Last edited by the Schwartz; 12-27-2019 at 02:26 PM.
''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.
Using the "expedient equation" from the excellent Quantitative Ammunition Selection by the Schwartz, I get a predicted penetration of 29" for one of those heavy RN bullets. And the predicted wound mass is 34 grams. Of course, without tumbling or deforming, penetration is likely through and through and much of that predicted wound mass will be wounding thin air. So, I think of it more as a "potential" wound mass.
For what it's worth, Western also once loaded the same 200 grain bullet in the .38 S&W cartridge to be used in solid frame revolvers only. Hatcher lists that load at 610 ft/s from a 6" barrel -- so, maybe 550 ft/s from a snubby. That gives a predicted 26" of penetration and potential wound mass of 31 grams. That's not bad from a cartridge some refer to as the .38 Short & Weak. But if they had simply traded that big RN for a 200 grain hard-cast wadcutter they could have dropped the penetration to about 21" and upped the wound mass to 37 grams. Loaded in the little S&W I-frame (a bit smaller than a J-frame) "Terrier" snubby, it would have made a pretty nasty pocket pistol for the mid-1930s.
Last edited by pettypace; 12-28-2019 at 04:12 PM.
Thanks.
Running the Western .38S&W projectile as a .358", 200-grain LRN at 610 fps through all three bullet penetration models, the predicted values for maximum penetration depth (PEN in inches) and total wound mass (TWM in grams) are:
Q-model: PEN: 29.30 inches; TWM: 34.60 grams
mTHOR: PEN: 28.74 inches; TWM: 33.94 grams
MacPherson: PEN: 30.86 inches; TWM: 36.53 grams
''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.
I just checked the Buffalo Bore web site and was surprised to find they offer a pretty fierce load for the .38 S&W (not the .38 Special!): a 125 grain hard cast SWC at 1030 ft/s from a 6" barrel and 874 ft/s from a snubby. From their ad:
I'm guessing what that range of penetration really depends on is barrel length. But OK.Depending on how much clothing must be penetrated and how much bone is encountered, expect 22 to 30 inches of straight-line penetration in mammalian tissue with this load.
From a snubby I get about 24" of penetration and about 27 grams of wound mass for the BB load.
So, what if BB had instead loaded a 200 grain wadcutter at, say, just 500 ft/s? For that, I get about 20" of penetration and 34 grams of wound mass. Seems to me that would be a more effective load, except maybe through windshield glass.
Someone earlier in this thread mentioned avoiding some fierce BB wadcutter load for the .38 Special because of excessive recoil. So, I wondered how the recoil energy of their 125 gr SWC @ 874 ft/s .38 S&W load would compare to a suggested 200 gr WC @ 500 ft/s. I had to go back to Hatcher to refresh my memory of recoil energy. But it looks like you just compare the squares of the momenta. So, I hope I'm doing this right:
(200*500)^2/(125*874)^2 ==> 0.84
I think that means the suggested heavy wadcutter at low velocity load would have only about 84% of the felt recoil of the fierce BB load. That looks like a win-win-win to me: less (over)penetration, less felt recoil, and more wound mass. What's not to like about that?
Last edited by pettypace; 12-28-2019 at 10:19 PM.
Have you or anyone else seen any credible testing of the Remington Golden Sabre 125-grain +P round in a snubby? It seems to compare favorably with some of Doc's recommended rounds in the Lucky Gunner tests and performs similarly in an old tnoutdoors9 test. But of course these are amateur tests done with synthetic gel so the results are somewhat suspect.
I have several boxes of these and they shoot well in my S&W 638.
I have not. I chose them because penetration and expansion were very close to the Winchester Ranger load in the Lucky Gunner test and they’re usually available, which can’t be said for the Winchester load. I might switch to the Winchester load when I find some, the GS load is too long to work with speedloaders. That’s not a major issue with J frames, but it’d be nice to have that option.