Affordable .357 SIG? Try Berry’s 124 gr Bullet HB FP-TP!

Perhaps the most frustrating part of enjoying a niche or less popular round is ammunition costs. You’ll find multiple bullet weights and brands of 9mm and .223 ammunition at every sporting goods store. Such isn’t the case with .357 SIG. Reloading used to be the surefire way to save, but components have risen in price. Berry’s new 9mm 124 Grain Hollow Base Flat Point is here to make truly affordable .357 SIG ammunition possible, leaving you no excuse not to practice!

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About the .357 SIG

Revolvers paired with 125 grain JHP .357 Magnum ammunition earned a reputation as a serious man-stopper. The 125 grain JHP at about 1400 fps or more proved excellent for law enforcement purposes and self defense. It was often credited with decisively stopping aggressive assailants with one or only a few shots fired.

Left to Right: .357 Magnum, .357 SIG, and 9mm

By the early 1990s, law enforcement agencies were looking for a pistol cartridge that could produce .357 Magnum performance from a semi-automatic handgun.

Guy Shooting the S&W .357 Magnum Revolver

The popular 9mm Luger cartridge was considered a bit weak for the role, generating a muzzle velocity of 1100 fps to 1200 fps using a 124 grain bullet. In 1994, SIG SAUER and Federal Cartridge developed the new .357 SIG, a bottleneck case resembling a .40 S&W necked down to accept a 9mm bullet. Factory specifications show a 124 grain bullet at 1350 fps from a 4” barrel. Law enforcement agencies that adopted the new .357 SIG cartridge and pistols were generally pleased with the near .357 Magnum performance.

Eventually enthusiasm for the .357 SIG waned, and most law enforcement agencies chose the 9mm or the .40 S&W instead. Over time most agencies set aside the .40 S&W in favor of the 9mm for all their handgun needs. This all was largely due to logistics. 9mm ammunition is readily available and comparatively inexpensive. It also offers modest recoil from a full-sized duty pistol and is easy to shoot well. Today’s bullets have made the 9mm more effective than in the past.

Today the .357 SIG is mostly seen as a specialty round offering a higher velocity than the 9mm, with a slightly flatter trajectory. It’s also very effective at punching through barriers— some handgun hunters have used it successfully on deer-sized game. .357 SIG ammunition and loading components remain relatively expensive, making it less appealing.

About the Berry’s 124 Grain HB FP-TP 9mm Bullet

Enter the all-new Berry’s 124 Grain Hollow Base Flat Point-Thick Plate 9mm!

This affordable plated bullet was designed specifically for the .357 SIG, although it can be used in other 9mm diameter cartridges as well. It is available in quantities of 250 or 1000.

Several things set this bullet apart.

The “thick plate” copper plating makes this bullet capable of withstanding a muzzle velocity of 1500 fps vs the usual 1250 fps for plated 9mm bullets.
The flat point makes it easier to seat the bullet so that it fits magazines and cycles well through .357 SIG pistols.
Hollow base bullets are often credited with enhancing accuracy

From Berry’s:

OUR NEW 9MM FLAT POINTS ARE HERE!! Our new flat point profile allows for easier seating to OAL and better feeding in your firearms. Berry’s Superior Plated Bullets® are the finest bonded copper-jacketed bullets available today. Starting with a swaged lead core, they are electroplated with copper to their final weight, leaving no lead exposure. They are then re-struck to precise specifications, ensuring a solid bond and providing consistency with every round. Indoor range safe and unbelievably accurate, Berry’s Superior Plated Bullets® are the choice of shooters everywhere.

- Bullet O.A.L.: .582″
- Cartridge Name: 9mm
- Cartridge O.A.L.: 1.060″
- Max Velocity: 1500 fps
- Cartridge Name: .357 Sig
- Cartridge O.A.L.: 1.135″
- Max Velocity: 1500 fps
- Load data for our Superior Plated Bullets® can be found in any manual or on any powder manufacturer’s website.
- Cast or jacketed data with the same grain weight and profile will work with our bullets.
- You can use a taper or a roll crimp.
- Don’t over crimp the brass after seating. This causes bullet core separation, leading to increased copper fouling and accuracy issues.
- Don’t exceed the recommended maximum velocities listed. This creates bullet core separation and accuracy issues.

*A caution with any plated bullet is to crimp properly. Too heavy of a crimp can break the copper plating and expose the lead core, leading to poor performance. This bullet is intended to be used with a taper crimp.

Loading Setup

To load the .357 SIG with this new Berry’s bullet, I turned to one of my favorite presses, the Lyman All-American 8 Turret Press. This big press comfortably handles any loading chore I give it, including loading large magnum rifle cases. The little .357 SIG cases were no problem for it at all.

We had a set of Lee steel dies handy, so I used those and lubed each case with a tiny dab of Imperial Sizing Die Wax prior to decapping and sizing. The .357 SIG bottleneck case requires a bit of attention to properly size the neck without crushing the case shoulder. 357 SIG headspaces off the shoulder (consistent with bottleneck rifle cartridges), not the case mouth.

This means you need to pay close attention to your seater die setup, use a quality case gauge, and adjust the sizer die based on the desired shoulder setback (an important safety consideration, and an important criteria for reliable functioning of your loaded ammunition).

Another important note about .357 SIG shoulder setback: factory .357 SIG brass (and ammunition) may have excessive shoulder setback to account for chamber variance which is another important reason to use a case gauge. You will need to decide how much shoulder setback you want, but it’s important to stay within the minimum-step / maximum step range as indicated by your case gauge.

I prefer to seat the bullet in one step, then immediately run the loaded case into a taper crimp die. This not only firmly secures the bullet, but also shapes the cartridge case to more smoothly move from magazine to chamber, enhancing reliability.

About the Firearm

The SIG SAUER P229 is one of my favorite semi-automatic pistols to work with at Ultimate Reloader. It’s very different from my 1911s and features a traditional double-action trigger.

The SIG is rugged, reliable, accurate and powerful with a 12 shot magazine. With near .357 Magnum performance, 12+1 capacity, and a similar size and weight to a comparable revolver, the advantages are clear!

To achieve the same 1400 fps velocity with a 125 grain bullet, I had to use a 6” L-frame revolver with a much smaller capacity than the 12+1 SIG.

We have two barrels for this pistol: a .40 S&W and a .357 SIG. We previously featured in our Head to Head: .357 SIG and .40 S&W story. A gun like this is equally useful for law enforcement officers and private citizens.

Transitioning from my 1911s to the SIG SAUER P229 always takes me a magazine or two, mostly to get used to the trigger pull and the wider grip. Once I’ve run a couple of magazines through it, I can shoot it rather well.

About the Handloads

I loaded Hornady XTPs for our .357 SIG and .40 S&W comparison and was very impressed with the .357 Load. A Hornady 124 grain XTP with a slightly less than maximum charge of Hodgdon’s Longshot powder averaged 1404 fps from this same .357 SIG pistol.

I chose to use the same powder and charge, primer, case, and pistol to see if the plated bullet would develop a significantly different muzzle velocity.

I was pleased to see that the results were pretty much identical, with the plated bullet exiting the 3.9” barrel at an average of 1401 fps.

Guy Miner Shooting .357 SIG Over the Athlon Rangecraft

Both the jacketed and plated bullets beat the advertised velocity of 124 grain factory ammo by 50 fps! I suspect that bumping the powder charge up to Hodgdon’s published maximum of 9.3 grains might gain another 20 to 25 fps.

Cost Comparison

This new bullet means that handloaders can significantly reduce the cost of shooting the .357 SIG! Gaining and maintaining good pistol skills requires a lot of training ammunition, and this new Berry’s bullet is a key to reducing ammunition costs.

Loaded .357 SIG Cartridge Next to a Berry’s 124 Gr. HB FP-TP Bullet

Jacketed hollow point self-defense ammunition is too expensive for most of us to practice with, so we turn to less expensive practice ammo. With the .357 SIG, even practice ammo is expensive. My research revealed that 1,000 practice rounds cost about $720. I found that even using new brass, I can handload 1,000 rounds of .357 SIG practice ammo with Berry’s 124 Grain HB FP-TP for $520.

This cost can be cut in half by reusing the brass, as I did while loading for this article. People sometimes argue that I’m considering my time. I truly enjoy handloading and the time spent doing so is a pleasure for me, so I don’t consider it a cost.

Conclusion

I’ve been a fan of Berry’s Bullets for a long time and was using their plated pistol bullets in my own handguns long before I started working with Ultimate Reloader. They’re priced well, shoot great, reduce fouling in my handguns, and meet my needs for training ammo for both my revolvers and semi-auto pistols.

This new one, the 124 grain Flat Point Thick Plate, is intended specifically for the .357 SIG but could also be useful for other 9mm cartridges like the 38 Super, 9×23 Winchester and the 9mm Luger. The thick plating makes it useful to 1500 fps, which is considerably higher than most 9mm diameter pistol cartridges can achieve. This bullet should be welcomed by fans of the .357 SIG who can use it for all of their training needs!