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Thread: wadcutter in snubbie

  1. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chuck Haggard View Post
    I think the BB WC is almost guaranteed to exit except on VERY large people, or bears, etc., due to construction and velocity, which may or may not be a problem for you depending on the situation.

    The few standard WC shootings I have seen leaves the bullet lodged on the far side of the torso. I don't count on WCs to get through anything but the lightest barriers.
    To ME the BB 148 defeats the purpose . I don't want the extra recoil especially since the standard load has enough penetration.

    Main reason I use the 148WC since the 80`s

    Low recoil
    Highly accurate
    Very close to the same POA/POI

  2. #22
    Site Supporter DocGKR's Avatar
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    Concur. I would NEVER use the BB wadcutters in a J-frame.
    Facts matter...Feelings Can Lie

  3. #23
    I did try them. I thought that they would be a bit stout--but I underestimated the pain and I think I'm lucky they didn't stretch the frame. So I stuck with normal WC's and I'm glad to see from the data that you and Chuck have presented that they tend to penetrate well enough.

  4. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by GreggW View Post
    Those Remington target WCs seem to be almost as difficult to find as short barrel gold dots.
    Remington has always had a good reputation for building a super-accurate version of this cartridge (target wadcutter in .38 Special). I remember one year, back in the late 80s, they had one lot that was so spectacular, the Mississippi Highway Patrol team bought the entire lot.

    I've still got a few boxes of one really good lot that Philip Hemphill, he who is in reality a walking, talking Ransom Rest, gave me. It seems a bit… ridiculous… to shoot such amazingly accurate stuff through a snubby; but it is what it is. I also have about 500 rounds left of one particularly excellent lot of the Federal 38A load, which at times was just as good as the Remington. That will be the last stuff I shoot out of my stash.

    Anyway, that's the reason the Remington R38S3 load is scarce; it is in demand from top-level PPC shooters who can actually use its extra edge, and while there are't as many of those today as there used to be, Remington doesn't make that loading very often either.

    Jeep, while your concern that we're relying on "anemic" ammunition seems logical, if you think about it for a minute you'll realize that even with the most hotly loaded eargen-splitten-loudenboomer/toe-tagger special/i-expert & gun magazine approved defensive rounds, you're simply not going to get much velocity out of a two-inch tube. What those things WILL get you is incredible muzzle blast and flash… and if you don't think that will distract you, try it. Especially a full-house .357 out of a 2" Ti-Scan S&W, which is a totally ridiculous proposition.

    Sorry for the drift…

    .

  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Jeep View Post
    I'm lucky they didn't stretch the frame.
    S&W frames don't "stretch". They crack due to the barrel being over-torqued during installation, they are bent/sprung during improper techniques removing a barrel, they erode due to gas cutting, and several other maladies… but they don't stretch. What is misconstrued as stretching is actually the yoke barrel being worn and causing endshake cylinder.

    I have always had a problem with after-market loaders who make all sorts of specious claims about the supposed efficacy of their stuff. As Chuck and others have said, you can't beat physics. There are NO magic bullets, velocity is king when it comes to hydrostatic shock… and you simply cannot get the sort of velocity needed to make a difference out of a service type handgun; ESPECIALLY a snubby revolver. What these guys are doing- have been doing- is jacking up the pressure levels to increase velocities, and/or using lighter snake oil projectiles that simply do not work in the real world.

    Anyway… I know of several guns these "kick-ass loads" have damaged/ruined. I sometimes wonder just how many have been so victimized.

    .

  6. #26
    I agree that you can't beat physics. But I'm not convinced that materials science could not create a reliably expanding .38 snubby round. It hasn't been done, and might take different materials than what we are using now, but my (fairly uninformed) assumption is that it might be possible to do so.

    For now, though, I'll continue to use wadcutters and I've learned here not to worry too much about whether they will penetrate (which is why I tried the hot WC loads).

    I have to admit, though, that it somehow feels wrong to use something that is so much fun to shoot for defense purposes. Almost like I am trying to defy the laws of physics . . . .

  7. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by Jeep View Post
    I agree that you can't beat physics. But I'm not convinced that materials science could not create a reliably expanding .38 snubby round.
    I'm sure they could. Building one that expands reliably AND penetrates far enough, at mid-range velocities… THAT'S the trick.

    One thing that has been bothering me since I began working at the crime lab, is the amazing number of FMJ and LRN bullets I've seen/examined that came out of homicide victims/hood gunfight losers. In the ones that I've had the time to determine WHERE in the body they ended up, all were "A" zone or head hits. Then I think about my old LAPD buddy, who was in five gunfights over his career; all using the same 6" K-38, but the first three were with 158 RNL standard pressure, the load so vilified as worthless, etc. He was an old (and very good) PPC shooter, he got got good center-mass hits, and all his opponents were either DRT or incapacitated enough to not present a threat afterward.

    And if you go back- way back- in U.S. LE history, you won't find hardly any complaints about the ball/RNL ammunition they used back then. Which leads to the idea that expanding handgun bullets are really only needed for less-than-stellar marksmanship.

    But then, you think about how there is a much greater stew of designer drugs/pharmaceuticals available to increase the average miscreant's bullet resistance these days; and the fact that some of those decedents via non-expanding bullets I looked into were NOT expecting to get shot; and take psychological incapacitation into the equation… well, all the excitement over this or that latest, greatest super-bullet starts to pale when you realize (again) that its all a big crap shoot in the end.

    Once you reach that point in your appreciation of the game, using mere wadcutters for defensive purposes seems quite normal…

    .

  8. #28
    Very Pro Dentist Chuck Haggard's Avatar
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    Pat Rogers told me in conversation that in his observation the 158gr LSWC they were issued on the job in NYPD actually worked pretty good, if you could shoot.

    IMHO nothing works if you can't shoot.

  9. #29
    It always seems to get back to that Indian/arrow thing, doesn't it?

  10. #30
    Hillbilly Elitist Malamute's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by LSP972 View Post

    And if you go back- way back- in U.S. LE history, you won't find hardly any complaints about the ball/RNL ammunition they used back then. Which leads to the idea that expanding handgun bullets are really only needed for less-than-stellar marksmanship.


    .
    I believe there was some discussion way back, but it probably wasn't very widespread. The experimenters and gun cranks fooled with different types of bullets because RN bullets didn't work all that great in many cases, especially on game animals. I've shot game with different types of bullets, and RN bullets in any caliber, even 45 auto and 45 Colt, isn't very spectacular, even to the point of jack rabbits sometimes getting up and running off after body hits. It just doesn't seem to happen with SWC bullets, especially in 44 and 45 Colt cal loads. Looking at bullet wounds in different game animals, RN bullets make pretty clean wounds, most animals shot with SWC bullets had bloodshot and bruised tissue around the bullet wounds. Coyotes shot with SWC loads looked like they got hit with a baseball bat, even on peripheral hits. I don't have vast experience, but can only describe the difference I've seen on various game animals as profound, between RN and Keith type SWC bullets. I may be wrong, but I wouldn't willingly use RN bullets to shoot anything alive if I had a choice, just based on hunting with various loads. People may be different, and easier to kill, but there was discussion of RN loads in Keiths and other writings in the past, for hunting use and law enforcement and defensive use.

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