Is the .357SIG falling out of favor?

[Morne]

OK, admittedly the .357SIG was never wildly popular. Still, it seems like gun makers that used to offer this chambering no longer do. I can't even find an XD in .357SIG at all on GunBroker right now.

Really a shame, because I admire this cartridge a lot. Seemed to give the little bullets enough oomph to actually do something worthwhile. 90% of the performance of the venerable .357Mag is nothing to sneeze at.

So how dead is it? Certainly the .45GAP is deader, right?

[Mr. Glock]

I've been a fan for years. A 125 gr 357/9mm traveling at 1400fps from a 4" barrel mid-size Glock is a nice and meaningful step up from the standard 9mm, the bottlenose shape helps feeding, it has a better recoil impulse than the 40 and the great "loss of one or two rounds vs 9mm" is over-blown in higher capacity semi-auto guns. I think it is the perfect carry round.

Some LEO agencies use it, including some Federal ones, so it is not dead like the 45 GAP.

But, it is not exactly thick on the ground and a bit pricey. The latter is not so important if you have, say, a 40 or 9 extra barrel or another understudy gun. But the former certainly doesn't help long-term health.

[djthomas]

Well if anybody feels that it is no longer in favor and thus are uncomfortable at the prospect of owning such ammo, shoot me a PM.

[Brian D.]

Struck me funny some years back when the feds bought .357 Sig pistols for the Air Marshals at the same time they were equipping the Border Patrol with 9mm parabellum. Seems exactly backwards to me.

[Mr. Glock]

Struck me funny some years back when the feds bought .357 Sig pistols for the Air Marshals at the same time they were equipping the Border Patrol with 9mm parabellum. Seems exactly backwards to me.

IIRC the Air Marshals were using frangible bullets.

[Brian D.]

Yes they were but it still seems odd.

[Adamsx3]

I like the round, and have 2 pistols, one of which is my daily carry. It isn't easy finding ammo around town, but SG ammo almost always has it in stock. You can still get 3 different Glock models in .357 SIG. And of course, Sig has at least 1 model that I know of.

[Sevens]

Like many good cartridges (and good ideas) that haven't risen to the top of all sales... the .357 Sig suffers a little bit in gun discussion forums most often from wild attacks by folks who otherwise have no stake in it, no hands-on experience with it, and an overwhelming desire to use all of their energy to attack, degrade and basically defecate on this, that or the other thing every time they post.

It is a very good cartridge and I am not sure saying that it is "falling out of favor" is exactly the right term, but maybe you could say that interest has waned. For what the .357 Sig is capable of... it is extremely competent.

Almost as much as anything, I believe that any waning interest in any semi-automatic pistol cartridge here in the year 2016 can be traced to the advancement and extreme favor and popularity of the 9mm Luger today. To put it simply... the 9mm has had so many detractors for so many decades -- but the cartridge has made so many tangible improvements over the last 20 years due to both bullet and propellant technology and it's popularity and reputation is currently soaring and right now, it is on a trajectory to continue to do exactly that. And some of the 9mm's popularity is nearly a constant-motion machine if you figure that: the more people BUYING it, the cheaper the ammo becomes (generally) and the more popular it is, the more GUNS are introduced to chamber it. And (wait for it...) the more popular it becomes.

I think if you truly want to get down to the real-world reasons why any semi-auto pistol round may be less popular now than it was 2-5-10 years ago, you needn't look any farther than to what the 9mm is doing. That's the reason, IMO.

The .357 Sig is a damn good round. What does it OFFER that attracts folks to want to make it part of their range day? Well, that's the trick. It offers some things that a large portion of the buying public can't make much use of over & above a box of 9mm and a 9mm pistol. And with more and more and more brand new shooters in the fold, the market share for something like .357 Sig is not only going to look as though it's shrinking -- it actually is shrinking.

[sodbuster95]

Well, I was going to mention something along the lines of the popularity of the 9mm round, blah, blah, blah...

But Sevens summed it up far more eloquently than I might have, so I'll just say "ditto" to his post.

[Morne]

Sevens,

You're right on target I think.

Still, it is rather odd that historically when a "magnum" version of a round appeared it became very popular but now the "download" versions get all the glory. Witness .357Mag and .44Mag in the old days outshining their parent cases of .38Spl and .44Spl. Whereas in this "modern day" the 10mm fell off as the .40S&W rose and now the .357SIG falls as 9x19mm rises. Some of that is the revolver versus semi-auto platform, I suppose, since a new gun in .357Mag gun can fire both .38Spl and .357Mag but the semi-autos are specific to the cartridge stamped on the barrel.

Your logic about, "Modern bullets and propellants do more for the cramped casing and smaller bullets than they do for the bigger casings," is valid and applies elsewhere, too. The proponents of .380ACP quickly point to Buffalo Bore loadings as being, "Just as good as 9mm especially from a comparably short barrel length gun," in their rationale. Still, I believe in the old adage, "There's no replacement for displacement," and find it true for both engines and cartridges. While you CAN wring a lot out of a small package there's still simple advantages to having lots of room for lots of fuel (be it petroleum-based or gunpowder).

Having said ALL OF THAT I think what we need is a COMPLETELY NEW CARTRIDGE DESIGNED FROM THE GROUND UP to take advantage of these modern bullets and propellants. Just as no ammo maker wants to blow up the venerable .45LC guns so they neuter the factory loads nobody wants to blow up an old Luger P-08, either. Thus, with the .45 caliber wheelguns we got .454 and .460 to take advantage of the higher pressures allowable with modern metallurgy. I sense that the same could be true for small/medium-bore guns. To a certain degree maybe .40S&W was that innovation but it has also seen reduced popularity. Maybe something in a .32 Caliber semi-auto would work well? Imagine a compact double-stack semi-auto with .327 Fed Mag ballistic numbers.

[TSiWRX]

Imagine a compact double-stack semi-auto with .327 Fed Mag ballistic numbers.

Had to look that one up - I'm new at this, remember?!

That said: I'll take two.

[dl1911]

Love the caliber enough that I shot most of my IDPA matches last year with it. But a lot of people will be turned off by the price. I got a SIG P226 at a show that was practically unfired at a great discount. Someone wanted what his officer friend had let him shoot and was aghast at the prices for the ammo. Doesn't affect me so much since I got the Dillon dies and reload it (xTreme's 124gr 9mm FP works great), but even there you are more limited in published loads, bullets, etc. I think it will remain strong in LEO and government use for quite some time but much rarer outside of that. For the typical gun buyer, the price of many of the guns in that caliber, the lower selection of guns in that caliber, lower availability of ammo, price of that ammo, etc. They'll tend to gravitate to 9mm. Me? Looking at getting a 357SIG barrel for my .40S&W Browning Hi-Power along with a few more guns in that caliber. Will usually have the .40S&W barrel for them as well just for flexibility but will usually shoot the 357SIG if I have the choice.

[NavyChief]

Both the .357SIG and .45GAP rather remind me of another caliber you don't hear much about anymore... The .41 Magnum. None of them ever quite caught on.

The story I was told by an "old timer" (crap - I guess I'm one now) about the .41 Magnum was it was developed primarily for LE to afford them the power of a .44 Mag, with the handling of a .357. Alas, they got it upside down - power of a .357 with the handling of a .44 mag. Ooops. Keep in mind, I also don't know how accurate that story is - especially since I've never fired one, and it's been years and years since I fired a .44 Mag.

[Morne]

Both the .357SIG and .45GAP rather remind me of another caliber you don't hear much about anymore... The .41 Magnum. None of them ever quite caught on.

The story I was told by an "old timer" (crap - I guess I'm one now) about the .41 Magnum was it was developed primarily for LE to afford them the power of a .44 Mag, with the handling of a .357. Alas, they got it upside down - power of a .357 with the handling of a .44 mag. Ooops. Keep in mind, I also don't know how accurate that story is - especially since I've never fired one, and it's been years and years since I fired a .44 Mag.

Yeah, the only friend I had with one carried it while hiking in Washington state. Seemed like a good choice for whatever predatory cats they have out there.

[Mr. Glock]

There were two loads for the 41 Mag. A police load and a hunting load. The police load was very well designed for LEO work (although it took a bigger gun to hold it, more along the lines of a 44), while the hunting load was good for hunting and much faster. Well, what load do you think the cops bought? yep, the hunting load. Faster is always better, right?