small black bear and cut the leg off a hound on the far side. Not pretty!

Also the big slow moving rounds like 45 Long Colt, 45 ACP, 44-40 and other do deliver a healthy smack that many times with knock a lion out of the tree but the big slug just whitles thru them and they recover and run off admitttedly leaving a good blood trail but also able to do some serious damamge for a minute or two to a lose hound or wind up deeper down in the canyon in a bad hole.

Remember many of the most famous lion hunters of the past chose 22 LR handguns with hollow point bullets. Most of these guys were not hurried and were methodical and careful shooters. Placing a 22 bullet in the heart lung area the lion would generally spit and slap at the strike of the tiny bullet and then set there for a few seconds until the effect of internal hemmorage was felt wobble a bit and then pit stone dead to the ground. Lions have small lung in relationship to their muscular bodies and they bleed out fast. Guys like Jay Bruce, Marrill Van and Dale Lee carried Colt Woodsman 22 Semi Autos Colts and they collected a lot of bounty.

If you want to see hide damage watch some guy with a hot varmint rifle like a 22-250.243 or even a big game gun with light bullet like a 270 blow a hole big enough to throw a cocker spaniel thru. these guns are totally unessasary for lion.If you wish to carry a bigger gun choose again a lower velocity rifle 30-30-32 Special or even a moderatly loaded 45-70.

Killing lions is easy but sometimes catching them isn't.

Good luck!

[Trueblue]

[Mike Leonard]

I hear ya! In the heat of battle I have had some guys do some strange things, seems like they just sort of lose it at times.

Had a big tom jump out of a short tree one time as this hunter wanted to take so many photos and there was fresh pretty deep snof and that lion had been pretty winded when he treed. Anyway the dogs caught him in about 75 yards and there was a heck of a battle going on. We got there and this big tom was being pretty well stretch by 5 hounds but he happened to have one of my best ever hounds by the neck. I screamed at that guy to get in there with that pistol close and go to work. My intention was for him to just basically stick it into his chest and kill him before he killed the dog. Nothing happened and I looked over and here was this guy white as a ghost with that Smith cocked pointing all over the place and he was sort of google eyed and shaking his head. HS!!!!!! I jumped over there and grabbed that gun with the web of my hand between the trigger and the from and snatched it out of his paw. Whipped around and killed that lion just like that! I turned back and this guy was still just standing there weak kneed and shaking his head. The dog was ok thanks to a Johnson tracking collar that saved him, but this guy was just sort of stammering. I couldn't see, I couldn't get a shot, I didn't know what to do.... and such...Whew! He could have just as well shot me.

Another time had a guy with his wife along: dogs treed a good tom up a big leaning pine that had fallen into the crotch of another big tree. This guy had all the time in the world and even got a rest. He was shooting a Thompson Contender in 218 Bee. At the shot I saw he hit the lion in the front foot and boy out of there that lion came right down that leaning tree. He hit the ground but with that bum foot the dogs caught him in no time and boy what a fight. The screaming dogs, and snarling lion, and a lot of you know how bad a big tom lion can smell when he is rank and turns loose of everything and it was a mess. He reloaded but had dropped his gun in the snow and it froze up on him and he couldn't get it to work. I was in there with the dogs with my walking stick trying to knock the lion back when he got a good hold on one. We had plenty of dogs but still if a lion gets a skull bite it can be fatal quick. This guy screamed my gun won't shoot! His wife was just sort of standing there back a few yards with her hands over her mouth. Again I jerked the Smith and went to work. At the report the lion went limp, and I turned back to see this woman, and her eyes sort of fluttered she took a half a step sideways and fainted dead away and fell in the snow. DAMN! What a deal!

I could go on with more horror stories but you get the idea, you just never know what is going to happen at times so watch out and be dang careful with guys you don't know around guns and tense situations.

[pegleg]

Im a fan of cast bullets myself. I suppose if you found a factory load that works well there's no reason not to use it. But I don't like how about the time you find a winner they up and change it on you. One thing I've seen is it seems with harder cast you can open up on your placement options some cause its going to penetrate and the lion is likely to die in place unlike when you swat them real hard and they just have no choice but to fall out. That's one of the reasons the 22 mag hung on so long it penetrates with out pushing them around. But it sure doesn't give much margin for error excepting its not likely to drive a lion to move .

[Mike Leonard]

Nathan,

I am a cast bullet fan myself but not for soft tissue light frame animals like lions or humans. I buy Hunters Supply Hard Cast bullets by the case. Lucky the Manufacter is my hunting buddy and also my neighbor at the ranch and his cast bullets are among the best and top sellers at Midway USA.

I have no problem rolling a 300 Gr. hard cast out of my 45-70 thru a bull elk and if it whines off the rocks exiting who cares I have a nice bloodtrail to follow. Also for practice they certainly make things much more econimical. I have found a soft cast hollowpoint that JR builds in 250 Gr. for my souped up 45- Long colt +p loads that opens up pretty good out of my 4-5/8" wheel gun and will flat blow a coyote nearly in half out of my 26" barrel Colt Lighting pump replica. I am sure it would work well on lion but no better than the 357 Hollowpoints.


I was visiting this last summer with one of the greatest living lion hunters, a man over 80 who is a legend among dry ground hunters. I asked him about his gun of choice for all those year. He said well I got this little model 94 winchester 25-35 Winchester with a 16 1/2" barrel that somebody had sawed off and I never switched. It fit just right in my saddle boot on my mule and I used it on lion, bear, deer, and as long as I didn't streth it it never let me down.

I guess it is sort of like the old Indian said. Any gun good, shootum good!