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Thread: snub caliber Q

  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Earlymonk View Post
    Are you saying .38 is cheaper than 9mm and .22?
    The revolvers typically are. 38 is the high volume product, the 22 and especially the 9mm are more specialized.

  2. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Earlymonk View Post
    Decided (with help here) to get a snub for the outstanding job it does in the "not-a-gun" role.
    Wondering about caliber though: If you were going to standardize on .22 or 9mm, which do you think has the most utility?

    In the .22s favor:


    9mm
    • Accepted/legit SD round
    • And…?


    9mm snubs sound like they are handful, unless you go with something heavier like an SP101, which starts to drift away (in size and weight) from the “not a gun” mission.

    Thoughts? What else should I take into consideration?
    Do you really think that adding a box or three of 38 Special to your gun room will create massive confusion?

    There comes a point where the standardization affectation so popular here becomes just ridiculous and stupid.

    Refusing to consider the world's most popular revolver cartridge when shopping for a revolver because it isn't one of the two you've standardized on passed that point and keeps on going.

    Just buy a 38 Special sub and half a case of ammo.

    It's not like 38 Special hasn't been and isn't a "vetted" self defense cartridge...............

  3. #23
    Deadeye Dick Clusterfrack's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alpha Sierra View Post
    Do you really think that adding a box or three of 38 Special to your gun room will create massive confusion?

    There comes a point where the standardization affectation so popular here becomes just ridiculous and stupid.

    Refusing to consider the world's most popular revolver cartridge when shopping for a revolver because it isn't one of the two you've standardized on passed that point and keeps on going.

    Just buy a 38 Special sub and half a case of ammo.

    It's not like 38 Special hasn't been and isn't a "vetted" self defense cartridge...............
    Game on! I get that people who are into revolvers like .38. But for people like me, I'm thinking why bother with this caliber when there's a better option? It's easy to argue that 9mm does everything better than .38 when it comes to defensive use.
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  4. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Clusterfrack View Post
    Game on! I get that people who are into revolvers like .38. But for people like me, I'm thinking why bother with this caliber when there's a better option? It's easy to argue that 9mm does everything better than .38 when it comes to defensive use.
    Except work without moonclips, unless you have one of the relatively rare S&W 547 revolvers. If you are willing to live with moon clips, and their various deficiencies with respect to everyday carry (bulk and fragility, to name two) and if you also are willing to experience noticeably greater recoil in similar rounds (9mm’s higher chamber pressure makes recoil noticeably sharper than 38spl, even when comparing 9mm 124gr FMJ to 38spl 130gr FMJ), then you are correct that 9mm is a better choice than 38spl for defensive use due, primarily, to the greater variety of quality ammunition. I don’t see moonclips as a decisive argument in favor of 9mm in a small revolver because my experience has been that, with hollow point bullets especially, it is very easy to hang up a moonclip reload on the cylinder mouth of a 9mm revolver.

    Having had both in as identical of guns as possible (S&W 640 and 940), I prefer 38spl due to the easy availability of factory low-recoil loads. I can duplicate those loads in 9mm easily by hand loading, to be sure, but I prefer not to use handloads for carry.
    Last edited by oregon45; 03-08-2020 at 08:04 PM.

  5. #25
    One of the best 38 Special options for defense is the 148 grain target wadcutter. It also happens to be a very low recoil load. And it’s a factory option, no need to hand load bunny fart loads to extend range sessions, the bunny cart load can be bought right in the store/online. Or, obviously, you can reload your own at whatever power level you want.

    Again, I hate moon clips, and I have enough experience to be comfortable in that assessment. 2 Smith 625s, one Smith 929, and one Smith 986. I’ve learned to never say never, but the odds of me going to a moon clip gun again are extremely slim. Even if it’s just a range toy, I don’t like them. For SD, I don’t trust them.

    Then there’s the crimp jump possibility in 9mm. There’s a greater risk of 9mm bullets sliding forward during recoil and binding the cylinder than 38 Special ammo. I know, I know, someone is gonna post that they’ve got 10k rounds on their LCR in 9mm and never had it happen. That’s cool. I’ve also seen enough reports of it happening that it makes me more cautious of using a 9mm snub revolver for SD.

    I do realize that 9mm ammo is cheaper. The best 9mm SD loads outperform the best 38 loads. But I firmly believe the good 38 loads are adequate. As I recently heard it said, “when it comes to handgun ammo performance shot placement is the king, penetration is the queen, and the rest is angels dancing on pinheads.”

    ETA: I don’t know how the current LCRs and SP101s are doing, but another issue that comes up from time to time with 9mm revolvers is very sticky extraction of empties. Was apparently a very common issue with the J frame 9s.
    Last edited by Jared; 03-08-2020 at 08:23 PM.

  6. #26
    Member Crazy Dane's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alpha Sierra View Post
    Do you really think that adding a box or three of 38 Special to your gun room will create massive confusion?

    There comes a point where the standardization affectation so popular here becomes just ridiculous and stupid.

    Refusing to consider the world's most popular revolver cartridge when shopping for a revolver because it isn't one of the two you've standardized on passed that point and keeps on going.

    Just buy a 38 Special sub and half a case of ammo.

    It's not like 38 Special hasn't been and isn't a "vetted" self defense cartridge...............

    If money was not a problem, I would just order all of my ammo by the pallet and stack it in my private ammo bunker. Getting back to reality, the cost of ammo has driven my ammo standardization of my primary self defense weapons. Buy a snub and half a case of ammo only works if you plan to shoot 5 rounds once a year then stick the gun back in the sock drawer. The day I picked up my LCR I shot 200 rounds through it and the 3 moon clips that came with it. Shooting 9mm lets me shoot more. Just for giggles I did a quick price check for decent brass cased ammo, price per round- 9mm $.18, 38 special $.24, 357 mag $.35 . I'm sure that you could find cheaper if one was to put more than the 3 minutes of time in that it took to find those prices.

    Quote Originally Posted by oregon45 View Post
    Except work without moonclips, unless you have one of the relatively rare S&W 547 revolvers. If you are willing to live with moon clips, and their various deficiencies with respect to everyday carry (bulk and fragility, to name two) and if you also are willing to experience noticeably greater recoil in similar rounds (9mm’s higher chamber pressure makes recoil noticeably sharper than 38spl, even when comparing 9mm 124gr FMJ to 38spl 130gr FMJ), then you are correct that 9mm is a better choice than 38spl for defensive use due, primarily, to the greater variety of quality ammunition. I don’t see moonclips as a decisive argument in favor of 9mm in a small revolver because my experience has been that, with hollow point bullets especially, it is very easy to hang up a moonclip reload on the cylinder mouth of a 9mm revolver.

    Having had both in as identical of guns as possible (S&W 640 and 940), I prefer 38spl due to the easy availability of factory low-recoil loads. I can duplicate those loads in 9mm easily by hand loading, to be sure, but I prefer not to use handloads for carry.
    If I did a search I wonder how many "just a snub and a speed strip for a reload" I would find? The LCRs work just fine with out the moon clips. Carry the LCR with a moon clip and 10 round 1911 mag if you're afraid of bending extra moons. I have to ask, is there some sort of magic with speedloaders and hollow points for 38/357? I don't own one so I don't know but I don't have a problem with moons full of HSTs dropping in.

  7. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Clusterfrack View Post
    Game on! I get that people who are into revolvers like .38. But for people like me, I'm thinking why bother with this caliber when there's a better option? It's easy to argue that 9mm does everything better than .38 when it comes to defensive use.
    Quote Originally Posted by oregon45 View Post
    Except work without moonclips,
    There it is

    Having plenty of experience with moon clip revolvers, I consider them 100% unsuitable for defensive use. It takes very little bend or deformation in a moon clip to begin causing failures to fire in a pistol that's already severely limited in capacity.

    You all can take the 9 mm's theoretical advantages over 38 Special and enjoy the difficulty of dealing with fragile clips. I'll stay with the tried and true and will still have zero trouble finding loads that have been proven to work when it matters.

  8. #28
    I had to google "affectation."

  9. #29
    The real question here isn't "which should you get" but rather "what's your primary use case?" If your primary use case is a general purpose revolver that can do a lot of different things, then the .22 LR is your best choice by a mile. No questions. But if your primary use case is "defensive revolver" then the 9mm is superior. You can mitigate some of the issues associated with moonclips buy spending a few extra bucks on support gear, and accepting that you'll never be able to carry a reload for the gun in your pocket.

    Without knowing what your intended use case is, I'd recommend the .22 LR because it does more stuff, ammo is cheaper, and it's more fun to shoot than a 9mm LCR.

  10. #30
    Hoplophilic doc SAWBONES's Avatar
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    Another support-vote for .38 Special in "snubbies".

    I view the 9mm/.38 Special choice in snub revolvers similarly to the option of 9mm in 1911-design pistols; with enough fussing and vetting and acceptance of disadvantages, it can be made to work, but...why?

    If you want a good, reliable, accurate, easily carried and easily employed 9mm pistol, there are many already available, and
    if you're simply a devotee of John Browning's pistol design (I am, and yes, I know Colt's history with the 9mm Commander), just stick with .45 Auto in the M1911. That cartridge has been tested, fiddled with, all its fine details accounted for and pretty much ironed out more than perhaps any other pistol/cartridge combination you can name.

    In little snubies, the .38 Special cartridge has been used far longer and more extensively than 9mm.
    The idea that the longer empty space in front of the bullet in 9mm revolver cylinders is "freebore" isn't quite correct; it's not freebore (the space ahead of the actual chamber, before rifling begins, which in a revolver would be distal to the forcing cone), it's empty space before the forcing cone, which the bullet must "jump" without the constraint or gas-seal of barrel before contacting the forcing cone, during which gas pressure is lost. If having more rather than less empty space there were an actual advantage, rifle chambers would be made differently. It does seem to work OK with the 9mm-snubby cylinder combination, but it's a fortunate accommodation, not any sort of advantage, and it takes extra trouble to keep the empty forward-chamber space clean, too.

    I very much dislike having to depend upon moon clips. They bend quite easily and aren't easily made to work reliably or easily once bent. I've tried 'em (I even got one of Matt Del Fatti's patented moon clip carriers years ago), and decided they're just weren't worth the trouble.

    Finally, we're talking about a "compromise" gun/cartridge combination when discussing small, lightweight "snubbies" for CCW. Capacity is low, reloading is, at best, far slower (no, don't tell me about Jerry Mikulek and moon clips) and more difficult than with semiautos, and while intrinsic accuracy and precision may well be as good as with longer sight-radius guns, nonetheless practical and fast accuracy (in my clumsy older hands) ain't up to snuff with any 9mm semiauto pistol, so information about 9mm chamber pressures, ballistic performance or "ammunition commonality with my semiauto primary" as compared to .38 Special, really doesn't matter enough to me to tip the scales in favor of the semiauto 9mm cartridge in snubbies.

    Hey, I'm expressing considered opinions here, and if you love your 9mm snubby, "more power to ya".
    All mine are in .38 Special, though, except for a few .357 magnums.
    "Therefore, since the world has still... Much good, but much less good than ill,
    And while the sun and moon endure, Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,
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