After a few years of "kind of" looking, I picked this 357 up locally, used for about $675.

Action and trigger are very smooth, but loading rounds is a bear. Buddy of mine has a Henry in 357, and it's loading gate is much bigger.

Watched a YouTube video of some guy clipping the magazine spring, is that a solution? Or is that just opening the door to feeding issues?

Any other thoughts on making loading easier?

Here it is with my old TiRant45 can. Very impressive performance!

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Clipping the mag spring will help...about 4 inches removed if I recall. Also, smooth up the sharp edges inside
the loading gate. I have done these2 on my 92's and it sure helped. I have seen where removing a little
metal on the loading gate between the screw hole and exposed gate section lets it flex easier.
Keep searching for videos because I have seen all of these fixes there.

I have the Saddle ring carbine in .357, basically the same gun.

I bought some parts from Steve's gunz and Jackfirst.

I bought a new stainless mag spring and cut that down about 6 inches,

a new stainless mag follower, a new and slightly more robust

ejector collar (the original split in half).

With the new cut down spring I can fit 9 .357 cartridges in the mag tube.

Smoothing out the loading gate ports sharp edges helped a lot, it sliced my finger

the first time I loaded it and I didn't even feel it.

I also plugged that goofy safety because I really didn't like that.

Remember to use RNFP ammo for easy feeding.

When you take yours apart you will see that it will need stoning of

all the rough and sharp surfaces.

Hope this helps.

Probably the best thing you can do is notch the loading gate leaf spring with a round file. It will take some of the stiffness out of the spring and make loading much easier. I've notched a few of mine with a file. The best file to use is a round file. No straight edges :)