Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Would you ever load hardball for defense?

Nope, I am a ND resident.

Never, eh?

I'd load up my G17 or M&P with 17+1 of NATO spec ball and feel fine if it's all I had.

But, I have a bunch of +P HST, so I don't.

That's sorta it right there. If that's all you have, use it. But if you can get JHP, there's no reason to. If your gun doesn't function with anything but FMJ, I'd get another gun. Also, I consider FMJ and HC to be two entirely different things.

Sgt Thrumond Rucker, US Army, Hedge rows, D Day took out two German machine guns nests with grenades, then proceeded to take out three more machine gun nests with his 45 Acp. ON one nest, he crawled in front of the nest with the machine gun firing, when they ran dry and had to re load, he grabbed the machine gun by the barrel with his coat in hand, pulled it forward, and killed all Germans in the nest with his 45. Std Rucker received the Silver Star for his efforts.

John Burns, Korea 1950, US Army. First on the line, transferred from Japan at the first of the war. John told me that a 45 ACP would knock a man down if hit in the hand. John survived the massive Chinese Waves and was involved in a lot of hand to hand combat.

Both of these men told me that a man shot with a 45 at close range rarely required a second shot.

Another WWII vet gave me a German Lugar, and I showed it to Sgt Rucker, he did not think much of it, preferring the 45 acp. Sgt Rucker told me that the Germans were scared to death of a Thompson machine gun.

"John Burns, Korea 1950, US Army. First on the line, transferred from Japan at the first of the war. John told me that a 45 ACP would knock a man down if hit in the hand."

.45 ACP would knock a man down if it hit in the hand... Oh boy!

I expect there’s a typo as IIRC the 380 British and the Enfield revolvers that used it weren’t adopted until 1927.

The original load was a 200gr LRN at around 650fps which the Brits felt was near equivalent to the soft lead hollow based 265gr bullet in the .455 Webley. I’m recalling the feeling was that the long 200gr bullet tumbled on impact.

Reading around I did come across an account of where an American Cop felled a fleeing felon with one shot in the back from that 200gr load in his .38 S&W (near equivalent to the 380 Brit) at 75 yards, so the load did have its adherents.

Hard to believe the Brits, who had such long experience with effective revolvers and who’s Revolver School in their army training was so much more practical than ours, would adopt a dud load.

In the actual event we never found out, in accordance with the Geneva Convention they switched to a 180gr FMJ at that same anemic velocity prior to WWII wihich was regarded as ineffective.

A British Korea Veteran told me they used to prefer 9mm ball in their .380 Enfield revolvers even though they wouldnt extract, I dunno the truth of it.

Remington used to sell a 200gr LRN .38 Special (or .357 mag??) load, I tried them in a Mod 60 but the bullets pulled under recoil.

Birdy, There was also a commercial 200 grain LRN 38 S&W ctg marketed as the "38 S&W Super Police"

Or something along those lines.

Correct, that particular round wasn't a standard British service round, yet.

But the 38 S&W did see use in WW1, simply because Smith M&Ps saw use in WW1.

Hell, Smith No. 3s were used in WWI!

Yes my grandfather had some of those when he passed. I shot them out of a 6" 38 spcl they were extremely slow. I would aim and fire and there was a pause before the bullet impacted.

Yeah, that's BS. We had a customer come off our range holding his hand with a bloody paper towel. We at first thought he'd gotten major league slide bite. Then he told us that he was checking to see if his laser was working and stuck his left hand in front of the gun. For some unknown reason, he then pulled the trigger and put a .45 FMJ though the palm of his hand. It sure didn't knock him down. In fact, it didn't seem to affect much other than his pride.

Well that got me scrambling for my S&W reference book. If I were King I’d have S&W bring back the i frame (smaller than the j frame) as an Airweight but this time in 9mm or 9mm Federal, that would be the ultimate snubbie.

Wasn’t that close to the Smith 547?

The 547 was a K. The I was slightly smaller than a J.

Shorter cylinder by a significant amount, as allowed by the shorter cartridge. The J cylinder is longer to accommodate the longer .38 Special cartridge.

In the mid 90’s when they introduced .357 Magnums into j frames at the same time they did a major rework by doing away with the hammer-mounted firing pin and introducing a transfer bar ignition, they made ALL j-frame cylinders, irrespective of caliber, at the longer yet again .357 Magnum length. IIRC the frames across the board were made slightly longer too.

I was sorry to see it, fractions of an inch do matter in a pocket carry gun.

32 H&R....but I like your thinking!

The longer cylinders are wasted, simply because the 357 nuts in those guns. More oomph should be translated into heavier bullets.

MS,
Thank you for all you advise on this thread.
Now that we can find molds again, I have something similar to this on the way for the .45.

Thanks again.

Given the same caliber, weight, and velocity, what is the difference in terminal performance between:

1. FMJ-FP and HC-FP
2. FMJ-RN and HC-RN

In other words, if neither projectile is going to expand and they are the same exact shape, why is a HC held in such high regard while a FMJ so disparaged?

Brainwashing by ammo/bullet manufacturers and their shills.

In that slightly awkward time between 18 and 21 when I could own a handgun but not purchase ammunition for it from a store, I carried 230-grain FMJ (or sometimes even cast handloads!) in my 1911 as I could scrounge it up from friends. It beat the hell out of a knife or sharp stick, but I've since graduated to Federal HST.

My point exactly about cast non expanding and fmj non expanding. Sure a flat point might have a slight advantage on breaking a bone over a fmj but both are basically non expanding bullets.
If that’s all I had I’d use either and they’d both kill. But I’ll stick to HP’s for my main self defense loads. Preferably gold dots.