Loss of faith in the .38

[Sport45]

I'll second the recommendation for an inertia bullet puller and c-clamp. Pull bullets from your HBWC cartridges and save them. Dump each powder charge back into the cartridge it came from. Pull bullets from your 158gr LRN cartridges and dump the powder back into the cartridge. Then press a HBWC bullet with the hollow base out over the 158gr cartridge load. That should get you a 148gr HP zipping along smartly. You can load the 158gr bullets over the HBWC powder charges for practice loads. I looked at my load data and 158gr cast loads are all greater than max listed loads for the 148gr HBWC and substituting a lighter bullet will not cause increased pressure. I think this is safer than trying to "eyeball" powder charges when splitting 10 into 8 or 5 into 4.

DO NOT MIX POWDERS BETWEEN THE HBWC AND LRN CARTRIDGES! The powders used may not be the same and you NEVER want to mix powders.

A powder funnel would be handy, but you can make do with a piece of paper folded into a cone with the bottom cut off.

(And try soaking your phone books / newsprint or whatever you're going to use in water for 24-48 hours prior to shooting it. Bundle and tape it dry and toss it in a bucket or ice chest full of water and let it soak thouroughly.)

 

[Master Blaster]

let me just interject a safety note here:

I seem to recall that some lead HBWC bullets have a certain range of velocity that they are designed for. By pulling 5 and loading the extra powder into 4 of them, OR USING THE POWDER FROM THE 158 loads you may be setting this nice man up for a serious accident.

IIRC some hollow base waddcutters come with a caution not to load them to velocities over x feet per second because they can come apart in the barrel if they are loaded too fast, like the hollow base will seperate. The next round fired will hit the obstruction in the bore and you will have a kaboom.

Just thought I would mention this.

carry on.

 

[BluesBear]

Moonclips; Pay attention - read post #57.

Master blaster; We are talking about REVERSING the HBWC when replacing in into the case.
That makes in a big honking hollow point and removes the chance of blowing the skirt off of the bullet.
Factory WC ammo is loaded for accuracy not speed.
That's why it's called mid-range ammo.
You can actually load the HBWC quite a bit faster and still remain safe.
Remington produced a standard speed HBWC loading prior to WWII.

 

[Master Blaster]

Yes BluesBear, most likely it would work just fine.

But lets remember that Puncha was asking if he sould buy the RNL instead to get better penetration. Turning the wadcutters around so they are hollow points could get Puncha in trouble with the law where he lives. Puncha is also not an experienced reloader from what he said.

So I thought I would point out there is a risk involved.

 

[Moonclips]

Moonclips; Pay attention - read post #57.

Yup. South East Asia. That's not a country. So which country again?

 

[BluesBear]

Puncha said they'd "most certainly" deny an application to purchase HP ammo but he didn't say if was or wasn't any problem making or possessing it.

 

[kmrcstintn]

sorry that I misunderstood the original purpose of this thread...

if stuck with target loads and no hp's...

158 grain lead round nose loads...try to get a soft lead to promote some "deformation" that would slow the bullet down and reduce the potential overpenetration

158 grain lead semiwadcutter loads...ditto as above

125 or 130 grain FMJ...similar to what the U.S. Air Force used in their S&W 15's for security work

158 grain FMJ...not as easy to get anymore...seems to be a dying load...I occasionally see them as a truncated cone & flat nose target load

148 grain wadcutter...not alot of potential as a defensive load, but very accurate

shot placement in the chest cavity will be your best bet to train for no matter what load you choose...this is the way the police departments used to train (the NYPD and LAPD come to mind since they used the .38 special loads for a long time and some older officers are still carrying revolvers instead of autoloaders)

 

[Puncha]

Success!

I shot a "test pack" of 360 sheets of paper taped together with masking tape. The distance was 25 meters. (rationalised that if it could penetrate at 25m, it would penetrate at closer ranges).

Anyhow, 6 shots later, all had penetrated decisively.

The round was the fiocchi 158gr LRN.

It should thus be able to penetrate light clothing, skin, sub-Q fat, muscle and reach the internal organs of a violent attacker.

My faith in the .38 is restored!