Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Wadcutters are awesome!

While I’ve never personally used them on flesh and blood……I heard numerous ole timers praising the hbwc’s inverted as being quite effective from the Chief’s (short barrel 38’s). It’s not a new idea! memtb

I actually have carried those in a 2" M10 S&W and a 2 1/2 M66 when I was in police work.

We did test them. Not on humans, but they were tested for expansion on clay blocks and jackrabbits at the airport.

They have been tested more since.

I’m sure it does. I was curious if there’d been any tests on gelatin or similar with modified .22s. For instance taking the 60 gr Aguilas and filing flat would still leave it at what, 40 gr maybe? They wouldn’t feed in repeaters but for my expressed purposes it’s a non-issue

Back around 1979 or so I experimented with HBWC's seated backwards, the Speer swaged 148 HBWC to be exact. These were fired from a 2" barreled Colt Lawman Mark III using .357 cases with small charges of Bullseye or Unique.

Didn't have any way to test for expansion, just accuracy, which was their biggest flaw. They shot okay up to around 800-850 fps, but anything much more than that caused them to start tumbling and key holing badly; I'd see full side silhouette holes in paper targets set at 10 yards. I suspect a hit from that much surface area would hurt but wouldn't expect much penetration.

Also tried making "junk yard dog" loads I'd read about in Guns and Ammo or some such, those were basically multiple small pieces of stiff wire cut to length and loaded with an under and over wad to keep them in place. Human sized snake loads, one could say.


That was back in the innocent times before really reliable hollowpoints were available as components, and being a curious young handloader I figured why not? They were fun to play with but were soon abandoned in favor of a good stiff load of Unique under a Lyman 358156 like Skeeter would recommend.

Fast forward a few years to the mid-80's

I bought my girlfriend a Smith Model 60-4 3" .38 Special, she liked the gun a lot but the recoil even with standard 158 grain loads was a bit too snappy for her. So I got her a box of factory Winchester 148 HBWC target loads,I think they were rated at 750 fps but don't quote me on that. She could handle those and was a very decent shot with them, and we figured 4-5 hits from a flat meplat target load was better than 4-5 misses from something more powerful. Even back then it seems we were on the right track.

Turning a hollow based wadcutter backwards defeats the entire purpose of a Wadcutter.

🤷‍♂️ For punching holes in paper….Yes! For punching holes in animals, wanting maximum damage at low velocities……No! memtb

Yes it does.

It was a fad in the 70s/80s that in actual practice was for the very vast majority of the time an abject failure. Actual accuracy (beyond anything measure in feet) was terrible. Yes there have been a couple guys over the years who claimed to have a magic recipe, but generally the results have been truly awful.

The result is a super soft bullet that gives very shallow penetration, poor and inconsistent results. Plus, unlike traditional barrel shaped double ended wadcutters (DEWCs), the HBWCs when loaded backward, if they actually hit the target straight (and not keyhole) often penetrate in inconsistent ways. DEWCs tend to penetrate very straight with almost boringly consistent penetration depths. The HBWCs would be all over the map. Not penetrating straight or consistently.

The idea that the backwards hollow base wadcutter was going to be some sort of super effective hollow point cast lead bullet really did not pan out.

There are actual proper hollow point designs for that.

But they generally require some velocity to work properly, where the traditional wadcutter does not, and that is why the wadcutter is and always has been such a super effective bullet for snub nose guns, as well as a choice for those who seek ammo with minimal recoil.

Shot placement is King, penetration is Queen and all else is gravy. The very limited penetration of a reversed soft wadcutter makes it a hard pass.

The only thing I can add to the HBWC open end out discussion is some experimenting I did with my 35 whelen looking for mouse fart loads. I didn't weigh the charges of red dot but I made a dipper from a 22 short case, and it was too loud. So I kept cutting down the case until it was about 1/8" long and soldered a nail on the base as a handle. The loads would just get the bullet out of the barrel and surprisingly at point blank range they would penetrate 1/2 way through a phonebook and expand to about 75 caliber. Never got an opportunity to take an game with them. I would expect they would do the trick for feral cats or other smaller pests. I don't think they would have enough penetration to reliably work on bipedal varmints at that sedate velocity,

148 grain wadcutters and 38 Special cases helped me become a pretty decent handgunner back in the 1970's and 1980's. I could load them cheap. A pound of Bullese lasts a long time at under 3 grains a throw.

Recoil & noise were easy on the shooter. Easy on the old S&W 19. Loved the nice crisp holes in the paper targets. Shot cottontail, jackrabbit, and rock chucks with them. That worked just fine!

I still load them today, for the same reasons. Easy shooting and accurate.



Guy

You're wrong, but that's ok, a lot of people enjoy being incorrect.

The only time it makes sense to reverse a wadcutter is if it's a DEWC.

Sweet 19, is that a bead blasted finish..

My first centerfire revolver was a Model 14, I shot the Speer hollow base with 700X (I think). I had a Lyman All American Pistol turret press. Big ole heavy bastid.

My eyes were good back then (early 70’s) I could cloverleaf them off a bag. I have a S&W 627 Pro now and it’s a heap of fun to shoot with wadcutters and moon clips.

38 Full wadcutters hit groundhogs at 20yds with a satisfying smack as well!

One is under my neighbor's shed, very skittish. I'm just waiting for a good shot.

.44 caliber wadcutters work pretty darn effectively as well.






They punch some nice big clean holes through things..

The original .38 Special Hydra Shok Scorpion was basically a hollow base wadcutter upside down with the Hydra Shok type post in the hollow point. A 146 grain soft lead bullet, and were pretty anemic velocity wise, maybe 700 fps.

I've got some hollow base wadcutters, but haven't used them in .38 spl. I got them 40 years ago to load my dad's. 38 S & W Harrington and Richardson. They worked well, bumping up and sealing the bore nicely. Used a light load of Unique if I remember correctly. Great raccoon load in a wooden granery, killed better than factory roundnoses.

Can anyone suggest a good True Blue load for the .38 spl using 148 grain HBWC? Wouldn't mind putting them to use.