Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Best 38 Special +P Ammo for Snubbies

Here is a 158 grain Speer Gold Dot fired from my 357 mag


See any expasion? I don't, but pentration was good

Well thanks for the vote of confidence, but I think there are a LOT of smart guys on this forum. But since you asked...

I would pretty much do as you do whether the gun is rated for +P or not. Practice with standard pressure, verify your zero with the +P's, and carry the +P's. The .38 Special is one of the few handgun cartridges that truely benefits from +P loadings.

I also consider small fram revolvers semi-disposible. Pocket guns get used hard, treated rough, so I don't worry too much about beating them up with +P's. Buffalo Bore does make some standard pressure ammo that's pretty good though.

JWP475, I had the exact same results with the 158 gr. GD out of a 357, zero expansion. All of the other Gold Dots I have test expanded perfectly, with the exception being the 60 gr. GD in 32 cal.

THe 230 grain GD in the 45 ACP and the 210 in the 41 mag expand A-LOT

+1

Yep, that, or the old standard of a 158 grain soft LSWCHP +P.

Doesn't a 158 gr. bullet create quite a bit more recoil and muzzle flip in a snubby revolver? And wouldn't a 135 or even 110 or 125 grain bullet work better in a snubby?

Buff Bore has a nice snubby (non +P) load that I like a lot. It's a 150 grain full wadcutter, but made of hard cast lead alloy instead of soft target wadcutter lead, and it comes out of a two inch barrel at 850 fps. Here it is: Here

The idea is that it has a huge meplate (maximum for caliber), so you don't need to worry about expansion, as that's a very destructive shape right there already, making a very traumatic .357 caliber, flesh-tearing, hole, whereas an unexpanded hollow point would tend to do less damage due to smaller meplate.

With +P out of a short barrel, there's generally a lot of wasted powder burning past the muzzle anyway.

PS You might ask yourself, "Then why aren't all self-defense loads shaped like that?" The reason is that it's highly inefficient aerodynamically, i.e., at long range, it will lose more velocity than a bullet with a smaller meplate, but since snubbies are generally thought of as fairly close-range, civilian self-defense guns, you are not so much worried about retained energy much beyond room distances, at which distances there's no discernible difference between a maximum meplate bullet and an aerodynamically shaped bullet. In other words, in a revolver, you could well argue that every round designed for civilian self-defense should be maximum meplate, unless you're thinking in terms of self-defense in the great outdoors, in which case you might well be better served by a more aerodynamically shaped bullet.

Here are the wadcutters . . .

158s create more flip, sure.

But, they also create more impact momentum, and a soft lead LSWCHP works.

That, and a LOT of snubbies have those fixed sights regulated for 158s.

That's true, but I don't recall that being a problem at typical self-defense ranges.

Just for giggles,
I took some jacketed wadcutters and sawed them into thirds
They weight about 40-45 grains each.
Then over a stiff load of Unique I crimped three of them into 38 cases.

My 1 " ( or less ) Ruby is only good to about 15 feet anyway..
so why not make a tiny shotgun out of it?
At 10 feet, each shot groups about 2".

Don't know if they would good for anything except, giggles.

This was once a popular self defense load for .38 Special, i.e., essentially three disks stacked together like a wadcutter. Makes three holes instead of one per round. Penetration isn't wonderful, though, each projectile lacking much in the way of sectional density.