#RevolverCurious

[TCinVA]

I'm not sold on gaining nothing with the jacketed bullets.

For clarity, I'm talking about the J frames with wadcutters. Once you get up to 3" the .38 rounds with JHP start to perform.

Performance of .357 magnum out of snubs is better, but the recoil is punishing.

[45dotACP]

While we're on the topic of terminal ballistics and revolvers, we would be remiss if we didn't listen to Bob Stasch:



Especially his account of engaging a perp with a .44 magnum multiple times...one who, prior to that, had taken an entire cylinder of .45 Colt AND a cylinder of .38 +P from another officer's primary and backup revolver...and upon seeing no useful result stopped targeting the chest and put two rounds into the dude's pelvic area to finally knock him down. And the dude took 10 days to die.

Ah that's a good interview.

I always figured the conclusions he arrived at (shoot for the head using the largest caliber you can handle and add XS big dots to your gun) didn't make sense to me until I realized that they were not all that crazy because Bob was actually advocating that you

1. Practice. He could hit a head sized target one handed at ten yards and while he admitted he wasn't a precision shooter, he still practiced more than most of his colleagues.
2. Carry a suitable caliber. Carry the most effective gun you can. He even suggested that 147gr JHP 9mm was good enough for him despite his preference for a .45
3. Use a coarse sight picture for close up targets because it doesn't need to be perfect when you're close enough. He calls it point shooting...but seems to understand that sight picture requirements are on a spectrum.
4. Aim for targets that will stop the threat

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[Malamute]

Best I remember, Cirillo spent a fair bit of time trying to get better terminal ballistics himself in the pre-Miami days. A lot of the accomplished gunmen who wrote seemed to express a feeling of considerable consternation at their first experience having shot bad guys with handguns only for the bad guys to have taken very little notice of it. That resulted in a lot of experimentation in search of something that would accomplish the intended result sooner.

It wouldn't surprise me if, after years of experimentation on his own and paying careful attention to wound ballistics, he settled on wadcutters for the snub in his use and that idea spread to others from him.

Cirillo may have helped spread the idea, but its been around a long time. Ive seen an old Colt advertisement from the 40s or 50s with I think a Detective Special and they were promoting the idea of wadcutters for mild shooting loads that had good effect. I was just searching for it and cant find it, I wish Id saved it when i saw it.

[TCinVA]

Cirillo may have helped spread the idea, but its been around a long time. Ive seen an old Colt advertisement from the 40s or 50s with I think a Detective Special and they were promoting the idea of wadcutters for mild shooting loads that had good effect. I was just searching for it and cant find it, I wish Id saved it when i saw it.

I don't doubt you.

I also don't doubt that Cirillo is one of those figures who brought a lot of wisdom from prior ages forward because in this business we tend to lose the lessons people learned in the past.

[feudist]

Attachment 63996

A look at some JHP rounds Chuck Haggard fired at the recent Revolver Roundup in his 4 layers of denim test. Note that you don't really see expansion. Most of them penetrated adequately. Contrast that with the wadcutters:

Attachment 63997

...which look pretty much the same. The hard corner of the wadcutters has a more pronounced cutting action in flesh than most of the JHP rounds when they fail to expand. In the typical 2" or less small revolver, you're just not getting anything extra apart from the blast and recoil.

Are those of different caliber or weights?

Or is it an optical illusion?

[revchuck38]

In the hollowpoint picture, the one on the top far right appears to be a 158-grain R-P LSWC-HP. Don't know about the others.

[feudist]

In the hollowpoint picture, the one on the top far right appears to be a 158-grain R-P LSWC-HP. Don't know about the others.

To clarify, I mean the wadcutters.

[mtnbkr]

To clarify, I mean the wadcutters.

The first three are probably hollow-based (like a shuttlecock), which would make them longer for their length. The 4th and 5th ones look to be hardcast DEWC, which would be shorter at the same weight due to lacking the deep hollow base. Most wadcutters I've seen or used range from 148gr-160gr, though there are others weights available.

Chris

[camsdaddy]

Is there any preference between hard cast and hollow base?

[SCCY Marshal]

Edit: You typed "preference" and I read "difference." Whoops!

I prefer hollow base just because, the apocalypse notwithstanding, Federal Gold Medal Match is relatively inexpensive, available, and soft shooting.