Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 38 Special: 125 gr Vs. 158 gr Lead

wadcutters

Interesting thread.

I just picked up a box of Hornady "Critical Defense" 38SPCL 110gr FTX thinking they would be the cat's meow in a snubbie Smith M-60 and then I discovered this thread.

MV is listed at 1010fps but they are not labeled as a +P load.

Anyone have experience with this plastic tipped--FTX load? Whatdayathink?

That is a very handsome little 5 shooter.

This is a great thread. Sure would like to see some of the gun writers weigh in on this.

I have 38s with my family ladies and always wondered what was best.

I shoot and carry a M60 DAO with 158 gr swc and 5.0 gr of Unique right out of the 3 rd edn Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook.Shoots to the point of aim DAO 7-12 yds.I trust my life on them and glad I haven't had to use them yet. Magnum Man

I vote for the 158 SWC's as well. I use 3.2 of Red Dot. Very managable recoil for 6 fast shots in a 4" Diamond back. kwg

Steelie,

I can't believe that we agree again, you moron. New and exotic is most often beaten by tried and true. Its not what you shoot that matters but where you hit that counts. JMO OMV.

Get this 158 grain pure lead Speer bullet:



Drive that at what the book will says is 900 fps or so, understanding that you will not make that velocity in a snub.
I use AA#2, there are plenty of others. That is the best you are going to do with your objective.

It is essentially the same as I cast and lube, the only difference is my cheap azz.

Now some are talking about expansion, you don't really want that so much. Expansion comes at the expense of penetration and penetration rules. Talk of energy dump is a fools conversation, it doesn't happen at these levels. The energy is really trivial beyond what is needed for penetration.

The bullet kills by letting the blood out, quickly by causing a massive blood pressure drop. That requires a hitting a major artery, not really the heart so much because it has valves, but the aorta for example. This is why a handgun wound is so survivable, the bullet not physically cutting a major artery. All injury and death is by exsanguination, but the bullet must reach the artery in order to cause that. If a 38 spl at such a low velocity, like you get from a snub, expands then the odds of reaching a major artery are sharply reduced. Toss in clothing and the odds go way down.

That's my input

Like anything else, shot placement....

I"ve killed quite a few deer,pigs,javelinas wiht the mundane and very mild 32-30. One doe with a cowboy load in it on top of that. Probably 700 fps at the MOST....

We are not talking about killed ROST, we are talking about quickly incapacitated. If he stops fighting or dies even minutes after being shot, yet was able to continue his attack then your load and shot FAILED.

We are also not talking a rifle. A rifle fires a round that has a high sectional density which promotes penetration. Two different ball games here. The fact it that the 38 wadcutter fails to penetrate deep enough to reliably destroy major and critical arteries, simple as that. Remove the physiological effect of getting shot, such as with drugs or being enraged, and the criminal could, and very well may, fight through those shallow hits and do deadly damage. Taking out a lobe or two of his lungs doesn't get it, he is still mobile and capable.

So you have 5 rounds in a snub, you do not have the ammo to mess around with fringe crap.

Here ya go.....best of both worlds.

http://www.hunters-supply.com/shop/index.php?cPath=45

Four of those 148 gr wadcutters hit center mass on that coon and traversed the chest cavity. It didn't stop until the fifth shot penetrated the brain pan. I guess it can be tough to place shots precisely on a slobbering, rabid coon bent on ripping your leg off. It wasn't me doing the shooting but a lifelong best friend and yes I believe his account of the incident. He had carried that .38 spl. Colt snubbie stuffed with those wadcutter loads for years but switched to a .357 loaded with full power 125 gr. HP's immediately thereafter.

A hard cast 150 grain full wadcutter at over 860 fps from a two inch barrel is hardly "fringe crap." It's going to drive a nasty wound channel deep (between 14 and 16 inches in ballistic gelatin) into the vitals.

If there is a non +P load that will do that from a snub I am not aware of it.

Here you go.

The secret to its deep penetration is that it's hard cast, and thus retains its shape, and thus its sectional density, all the way in.

A handgun is a weak sister to a rifle. You can get penetration with a pistol, but you don't get penetration coupled with the secondary projectiles like you do with a rifle.

It can take time for something to lose consciousness just from bleeding, but when major parts of the nervous system are destroyed by being mashed or severed, it's a totally different story.

If you don't get penetration with a pistol, you have nothing.

Another vote for 158gr SWC. If I ever get through all the ones I've already got loaded, I'm going to try a 168gr Keith type SWC I saw a while back.

Recent studies of the question have demonstrated that the sharp shoulders of the semi-wadcutter don't actually do much more damage to the wound channel than does a round-nosed bullet. To get crushing and cutting damage from a sharp shoulder it needs to be a full meplat, as in a full wadcutter.

Placement is what counts

So if I shoot you with a dry pea from a drinking straw, and I hit you directly on your temple or over your heart, that would end the fight?