Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Hit the jackpot today.

Hit the jackpot today at my local gun club's swap meet. I got 3 boxes of Albert's 146gr Hydra-Shok wadcutters and 1 box of Albert's 148gr DE wadcutters for $80. That's 2,000 bullets at $.04 each. Got them from a relative of one of the 2 guys who designed the Hydra-Shok. Oh, and the same guy sold me a 5# container of 700X powder for $40. Sometimes you're just in the right place at the right time.

Don

Damn you did hit a good lick there.

Those Hydra-Shok wadctters are GOLD...don't just shoot them up!!

They can easily be run to 900 fps from a snubbie and are probably the best defensive snubbie bullet ever made. At that velocity the upper cone explodes off and the base of the bullet that now looks like a Hershey's Kiss keeps penetrating.







You want to make some money off that deal.. Put them in baggies of 100 and ask $20.00 a bag...you will get it. That was the best bullet Hydra-Shok made for the .38 Special and Federal didn't bother to bring it back out when they bought the company...

Bob

USSR1991, "Once upon a time", the "inverted" 148 grain "hollow-base" was-cutter was the go-to bullet for the "snubbie" 38's. This may be an improvement of that concept. Should work for ya. memtb

I still have a few of those left from the 1980s. didn't realize they were going for that much now.

You stole that stuff, WOW!

Bob,

I cast 158gr SWCHP's and load them to 900fps to duplicate the FBI Load using either 5.6gr of Unique, 6.4gr of AA#5, or 7.0gr of HS-6. Mind sharing what your 900fps load is with these puppies? And, I assume we are talking about normal wadcutter seating depth and a taper crimp?

Don

Yes, normal wadcutter length just like the one pictured above.

From 1981 to 1996 I was a licensed ammunition manufacturer. I reloaded ammo for police departments in the Dallas area as well as high performance loads. Most of my loads are exactly like CorBon does today.

The original Hyrda-Shok Scorpion load, which was their 146 grain H-S Wadcutter, was loaded for snubbies to have a very controllable load that would also expand. It was only running in the 600s from a snubbie and and the soft lead expanded into a big mushroom with the H-S tip sticking out the top. It was so underpowered that I read a gun magazine article about the author shooting a woodchuck in the body...it ran down its hole and then came back out to see what all the noise had been about. The author then shot it in the head. The bullet had not even gone through the woodchucks body.

My first load with the bullet was 5.0 grains of Unique....it ran 800 fps from my wife's 2" Model 36. Being young and stupid I then tried 7.0 grains of IMR SR-4756. I had been using 8.0 grains for a 150 SWC and figured 7.0 for a 146 would work fine....not taking into consideration the extra room the WC would take up... The bullet went 1200 fps... 6.3/1000, 6.0/950 (1160 from a 6" Python) and finally 5.5/900 fps (1065 from a 4" Model 18). Primers were round and cases don't stick....

The above said, SR-4756 was discontinued last year. If you find some WORK UP from 4.0 grains instead of DOWN like I did...

Of the powders you have 5.0 of Unique is a good place to start. Get a chronograph and work up to 900....

I have a couple of boxes of my 5.5/SR-4756 load left as well as some bullets. I plan on making up a load for a S&W Model 12 Airweight 4" that will run in the 800s as the gun has an aluminum frame.

Line up some gallon jugs and you'll see what I mean about explosive power and lots of penetration...

Bob

Thanks Bob. Yeah, the deep seated wadcutters are a whole 'nuther ball game when it comes to load development, since you can't take load data from a similar weight non-wadcutter lead bullet load. I did some searching thru the various reloading manuals I have available to me (there is no such thing as having too many reloading manuals, especially the old ones). I found the following Accurate Arms .38 Special +P load data using AA#5:
"148 (P) BERRY DEWC 4.5 717 5.0 843 19,926 1.140". Being plated shouldn't matter since lead and plated lead share the same data. So, this summer I will set up the chronograph and see what I get with this load. Then I will load up some with a little less Unique and a little more HS-6 and try to find the same velocity with them. Even if I don't get 900fps with my 2.5 inch Model 19, I figure anything over 800fps should really expand with these swaged bullets. Again, thanks.

Don

In .357 Magnum I just had one load with the 146 H-S...

7.5 grains in a .357 Magnum case gets 1220 fps from a 6" Python... It also shot a 2" group at 50 yards...

If you want to run them hot I would avoid putting heavy loads in .38 Special cases. That way no one drops a bomb in a lightweight snubbie. 900 fps from a 2" with that bullet can be done but running that bullet at 1200 fps really makes it a bomb when it hits...

Bob

Yep, nothing hotter than +P loads in .38 Special cases. I have no need to push these bullets hard in .357 Magnum cases; I've got 158gr SWCHP's that are better suited for that.

Don