Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 38 Super / factory ammo

I was just reading a thread where someone was talking about the 38 Super and finding factory ammo for it.
Do any of you that have a 38 Super use factory ammo ??????

I have tried factory ammo of several brands and NONE of it shoots good, In my opinion it is because they all use .355" diameter bullets like the 9mm.

I have been loading .356" diameter bullets in my 38 Super for years and they work much better, just this year I started using .357" diameter bullets and they shoot better still.

Why dont the factories use a .356" or .357" bullet in this chambering??

I had a Kart barrel put in my Colt Commander .38 Super and I can shoot .355-.357 and all shoot great. If you want a good load, try 7 grains of Power Pistol and a 124-125 grain XTP at 1.265" ( I use .355"). This duplicate the load from Wilson Combat.

I've shot thousands of .356 out of my supers back when I was competing. Accuracy never seemed to be a problem but they were hopped up pretty good to make major. But I'll agree, factory stuff was never very impressive.

Most accurate bullet in all my Supers is the Hornady 124 grain Flat Point...it is a .355 diameter bullet.

As to factory ammo, everything I have ever tried has been accurate. The Winchester ammo is loaded with the same 130 grain RN bullet that they put in the White Box .38 Special, which is a .356" bullet.

boatanchor..don't know what kind of gun you are shooting but if it is a Colt made before 1990 it will have the headspace on the case rim style chamber which do preform better with the larger diameter bullets. Exchange it for a newer heardspaced on the case mouth barrel and you may see a significant increase in accuracy with all loads.

Bob