My experience reloading 357 Sig

 The following is my experience with reloading 357 sig. A little background, the 357 sig was designed to be a law enforcement round that replicated a 357 mag ballistics; specifically 124gr bullet traveling at 1450 fps. To do this the designers at Sig Sauer necked down a slightly shortened 10mm case to 9mm (the 40 cal S&W is also based on a shortened 10mm case, and while close in length, if you neck down a 40 cal shell case it will be about half a mm too short). A 357 sig round is not that difficult to reload, but there is a learning curve. First, because it is a necked down round, it is best reloaded like a rifle cartridge (I'll explain this in more detail later). One issue that needs to be dealt with is the neck of the 357 sig case is very short, so bullet design is very important; as an example the bullet should be short (IOW "squatty" for lack of a better term) with parallel sidewalls, often referred to as "Truncated cone flat point bullets", 124gr.* That way the bullet uses the maximum inner surface of the neck of the case without being too long. Along with this, it's best not to bell or flair the case mouth prior to pressing in the bullets similar to reloading some rifle rounds with boat tail bullets. This allows you to press in the bullet without the need to crimp the shell, as crimping the shell mitigates how well the neck of the shell holds the bullet.   

 

Dies for the 357 Sig come in 2 flavors, because the 357 sig is a necked down cartridge, like rifle cartridges, most the dies only come in steel (not carbide; carbide allows for sizing shells without case lube).  Now there is a common work a round for not using case lube. Since the bottom half of the 357sig shell is 10 mm, you can use a 10mm/40 S&W carbide die to size the bottom and decap and then follow up with the 357 sig steel sizing die for the neck; because the neck is so short I've found it's not necessary to use lube with sizing the neck with 357 sig steel die. Now Dillion has a die that combines these two features, a carbide ring for the bottom and a steel portion to form the top the neck of course its twice the price of an RCBS die set and they still recommend using case lube, though it's probably not necessary.

 

One issue I ran into is the RCBS 357 sig forming die does not work well. Here we are back to sizing the case like a rifle cartridge. Most necked rifle cartridges use the shoulder of the cartridge for proper head spacing, that is how the bullet fits into the chamber, based on the length from the shoulder to the rim. This is opposed to rimless pistol cartridges that headspace on the case mouth.  RCBS die forms the 357 sig case to headspace on the case mouth, (not the neck) which after a few reloads will increase the length from the base to the shoulder so the base of the round end up ending out of the chamber so the slide wont completely close (IOW, don't use the RCBS forming die). The reason for this is every time you resize a necked shell casing it gets a little longer. If the die is designed to head space on the shoulder, it will keep the shoulder position relative to the shell base the same. However if the die is designed to headspace on the case mouth, the shoulder position relative to the shell base will lengthen farther every time it is formed, until the slide will not be able to close on the round. Yes, like a rifle case you will need to trim the the 357 sig case to length, but if the distance between the shoulder and rim is too long, trimming the mouth of the shell will not solve the fitment problem

 

 Powder wise, 357sig is not real picky as long you can load enough in the relatively small shell. I have used Unique (not recommended but will work), Accurate #7/#9, Power Pistol, Silhouette and Blue Dot; a big positive about 357sig is the increased pressures lead to most powders burning very clean and due to the limited case capacity it is rare you will find a load that will allow a double charge.

 

When I first decided to reload for 357 sig, I bought some RCBS 357 sig dies. The RCBS dies have a ball mouth expander in the forming decapper die, but not a separate expander die, which it tunns out is for food reason. When I first started loading 357 sig I used the 357 mag expander die, but I found using a flaring/ bell style expander die is problematic because it mitigates the how securely the necked of the shell holds the bullet. This is because a 357 mag flare die is designed not to just bell the top of the shell, but to open a channel, which reduces the short necks ability to hold onto the bullet. What I eventually ended up with is a hybrid Lee/ RCBS forming die, using a Lee carbide 10mm forming die, but replacing the Lee decapper pin with the RCBS expander ball decapper pin. What this does is forms the die with the headspace at the shoulder, and opens the case mouth enough for a 124gr truncated cone flat point bullet to be pressed in without and further expansion of the case mouth. This is important due to the issues explained in the following paragraph.

 

Another issue that plays into the forming and loading of 357sig rounds is something called rebound deformation. As I mentioned, it better to not use a belling or expansion die when pressing in the bullets of the 357 sig due to the short neck, this is less of an issue with a longer neck  or straight wall shells because there is more surface to hold the bullet. The reason is, expanding a shell and then crimping the shell around the bullet compromises the friction that holds the bullet in the case, due to rebound deformation. When brass is deformed or sized with a die, it rebounds, meaning it expands or contracts larger or smaller than the die, depending on whether you are expanding or constricting the shell. Because of this when you bell or flare open the end of the shell to accept the bullet, the walls of inner surface of the shell that holds the bullet will no longer be parallel, which comprises the holding strength of the inner sidewalls. Usually with other calibers this only affects a small portion of the interface between the bullet on shell, but because the 357 sig neck is so short, anything that mitigates this interface is problematic.This issue can cause what is called "bullet setback" or extraction, where recoil changes how the depth of bullets in shells of the rounds in the pistol magazine. This is why I replaced the decapper in the Lee 357 sig die with the expander ball from an RCBS 357 sig die. This ball expander is actually less than .9mm/ .355 (I believe it is .353"), which makes it easier to press in the bullets without using a more extreme expander die. I have found that using the RCBS expander ball holds the bullet better than expanding the mouth of the case and then crimping it closed. Bullet setback/extraction in a 357sig round is enough of a problem that most manufacturers fill the entirety of the case with powder and/or use a bullet adhesive/sealant, but when using the expander ball without crimping I have not had any problem with setback or extraction.

*There are some other bullets out there including a JHP/ notched 147 gr 9mm bullets that were fairly easily to load without belling the case mouth.

Why Hydrogen Cars Are Silly and Why Using Hydrogen as a Battery May be the Holy Grail of Renewable Energy

Elon Musk has said hydrogen cars are silly and this is why he's right. First there are two basic types of hydrogen cars, one in which a car's internal combustion engine is fueled by hydrogen similar to a propane fueled vehicle and the other is a hydrogen fuel cell cars, which is an electric car that used hydrogen to create electricity. Using hydrogen as a fuel for an internal combustion still relies on the extreme inefficiency of any 4 stroke engine and without the energy dense properties of gasoline, meaning it would need much larger quantities of hydrogen to operate. 

So let's first look how hydrogen is obtained. Pure hydrogen is very rare on earth, so it has extracted from water, which is one of earth's most stable molecules. There are two methods, one uses electrolysis and the other steam. The electrolysis method is very energy dense, meaning it takes almost as much electricity to extract the hydrogen as the amount of energy potential in the hydrogen itself (and of course most electricity is still produced using fossil fuels), this is why this process is not usually used commercially. The steam method is more efficient but again fossil fuels are used to create the necessary heat, so it's a renewable resource either. A hydrogen cell takes hydrogen and runs it through a hydrogen converter or cell, that converts back it into electricity and water. And while wind and solar electricity can be used to extract hydrogen from water, currently such renewable energy resources are overtaxed just trying to keep up with the current demands of the electrical grid and with standard power plants being shut down and no new ones being built, and with ever increasing demand for electricity in general, there not a whole lot of extra electricity available for making hydrogen for cars, let alone money to create the necessary infrastructure.

So hydrogen cars are silly because of the process of extracting hydrogen from water using electricity (electrolysis)  and then using a hydrogen cell in the car to convert the hydrogen back into water (hydrolisys) and electricity is incredibly inefficient. No matter how sophisticated the hydrogen technology becomes, simply using the electricity that would be used to extract hydrogen from water to propel an electric car will always be more efficient. As an example it takes 50 kWh to extract 1 kg of hydrogen, this is enough to drive a hydrogen cell car about 100 km. OTOH a 50 kWh charge will likely propel a Tesla Model 3 about 230 km. The reason is due to the energy loss of extracting hydrogen from water and then converting the hydrogen back into water and electricity, the 50 kWh is reduced to less than 25 kWh of real world useable electricity. These figures are often debated because the overhead of hydrogen production by electrolysis and then reversed back into electricity is based entirely on the quality of the devices. While you will often see efficiency data much higher than this, they are usually referencing extraordinarily efficient laboratory devices used under very controlled conditions, while the devices commonly found in operation, for this process, such as in hydrogen cell vehicles are far less efficient. 

It's also a misnomer that the explosive danger of hydrogen is even similar to that of gasoline. In it's natural state gasoline is a liquid and while highly flammable is not explosive unless it's vaporized with a very narrow margin of percentage of oxygen to be explosive. Hydrogen OTOH in it's natural state is an extremely explosive gas with a very wide margin of percentage of oxygen to be explosive. Further because of it's properties it is cost prohibited to store hydrogen as a liquid in small quantities, unlike propane or natural gas, so it would be transported in cars in it's most volatile state.

Now that is not to say electric cars are the answer either. As many have said electricity is only clean at the users end. Right now the US is on the verge of a dire electricity shortage that will probably bring electric car mandates to a screeching halt. Michael Shellenbuger (the scientist who oversaw the renewable resource infrastructure in California in the 1990s) explains that the electrical grid requires electricity as needed which is the fatal flaw of renewable wind and solar. The problem is there is no way to store the excess electricity from wind and solar, so at night or when there is little wind, the grid can be starved of electricity. Imagine then, when tens of millions of electric cars being plugged in at night to recharge their batteries for the morning commute at very time all the solar farms stop producing electricity (you can build as many solar farms as you want, but they still can't produce electricity at night). Wind and solar require large areas of land, usually in the desert, which is hundreds of miles from large population areas, this require s a large investment in infrastructure simply to get the electricity to users in far off cities that have the greatist demands for electricity. Building wind and solar farms are also having a devastating affect on the desert ecology, eg wind turbines are the now the leading cause of the deaths of predatory birds. Solar farms builders have been unable to prevent the whole sale deaths of endangered desert tortoises as they clear the desert floor for their solar array.  Until the powers that be realistically plan and build the necessary infrastructure for a tripling of electricity demand, hybrid and gas powered cars will be around for a long time to come. 

Now this does bring up the point, why not build  hydrogen generating plants at solar farms? That way when solar farms are working at maximum efficiency on clear sunny days, they could divert the electricity not demanded by the electrical grid into hydrogen. Then when the power grid is in need of electricity, day or night, they could convert the hydrogen back into electricity, in affect creating a hydrogen battery to store electricity that is usually wasted when there is no demand for it by the power grid. Yes it's still inefficient in regards to lost electricity as a result of the conversation to hydrogen and back to electricity, but in this case the electricity was literally being thrown away, so any means of storing it is better than it being completely wasted. I have not seen this mentioned anywhere, but it would seem to me to be the answer to the inconsistent production of electricity that is the current fatal flaw of renewable energy, however it still doesn't address the destruction of the desert ecology, that pretty much seems to be the inevitable unintended consequence of renewable energy. 

Liberals; the Definitive Creators of Unintended Consequences.

Jordon Peterson brings to light that most ideas for change are bad. The main reason is we forgotten why we do things they way we do. Liberal Progressive believe not only that change is good but needs to be done continuously, without any thought of why what they want to change is being done the way it is being done; the end result is almost always a disaster of unintended consequences for which they take no responsibility. Further they are intellectually lazy, or simply don't care because they are agenda rather than result driven. A typical example is the constant false rationalization that correlation equals causation. In it's absurd form, they would say that carrots cause heart attacks, because the vast majority of people having heart attacks eat carrots shortly before their heart attack; this of course ignores that carrots are a staple in most diets, and nothing at all to do with heart attacks. In a more subtle way the same can be said for sending people to jail for so called minor crimes. Data correlation tells us that those sent to jail for theft crimes generally emerge more antisocial than when they went in. The Liberal Progressive would say we should than not send thieves to jail. The problem is that theft is antisocial by definition, so without punishment, the same person will continue to steal and become still become more antisocial; at least when the thief is in jail they are not continually re-offending, until their crimes become serious enough to warrant incarceration. Further, the lack of punishment for theft encourages others to commit theft as well.  In other words the unintended consequences of not addressing theft crimes, is the criminals will continue to offend with impunity, meaning whether incarcerated or not, they will still become more antisocial, with the addition of creating many more victims and it will result in massive increase in others taking up thievery. Of course the left now measures success only in the term of equity and since criminal behavior tends to be overrepresented by minorities, the view fewer incarcerations as a success unto itself, regardless of the harm and wholesale destruction it does to society. 

There are those that claim that theft is a form of reparations, again from a world view based on equity. Even if this were true, the unintended consequences of that is entirely regressive, as the end result will be lawlessness in the poorest of communities and a massive increase in retail costs. This of course goes along with defund the police, which is another regressive policy that is only popular with those that live in otherwise protected communities and do not face crime on a daily basis; in other words, the poorest among us. While decades of indoctrination has convinced urban blacks that the are the constant victim of police violence and anti-black racism, they also know that the police are the only barrier between them and violent crime committed almost entirely by other blacks. Murder is so prevalent in Black communities, it is one of the primary causes of deaths of young black men. liberal Black activists often rationalize away black on black crime, saying white criminals generally victimize whites also; what they conveniently ignore is blacks are victimized by blacks at ten times the rate of whites by white criminals). Yet it is so ignored by Democrats and the mainstream press, that the moment the suspect of a mass shootings and/or killing or violent act is identified as black, all reporting is immediately stopped, just as all black on black crimes are never reported on, no matter the body count or the viciousness of the crime. To the black communities, regardless of how much they hate the police, they still want their presence in as large numbers as possible, as without them they are without any protection from the violent black gangs that otherwise control the segregated ghettos controlled solely by Democrats, they are forced to live in. 

Science Should Not be Used For Public Policy

Anothony Fauci head of the NIH, has said that arguing with him is arguing with science. While many berated him for being so ritious, the fact is in many cases he was right. Now he has also admittedly lied, such a when he said that masks were unnecessary to prevent the spread of Covet 19. He explained later this was to stop people from hoarding N95 masks, which he felt were better utilized by hospital workers than scum citizens they were forced to treat. He also said the BLM demonstrations we're not the Covet super spreaders they turned out to be, based solely on his progressive political views (many have stated this was the point where they started to to doubt government policies on Covet, as they were apparently based solely on the political postering of Liberal Progressive s. However, one could argue that at many times Fauci could point to some scientific study to back up his claim that he is following the science; and there lies the problem (the fact is science is always changing, because it a mechanism of proving hypothesis wrong). Science is a process, not a gauge or judge of the ligitimacy of public policy. And while Fauci may be following the science, science by definition needs be open to all possibilities and be defined as open debates and free discussions at all levels, or it is simply religious dogma. Since Dr Fauci had made a career of shutting down any dissenting view point other than his official position, he has simply become an anti-science autocratic.

The point here is there are just as many scientists and peer reviewed scientific studies that are counter to what Fauci and the progressive left are claiming is they only true science. Not only has Fauci declared his science is better, he has actually conspired to discredit esteemed and highly regarded scientists in the immunology and vaccine fields; this certainly shows he has abandoned science in the name of progressive politics. Many forget Fauci falsely claimed AIDS was a hetrosexually spread disease and he discredited was is now one of the primary treatments for AIDS related pneumonia. The question has to be asked why does a government scientist have more credibility than a non-government scientists with similar or more expertise? And should we give government scientist the power to discredit and ridicule non-government scientists that disagree with them; something always the case with past authoritarian governments.

What appears to be the reasoning behind all this unscientific rhetoric, is the powers that be behind the Biden administration, went all in, that vaccines would stop the Covet 19 epidemic. In doing so, they ignored, outlawed and ridiculed any alternte stradegy. As mentioned prior to Covet 19, the normal medical procedure was to pretreat diseases with various protocols, and then agressively treat the symptoms of the disease when symptoms first appears. However with Covid, patients are told the only pretreatment are vaccines, and if symptoms appear, to go home and wait for the symptoms to become so serious, they require hospitalization. Then, once in the hospital, many Covid patients were put on ventilators and drugged with opiates, where they usually wasted away and died. The reasoning again is if you go all in on vaccines, you can't have any other factors complicating the approach; this includes for the first time in medical history, ignoring naturally aquired immunity, which interestingly is the basis for vaccines. The Biden administration and the progressive left media did not want any alternate belief system, other than this is an epidemic of the unvaccinated; in other words as said by both President Biden and the progressive left media, get the jab and your protected, period. Any other information, facts or opinions, regardless of the source had to be banned, censored and/or ridiculed. The reasoning being there could only be one truth, because people are too gulable and not intelligent enough to make this decision based on any other information that was available. It is the Case Sunstein "Nudge Principle" on steroids.

Of course, Fauci and the Biden administration now have a problem; the new mRNA vaccines don't prevent being infected by Covet, not do they stop the spread; at best they reduce severity of the symptoms if you are infected. This has led Biden to pretty much abrogate federal responsibility (although interestingly not federal authority), when he stated that the Covid epidemic could not be stopped at the federal level. 

All this harkens back to my original point; science should never be used for the bases of public/governmental policy. For one thing it is too compartmentalized and can be oppressively authoritarian as it ignores the consequences of poorly thought out policies such as quarantining the healthy which destroyed the lives of millions and led to more deaths from depression (suicides and drug overdoses) and economic destruction that revered 50 years of gains against poverty. There is a reason we have elected officials and not autocrats ruling our nation, and it's time we realize that many of our elected officials (who are often seen ignoring the mandates they have forced on the populace) have abrogated their responsibilities by claiming they are following the science, when in actuality they are are simply grasping onto a rationality for authoritarianism without accepting any responsibility for their actions.