Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Can a 38 Special defend against an attacker?

Interesting read.

https://supervelammunition.com/our-story/

The next stupidest question is about shooting deer with a .223…

250 shootouts? Come on man, Joe Biden tell you that story?

I'm no handgunner, but we seem to ignore a lot of history. I think it was called the Thompson-LaGarde Tests of 1904. Anyway I'll spare you the details...but only one cartridge tested exceeded the .45 ACP...it fired a 265 gr lead round nose at 650 fps...it was called the .455 Eley/Webley. Accounts of British officers serving in trouble spots around the world verified it's effectiveness on the bloody wogs. Many of whom were on drugs. So I suppose you could say that velocity is a small factor in lethality.

250 shootouts ????? Come on man, Joe Biden tell you that story?

I just did a little looking around and the figures run 20 +/- which seems much more realistic.

I have never shot anything living with any of my 38s except for a couple of armadillos. That said, my model 10 with 158 grain hollow point +P loads sure does a number on milk jugs, watermelons and pumpkins etc. I would not want to be hit with one.

my brother went on the job, NYPD 1978. He knew Jim Cirillo, never worked with him but met him quite a few times. i’m not sure how many shoot outs he had But I think 250 he would’ve been rubber gunned permanently :-) I think he took a couple of guys with a 12 gauge double barrel Stevens. My brother had 8 shoot outs as a New York City police Officer,six on the books two never reported :-) that’s the way it was back then. The majority of his time was spent in the 77 Precinct Utica Ave., Brooklyn, NY. One of the worst precinct's if not the worst precinct New York City, look it up. In his career he was narcotics/stakeout squad, Street crime and gun squad. His last few years he was homicide. he retired as a first grade detective. He retired in 2006.When he was in the gun squad he had 125 guns off the street in one year, They were his collars he told me he gave a half a dozen away to the new guys to give them a gun collar make them look good. my brother always carried two revolvers, a model 10, and numerous different snubnose revolvers over the years. He felt the 38 special was A good caliber it got the job done. he’s got some crazy stories, loved every minute of it until the last couple years in a homicide sounds crazy but that’s what got to him. Sorry for the long post, those guys back then we’re some of the best cops in the world, if not the best. they didn’t have their hands tied, they ran the streets!

My nephew has only been a cop for five or six years, and has had two shootouts (just him vs the armed perp, i.e., no help). Both times, though, he was toting his AR, and that's what he won the shootouts with. Easy to outrange someone, I guess, who shoots at you with a handgun when your gun is a red-dot-equipped AR. His Glock has never left its holster "in anger."

In a 25 year career - that's only 10 a year or one every 5 weeks....

I commercially load this ammunition.

It does not perform like 1980s era anemic typical big box store stuff. Newer powders and modern coatings have allowed the .38 special performance to be significantly improved.

a 22 to the eye ball or knee will generally put some stop to a 2 legged animal

thanks for that Hawkeye , good video answers my questions 6" ruger Blackhawk.

norm

I loaded some “hard cast” poly coated DEWC at what I SWAG-ed to be a little quicker than DEWC bare lead loads. Have not chronoed them. They seem to be well in standard pressure range in a late model Airweight and a Model 15. Next loads will be the 158 SWC coated w/o grooves at either 12 or 18 BH with Power Pistol.

Without digging into actual load data, how do you, with your testing, see pressures of coated lead in the 12 to 18 BH range compare to pressures in bare lead of the same hardness? Or poly coated compared to jacketed/plated. Will probably have to SWAG charges again without published data.

My old man was (is retired) a surgeon who specialized in trauma. He served in action in Vietnam, worked in Dallas when it was a rougher town, and Detroit when it was the same as it ever was, and quite a few other places.

When I shot a deer with a load of 20 gauge buckshot for the first time, the deer dropped on the spot and we butchered it. Butchering in this case meant a thorough anatomy lesson and dissection for me to learn from. His assessment was that the wound channels looked like someone shot it with a bunch of .38 special bullets. I took it from what he said that he thought a .38 could get the job done, but he always had a handgun handy and never owned a .38 as far as I know.

I looked too.

Might have been 252 total for the entire Stake Out Unit.

25 for Cirillo, 10 fatalities.

that seems like plenty of experience

Yes, older folks love .38 Special. You can buy excellent ammo in this caliber. The Federal Premium Micro HST +P which was designed for light weight snubs is prime example of that. The HST JHP bullet is completely enclosed in case just like wadcutter target ammo. This prevents bullets from coming out of case under recoil.

The English gentlemen officers could not cope with large revolvers so the .38/200 was invented. Today it is commonly known as .38 S&W although bullets are lighter in weight.
Going back to beloved round of retirees, life was simpler years ago where there were .38 Special police loads (famed FBI thumper) and target loads. That was when candy bar was 35c. Today when candy bar is about $2 to separate rubes from 💵 the +p concept was invented (from what I see that is the original police load). The modern 9milli honchos have even more complex choices: subsonic, standard, +P, +P+.😱 I freed myself of that BS by choosing .40 S&W.

Nugget thinks you are a idiot..