[MagKnightX]

Which centerfire handgun cartridge, loaded to match specs, is going to be the most accurate? My guess is going to be .38 sp. wadcutter, but I'm probably wrong. Since it's a handgun, does it really matter anyway? Probably not, but whatever.

[steveno]

7 BR out of a Remington XP-100 and I don't think second place will be very close

[Ohen Cepel]

Both answers listed are good.

45acp is also very good.

Think 38 super has to be close since so many competitors shoot it now.

Sure this will be an thread with a lot of opinions:evil:

[Ric]

My vote is for 38 Spl and 45 ACP
Both are very good choices

[Marshall]

357 Sig

[Bill B.]

All good answers but how about a oldie but a goodie; 44-40 WCF. Nothing shoots any better from a Colt SA!

[Marshall]

Go to Remingtons sight and look at 50 yard comparisons, the 357. Sig is a bad boy at only 0.7"

I assume it can made even better loaded for match.

[stans]

I think a shorter thread would be to list the least accurate centerfire handgun calibers. Honestly, just about all of the calibers have similar accuracy potential when loaded optimum bullet and powder charges. Probably the biggest limitation is the gun itself. People have said the 40 S&W in inherently inaccurate, but if you look at the guns, virtually none are target grade, all are service grade weapons.

[Ala Dan]

Another "oldie", from the days gone by:

.32 S&W Long

Best Wishes,
Ala Dan, N.R.A. Life Member

[Standing Wolf]

7 BR out of a Remington XP-100 and I don't think second place will be very close

I think you're probably right. I'd be surprised if even 1% of American shooters have ever fired the cartridge, but from all I've read and seen, it's a champion.

[P95Carry]

I think you have to include platform to make this ideal.

I do think it is possible to load a .357 mag to very tight tolerances and, in a suitable platform .. say a 6" 686 ... it can shoot very tight indeed ..... and not even be a max load. I tried this way back .... and had keyholing at 25 yds.

[9mmepiphany]

.32 long
.38 spl
.44 spl

these calibres all have a long history outstanding accuracy in handgun competition. they maximize bearing surface when loaded with wadcutters.

[mete]

When handgun target shooting started about 1880 the most records were made with, and the cartrige considered the most accurate was the 44 Russian. The most common chambering for the Remington rolling block target model was 44Russian and 22lr. The 44Russian was the replaced by the equally accurate 44 special and the 44 Mag is high on the list also.

[RCL]

I'll echo what Mete says and cast a vote for the .44 Mag, with the .32 Mag coming in a close second. This would be based on a revolver platform, which is mostly what I shoot.

[LeonCarr]

The 6 BR from an XP-100 might beat out the 7 BR, but it would be close :).

According to Irv Stone of Bar-Sto Barrels, the most accurate centerfire revolver cartridge is the .38 special, and the most accurate centerfire auto cartridge is the 10mm. These opinions were based on all of the barrels he has installed and tested.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

P.S. I have some guns for sale in the Trading Post :).

[Berg01]

.38 spl and .38 Super

[steveno]

I have seen 7 BR's that will hold less than an inch at 100 yards in an XP-100. yes the 6 BR will probably do just as good. it is really scary how well they shoot. everything else is a distant second and that would probably be the 38 spec , 45 acp and 41 mag

[Blueduck]

I do think it is possible to load a .357 mag to very tight tolerances and, in a suitable platform .. say a 6" 686 ... it can shoot very tight indeed ..... and not even be a max load. I tried this way back .... and had keyholing at 25 yds.

:confused:

[P95Carry]

Blueduck - sorry if any confusion!

I posted purely on a personal experience back when I was trying to wring the best out of what I had ...... not having tried any ''exotics''.

I found that thru my 686 ... which was a comp' loaded gun .. a slightly sub max .357 mag load (N-110 powder .. exact throw forgotten tho I think just over 14 grns) was used to push a Lyman cast/gas check 158 SWC. This seemed to produce remarkable consistency at 25 yds .... no further was tested I'll admit.

I also had a Walther GSP way back in .32S&W which was a great and an accurate set up for bullseye shooting - loading my own full wad cutter loads.

[Blueduck]

Thanks P-95 the "keyholing" reference just kinda confused me (not hard on Friday mind you ;) ) in that you were saying something to the effect of really tightly controlled loads keyholed (were unstable) in the .357.

Like I said I'm said I'm slow on Fridays ;)

[P95Carry]

Oh - the ''keyholed'' .. haha .... of course yeah, that could sound a tad ''bad''!:D Though if I mean unstable ammo I tend to use term ''tumbler''.

Guess I should refer to shots in target that ''cut'' each other!:)

[Lone_Gunman]

No one has said 380 acp yet, so I guess I might as well, since every other handgun cartridge known to man has been mentioned.

Apparently a consensus answer to this question has not been reached.

[pauli]

clearly, we need some empirical testing.

anybody got a whole bunch of ammo, and a range that will let you clamp rounds down by the rim while you tap at the primer with a nailset? surely there's a magical caliber that can hit paper under these conditions! ahem.

inherent is inherent... using a barrel, or even a chamber, is cheating ;)

[Archie]

What criteria are we discussing?

Bullseye shooting, the top centerfire calibers are .38 Special and .45 ACP. Back when revolvers were the order of the day, .38 Special and .44 Special were highly touted as bullseye grade handguns. .32 S&W Long was a very accurate round in a revolver.

The 7mm BR is no doubt a very accurate round, but only for either benchrest or silouette competition.

IPSC and IDPA competition really doesn't put that much emphasis on accuracy. Six inch groups at 25 yards are nothing special.

I've always had the notion that the firearm and the ammunition loading (preparation) techniques had more to do with accuracy than the round itself. But I have noticed no one builds serious bullseye target guns in .32 ACP.

[ACORN]

I have a Contender in .223 Rem that shoots sub 3/8" @ 100yds. with a 7 power scope but IMHO it's not a "handgun cartridge". In the normal handgun cartridge class my vote would go for the .38 spl.
By the way the Contender is for sale if anyones interested.

[NMshooter]

Well, if everybody loans me their handguns and a few cases of ammo I will be more than happy to find out!:D I vote for the 10mm.

[cratz2]

Well, I don't know about inherently accurate, but with equal shot placement, larger diameter bullets are most likely to result in higher number scores.

Right?

[9mmepiphany]

actually equal shot placement would result in equal scores...except in ipsc

that is why many competitive sports have a minimum caliber floor (9mm for ipsc, .32 for CASS). probably why the question also limits answers to centerfire. otherwise the obvious answer would be the .22lr as the world most accurate handgun cartridge

[unspellable]

I am of the opinion that the cartridge is irrelevant to the question. Any cartridge with an optimum load will be as inherently accurate as any other. The differences are in the platfrom it is launched from. (And a lot of cartridges do not get the benifit of an optimum load.)

That said, at longer ranges bullets with a poor ballistic coefficient such as wadcutters will be affected more by cross winds. Also bullets traveling in the transonic velocity region are affected more by cross winds. (The reason why a standard velocity 22 LR tends to be more accurate than a high velocity 22 LR out of a rifle.)

Some cartridges have an undeserved reputation for indifferent accuracy. One that springs to mind is the 45 Colt. The cartridge itself is accurate enough, but it is cursed with revolvers having over sized chambers and undersisized throats. A hang over from black powder days. It would benifit greatly by modernizing the chamber dimensions.

That's part of the 454 Casull's secret. Aside from being a lengthened 45 Colt the SAAMI spec calls for very tight chambers.

BTW: Towards the end of the 19th centruy the 44 Russian was probably the best known target revolver cartridge but the 32-44 and 38-44 (Not to be confused with the 38-44 loading of the 38 Special which came many years later, it has no connection at all with the 38 Special.) were probably more accurate as they did away with cylinder throat problems. These two cartridges were reasonably well known and it's a mystery to me why they do not appear in "Cartridges of the World". Right around the turn of the century and shortly after, the Webley Green revolvers were the ones to beat. They had a cylinder lockup that's never been matched since, not even by the S&W triple lock.

[Curare]

It's important to eliminate as many variables as possible for this comparison--and there are a bunch.

For a start, a fixed barrel rig, indoors with the best possible load for each cartridge would have to be evaluated. The best rate of twist for that load would also have to be used.

50 yds. would be a good distance to maximize differences.

The winner would likely be the best stabilized round with the best ballistic coefficient.

[NORM]

I have seen 7 BR's that will hold less than an inch at 100 yards in an XP-100. yes the 6 BR will probably do just as good. it is really scary how well they shoot. everything else is a distant second and that would probably be the 38 spec , 45 acp and 41 mag

The first four shots out of my xp 7mm br(still have the target), 1st to see the piont of impact, 2-3-4 you could covet with a dime. all basically in the same hole. short harris bipod ,100yrds seated at a bench.
love it
Norm

[sbow]

I've always had the notion that the firearm and the ammunition loading (preparation) techniques had more to do with accuracy than the round itself. But I have noticed no one builds serious bullseye target guns in .32 ACP.

Neil at NSK is one of several experimenting with .32 ACP for Bullseye. He posts his opinion of the round's potential vis-Ã*-vis the .32 S&W Long in this post (http://www.escribe.com/sports/bullseye/m47307.html).

[Snake Eyes]

.32 Long? .32 S&W Long??

Bah!!

.32 Colt New Police!

;)

[E357]

For 100 yard distances I like the 32 H&R and 22 Hornet in my contenders - both sub MOA. For 50 yards and in it's a pick'em between the 45 ACP and the 38/357 shot from revolvers.

Elliot

[telomerase]

Well, how would we know if it were? Anybody have a red dot on their Raven?

[grendelbane]

The .25 might prove accurate if fired from the right gun. Even the 5.5 mm Velo-Dog cartridge would probably be accurate if fired from the right gun.

Cartridges like the .45 ACP and the .38 Special have a big advantage in that lots of experimentation has been done over the decades to try and bring out their best. This has not been done with new cartridges like the .40 S&W, for example.

I have fired one exceptional group with the .40 S&W cartridge. But I fired it from a 610 revolver.

[bfoster]

grendelbane,

FWIW, rim turned and shortened 5,5 Velo-Dog fired from a Pachmayr modified Colt Woodsman was used (in part) to win a national level match by the younger Askins just prior to WWII.

Bob

[Wildalaska]

7.65 Nagant...just like the Soviet Marksmen :)

WilddadadaAlaska

[krept]

aw heck, 5.7x28mm

[fedlaw]

50 yds. or closer: .44 special is hard to beat coming out of a 629 Classic.

[otomik]

i think the most important factor in inherent accuracy is time of flight so how about 7.62mm Tokarev? of couse nobody is making accurate loads commercially so inherent accuracy might not matter much.

short time of flight and very precise loadings with the exact same specs from round to round, is there some other principle behind accuracy that i'm missing?

[unspellable]

<< short time of flight and very precise loadings with the exact same specs from round to round, is there some other principle behind accuracy that i'm missing? >>

Yes, there is something you are missing. Drift due to a cross wind is proportional to the velocity loss during flight, not the time of flight. For subsonic bullets the air drag on the bullet is proportional to the square of the speed. As you approach the speed of sound the formula for the drag gets messy. That's why a standard velocity 22 LR will tend to be more accurate than a high velocity 22 LR. The high velocity loses more velocity on the way to the target and suffers more from cross winds. As you get beyond the transonic region the drag formula settles down again. If you stay away from the transonic region the bullet shape will have more effect on drift than the velocity.

For high velocity center fire rifle long range target shooting it's common to use a boat tailed spitzer for its low drag. The weak point on this type of bullet is that any assymetry in the boat tail portion of the bullet tends to "steer" it, so to take advantage of the shape you must have a precision made bullet.

But the original question was "which cartridge" not which load. I'll maintain that if we neglect wind drift, any cartridge is as accurate as any other and its the load and the platform it's launched from that make the differences.

[Crownvicman]

How about the .44 Russian. Very popular as a target round 120 years ago.