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Thread: Wadcutters vs. Hollowpoints for snubnose carry

  1. #121
    Member Scal's Avatar
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    So, I usually carry a 442, and very recently switched to the Gold Dot 135gr +p rounds from the HST 130gr rounds. The Gold Dot has a good track record in real world shootings, but I previously didn’t want to carry it in an alloy frame gun because of the excessive recoil. Despite the HST also being +p, it had significantly less recoil for me. The change I made was switching to Ergo Delta Grips.

    These grips are pretty darn ugly, but it drastically improved the shootability of a J-frame for me compared to Hogue Bantam boot grips on the gun that it wore previously*. And now I feel comfortable to carry a more proven round, which also is a lot easier to reload than the HST.

    *I went from not remotely being able to do a one successful string of a 5^5 drill with the Hogue grips, to handily being able to clean a string of five with the delta grips. Both drills were run with 148gr HBWC.
    Last edited by Scal; 01-21-2019 at 03:06 PM.

  2. #122
    Site Supporter DocGKR's Avatar
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    No one caries a sub 2" J-frame for the awesome terminal ballistics or fast reloads...

    Many commercial wadcutters are made from softer lead alloys and are loaded to lower velocities, thus tend to do poorly against intermediate barriers compared to bonded +P loads. As noted in the thread above, one can acquire much harder lead projectiles which may do better against intermediate barriers, but these are not typically loaded by major ammo vendors.

    Again, sub 2" .38 sp/.357 Mag revolvers are a compromise handgun.
    Facts matter...Feelings Can Lie

  3. #123
    Quote Originally Posted by DocGKR View Post
    No one caries a sub 2" J-frame for the awesome terminal ballistics or fast reloads...

    Many commercial wadcutters are made from softer lead alloys and are loaded to lower velocities, thus tend to do poorly against intermediate barriers compared to bonded +P loads. As noted in the thread above, one can acquire much harder lead projectiles which may do better against intermediate barriers, but these are not typically loaded by major ammo vendors.

    Again, sub 2" .38 sp/.357 Mag revolvers are a compromise handgun.
    I suppose most .38 specials represent a compromise load compared to 9mm's of approximately the same size. However, since I find lightweight j-frames pretty easy to carry, my view is to do what I've been doing for a long time. Load them with wadcutters, realize that they are far from Hammer-of-Thor rounds but are probably going to work better than .380's and accept the trade offs as being inherent in an imperfect world.

  4. #124
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tokarev View Post
    I don't own a 327 nor have I shot one but I can't imagine it'd be too bad in the recoil department.

    On paper, the little cartridge looks like it would be a good choice for a snubbie. The limiting factor is going to be choice of ammo and revolver.

    Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk
    My experience is that the recoil was similar to an equivalent model 9mm snub; brisk, but not brutal. The blast was something though with full power loads. The the range people shooting around me would stop and walk over to see what I was shooting because it drowned out all the other shots.

    That said, I am really starting to like the idea of a LCR .327 mag loaded with .32 magnum. I shot a lot of .32 long and magnum for targets and small game and have come to really appreciate the clean drill bit style hole that a hard cast 100 grain .32 wadcutter makes in all sorts of things. I have become a huge fan of the old S&W i frame revolvers, particularly the late improved i frame models, but haven't made the jump to carrying one yet.

  5. #125
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    Quote Originally Posted by GAP View Post
    Unscientific study:

    Federal Gold Medal Wadcutter - I was surprised to see it mushroom.
    Attachment 34363
    Attachment 34364

    Winchester Bonded +P Hollowpoint - One heck of a wood plug.
    Attachment 34365
    Attachment 34366
    I spent part of one summer digging lead out of the berm at a defunct LEO training range near here and you would be shocked how many expanded .38 wadcutters and unexpanded JHP loads that I found. Most of the target wadcutters showed some appreciable nose flattening / expansion, but very few of the hollow points did. I actually saw a lot of FMJ / ball rounds that flattened more than a lot of the hollowpoints. This was mostly old stuff, largely plain traditional JHPs, soft lead WC and very hard .357 mag LSW that somebody was loading bulk. Had a few Hydra Shoks and Black Talons in it, and some of the BTs actually looked textbook. I suppose it was mostly just a matter of how wet the berm was any given day when they were shooting, but it really opened my eyes about the potential of wadcutters because so many of them had deformed. A lot of that got recycled but I should still have a few around, and maybe pictures from when I dug them out.

  6. #126
    As noted by GAP in an earlier post—

    Quote Originally Posted by GAP View Post
    Unscientific study:

    An old 2x4 that has been sitting in the woods for years can stop 38 special wadcutters and hollowpoints.

    Federal Gold Medal Wadcutters and Winchester Ranger Bonded +P Hollowpoints we’re fired from 3-5 yards.

    About 1/4 of both types got stuck and the rest pushed right on through. Relevant to self-defense? Not sure.. I just wanted to see what would happen.

    I suppose the lesson here is that regardless of the ammo type, bullets can be unpredictable. Therefore, you’re probably better off choosing the lower recoil round and banking on multiple hits.

    Federal Gold Medal Wadcutter - I was surprised to see it mushroom.
    Attachment 34363
    Attachment 34364

    Winchester Bonded +P Hollowpoint - One heck of a wood plug.
    Attachment 34365
    Attachment 34366
    —any relationship between the behavior of a bullet passing through wood or soil and and how effective it will be when used for self-defense is irrelevant.

    Quote Originally Posted by revolvergeek View Post
    I spent part of one summer digging lead out of the berm at a defunct LEO training range near here and you would be shocked how many expanded .38 wadcutters and unexpanded JHP loads that I found. Most of the target wadcutters showed some appreciable nose flattening / expansion, but very few of the hollow points did. I actually saw a lot of FMJ / ball rounds that flattened more than a lot of the hollowpoints. This was mostly old stuff, largely plain traditional JHPs, soft lead WC and very hard .357 mag LSW that somebody was loading bulk. Had a few Hydra Shoks and Black Talons in it, and some of the BTs actually looked textbook. I suppose it was mostly just a matter of how wet the berm was any given day when they were shooting, but it really opened my eyes about the potential of wadcutters because so many of them had deformed. A lot of that got recycled but I should still have a few around, and maybe pictures from when I dug them out.
    When it comes to finding deformed bullets in range back-stops, I have noticed that many of them tend to deform because they've hit something harder than mud....debris of some sort, a piece of wood, rock, gravel, sand, brick, glass, and even other bullets lodged in the back-stop. While they neat to look at, I doubt that any of it tells us anything meaningful about how those rounds would or will behave inside of a human body. When it comes to the .38 Special, unless the barrel is at least 4 inches in length, I assume that any round that I fire—even if I am using premium JHPs—will not expand and prepare accordingly.
    ''Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity.'' ―Albert Einstein

    Full disclosure per the Pistol-Forum CoC: I am the author of Quantitative Ammunition Selection.

  7. #127
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    Absolutely. Completely unscientific and not related to performance in tissue, but just interesting and amusing to me. I always find it interesting to see how things perform in oddball circumstances. As you say many of them showed clear impact damage from hitting rocks, other bullets etc. Some of the foster style 12 ga shotgun slugs turned into modern art as they deformed and fused with other bullets, while other slugs ended up like little donuts. I'll go hunt my pictures. A lot of the wadcutters had perfect proto-mushrooms that looked like expansion from mud or wet sand, which again is nothing like tissue, but was interesting to me because before that I had never even thought that they had the possibility to expand short of splattering them on rock or steel.

  8. #128
    Site Supporter OlongJohnson's Avatar
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    Someone pointed to this thread from another one, so here comes the necro...

    Quote Originally Posted by DocGKR View Post
    Of course.....about 2 decades ago. It is all about the hardness of the lead and the launch velocity when confronting glass. Harder lead WC's at 744 fps went 14"; softer lead WC's at 651 fps only went 9". Next time we gel test, I'll see if we can shoot some current factory WC's through some auto windshield glass.
    So it seems that a harder lead WC at 750-800 fps with the sharpest corners available would be pretty close to ideal for a WC load. And the 860+ fps of the Buffalo Bore is overkill.


    Quote Originally Posted by Wayne Dobbs View Post
    Much better long range stability than a WC is a main reason to prefer them.
    Is that long-range stability issue limited to HBWC, or does it also apply to the shorter DEWC?
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  9. #129
    Quote Originally Posted by OlongJohnson View Post
    Someone pointed to this thread from another one, so here comes the necro...



    So it seems that a harder lead WC at 750-800 fps with the sharpest corners available would be pretty close to ideal for a WC load. And the 860+ fps of the Buffalo Bore is overkill.




    Is that long-range stability issue limited to HBWC, or does it also apply to the shorter DEWC?
    I think it was @Wayne Dobbs that posted this a few years ago. Chock full of good info. https://www.hensleygibbs.com/edharri...creekdiary.htm
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