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The 357 Mag was the result of Elmer Keith, Phillip Sharpe, and D Wesson of Smith and Wesson fame working in concert to replace the then weak LEO round of the 38 Special. The calendar was 1934. They worked with a round called the 38 High Velocity or the 38/44. The design perameters was a pressure limit of 47,000 lbs. They soon found out that the metalurgy of the times couldn't reliably and continually stand the pressures and revolvers were failing, sometimes catastrophicly. The pressures were lowered to 40,000lbs. Since SAAMI considers the firearms in circulation, the pressures have been lowered to 35,000lbs. I have data for loads to 47,000lbs. None is as high as the one you have listed using Unique powder including the slower but dirtier Unique of old. I don't know the pressure of the loads that you are using and while you are not seeing any pressure issues, the pressure is there. If you expect to see flat primers, bulging heads, etc., it is not going to happen with these loads. The flame front and pressure curve is exponential, not linear as previously stated. While your shooter may not have come apart in your hand or the brass run out like water, your shooter is not going survive a steady diet of these loads. Microscopic fractors may already be happening and you aren't going to know this until it goes boom- and that's too late. While I can agree with you that the manuals are for reference only and are not absolute in values, they do mark where most reloaders need to quit for their own safety. Not all loading environments are the same and not all components are identical from lot to lot. These manuals take all of these variables in consideration and consider the worst case scenario for everybodies safety. I would suggest taking your experience as a learning curve and not shoot any more these rounds.
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