Well-Armed with a 4" .38 and 158 gr LRNs?

Old Fuff: If Col. Askins was alive today, what type of firearm do you think he would carry? What caliber?

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During his last, and probably most peaceful years, Charlie was predisposed toward 9mm double-action automatics, particularly Smith & Wesson’s. This may seem strange to some, but while he killed with cartridges running from .38 Special and .44-40 through .45 ACP and even .44 Magnum, most of his opponents checked out after being hit with the lowly .38 Special.

When he first joined the Border Patrol he had an old 1911 .45 pistol, which was a bit odd because he was a southpaw. He shortly gravitated toward Colt New Service revolvers, and carried several in .44-40 and .45 ACP after which he settled down to a 4” .38 Special that was worked over by the old King Gunsight Co. and Pachmayer in California. It was notable for having a King ribbed barrel, craved ivory grips, and the trigger guard cut out at the front. Years later it ended up with Col. Rex Applegate.

Askins was a remarkable shot, and a former National Match Champion several times over during the late 1930’s and early 40’s. He pre-dated most of the developments in current high performance ammunition, and generally used cartridges favored by law enforcement and military establishments of his time. He was also a big-game hunter of some repute, and he knew where the vital areas were in both man and beast. I believe he had no compunction against shooting human beings when he thought that was necessary, and he once told me he’s never been in a “fair” gunfight. “Fair,” he said, “was for losers,”

I would feel a little under gunned because of
the ammo but it's better than a stick.

I went with adequate. Don't care for the RN design but what the heck.

Biker

Since the development of the .38 Special cartridge, adult men in the United States have on average gotten a lot bigger. I'm much bigger than my father was and he may have been bigger than his father. Is it possible that handgun cartridges are getting less effective against humans over the generations as people get bigger?

Yep.

I agree with Old Fuff and 1911 Tuner.

I happen to like dedicated .38spls, and 158gr loadings. That was an easy question for me on my Reprobate exam

One example of what Old Fuff is referring to, back the day, one of Mentors always toted a Model 10, most often with 158gr LRN. This Mentor had "experience" and did not have a problem with ball ammo from a 1911 either.

Anywho, some folks up the way hear a shot, and a bit later this Mentor and I come back up the road with this Spike buck. It was deer season, and on his family property. Other folks were bird hunting with persmission.

We didn't have a long gun, we had just run down to piddle , check on a gate or two and all. Having bird hunted the day before,and would again this day late in the evening.

"Meat run" he called it. Folks flabbergasted he would shoot a deer with a handgun, and darn near dropped shotguns as he just un-holstered that Model 10 with one fired ctg, dumped the cylinder into my hand and all the loadings were 158 gr LRN.

No camo, just regular old clothes , neutral colors and we didn't have to wear hunter orange back then, so we didn't since we didn't have it.

Woodscraft skills , just easing out into the woods, as he knew pretty much what the deer were doing when. We were just sitting there, him smoking, and me sitting and learning. Spike comes wandering up, and about 20- 25 steps Mentor fired.

We run this deer up to the black folks that help run this property. Folks appreciative,and took care of dressing it out.

We went back to piddling.

LightningJoe:

Nope... On average people haven't got THAT much bigger, and we still have the same vital organs.

The question here is not that ammunition hasn't gotten better, but rather that the old load will still work as well as it ever did. Of course it had shortcomings - then and now. But if the bullet is placed where it needs to be by a competent marksman it will do what has to be done. The same could be said about a .36 caliber round ball fired from a Colt 1851 Navy revolver back in the 1850's and on.

Unquestionably, a bigger bullet will do more damage then a smaller one - but the advantage may not be all that great if a vital organ isn't damaged and made non-functional.

The men I knew (and some that I still know) that survived gunfights didn't always have the (supposed) advantage of today's high-performance ammunition, but they were absolutely sure of their shooting ability under stress.

I would be very happy with the weapon, as I have two or three of them maybe more, stuck around the house, the ammo choice in todays world is not what I would consider optimum.

If you read about the NYC police and the troubles they had with the LRN 158, you would understand why I would not use that load unless no other option was available. I would take hard cast 148 DEWC over the LRN.

Large flat meplats do a lot more damage in tissue than RN. A good HP would be my first choice, preferably loaded as hot as possible, +P++ For defensive Loads that only get carried. practice with poppers, carry boomers. Even the "FBI load" LSWC would be better than the LRN.

If I had to use the 158, Could I pull them and reload the bullets upside down? That was a common trick with the 158 LSWC's, might work with the LRN's.

I would be very happy with the weapon, as I have two or three of them maybe more, stuck around the house, the ammo choice in todays world is not what I would consider optimum.

If you read about the NYC police and the troubles they had with the LRN 158, you would understand why I would not use that load unless no other option was available. I would take hard cast 148 DEWC over the LRN.

Large flat meplats do a lot more damage in tissue than RN. A good HP would be my first choice, preferably loaded as hot as possible, +P++ For defensive Loads that only get carried. practice with poppers, carry boomers. Even the "FBI load" LSWC would be better than the LRN.

If I had to use the 158, Could I pull them and reload the bullets upside down? That was a common trick with the 158 LSWC's, might work with the LRN's.

The general population has gotten significantly heavier since the obesity charts were made from data of the '60s and early '70s. Just a quick look around a regular crowd will show that.
Talk to any operating room doctor or nurse or primary care doctors. Even X-ray techs - the amount of fat is a real problem.
If they have problems cutting through and retracting the tissue, if the tissue is thick enough to obscure x-ray readings, then the fat is thick enough to slow a bullet.
Look at all the background people in TV and movies now compared to the '50s-'70s. People were lean back then - and Hollywood didn't get less shallow since then. The action stars were wiry, atheletes too.

Remember that the bullet has to penetrate that fat to get to something vital.

Technically, though, all that blubber we're packing around could be advanced as an argument FOR the LRN, since it penetrates (for a given velocity/mass combination) much deeper than a Hollowpoint or even a flat nosed solid (like a SWC).

I don't think our collective fattitude is quite enough to warrant settling for the tiny knitting-needle wound channels of the LRN, though, and prefer the relatively deep penetration of the 158 LSWCHP.

OK, I am confused. Some people seem to think that the 5.56 mm cartridge is not working too well on 3rd world types because they are so thin. Now, here, some people seem to believe that century old handgun cartridges don't work too well on modern day American obese people.

Sorry! Can't have it both ways. There are a few cases where modern day expanding ammunition failed to stop very obese types. Those Somalians, Iraquis, and Afghans seem to be pretty tough, but I doubt that they are any tougher than most American adults from a century ago.

We all watch movies, and we all seem to believe that modern handguns should operate like the phasers on Star Trek. Sorry, but it does not work that way.

Well, every once in a while it works that way. It is called placement. When you do that, everything else becomes secondary.

Some people have never been enthused about the 5.56 mm period.

Obese people may have enlarged hearts, but I'm guessing that if you were to take a look at the surface area from the facing of the shooter, that the percentage of the presented surface area of the vital organs compared to overall surface area is less in obese people. That is, even if you get sufficient penetration it still has to hit something immediately important. If an assailant can't fight tomorrow, it still doesn't help me now.

I agree that placement is the most important thing. Given that, the bullet must do its part too. I'm not a believer in "one stop shots" either. Modern bullets have failed to stop obese types - and non-obese types too. The problem is that handgun rounds have limited power. Now I understand that it is part of the compromise, but that is the truth.

Quoting:

>>OK, I am confused. Some people seem to think that the 5.56 mm cartridge is not working too well on 3rd world types because they are so thin. Now, here, some people seem to believe that century old handgun cartridges don't work too well on modern day American obese people.

Sorry! Can't have it both ways. There are a few cases where modern day expanding ammunition failed to stop very obese types.<<

Actually, given the differences between how handgun ammo and the smallest rifle rounds like the 223 perform, this "inconsistency" is actually possible.

When I say "differences in how they perform" I do not mean "one is better than the other", although that's true too. I mean the wounding mechanism is different.

Somewhere around 2,100fps through 2,400fps depending on who you ask, hydrostatic shock becomes a major wounding mechanism. This allows the narrow-bore 223 to produce wide wound channels, in some cases described as "fist size" if everything works right. One way to describe this is that the tissue the bullet actually strikes moves away from the bullet at speeds high enough to cause more wounding where the bullet did NOT strike.

Handgun ammo isn't usually going this fast, with rare exceptions. You might be able to get 110gr slugs moving fast enough out of a 7.5" barrel 357Maximum for example, until the flame erosion eats the gun.

So with handgun ammo we only get to damage the flesh/bone/fat/whatever that the bullet actually touches. Hence hollowpoints and broad flat noses.

Fat is the tissue most likely to be affected by hydrostatic shock, as it's low in mass. Some soft organs such as brain/liver/kidneys come next. Least affected is very lean stringy muscle, which may be tough and stretchy enough to resist some hydrostatic shock effects.

Upshot: hit a skinny little Somali in the upper thigh with no bone damage with a 223 and the total area of wounding may indeed be lower than the level of wounding for the same hit in the same area with the same bullet on a big ol' fat American. The total area subjected to blood loss may be a hell of a lot different and ditto the length of time each one can stay on their feet and fight (shoot).

On the other hand, with a chest shot the Somali is probably in more trouble with either rifle or handgun wounds. He's got less armor around vitals. His only upside is that they're smaller targets, like the rest of him.

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Back to the original question: I would be very tempted to take the LRNs and turn them into a partial flat nose by either polishing the tips on the side of a bench grinder wheel or rub them nose down across a hot frying pan for a few seconds. Done right it shouldn't cost more than 20grains or so weight. With a meplat of at least some kind of size, I think I'd be better off.

If on the other hand I owned a handgun in New Jersey where JHPs are largely banned, I'd think very carefully about these in a 357:

http://www.pennbullets.com/38/38230tndrhd.html

...or a pair of these loaded in 38spl cases:

http://www.pennbullets.com/38/38100dbbwc.html

...or maybe one of those loaded behind one of these:

http://www.pennbullets.com/38/380100TCBB.html

Question.Are you allowed to have to have hollowpoints in your jurisdiction?Check the local laws. If not then a prefragmented round like Glaser Silver +P or similar load might be the answer. Hollowpoints are the way to go.As slow as standard 38 loads are solids have been documented time and time again going totally through the perp .Then the 38 proceeds to pierce an obstacle and have enough energy to kill an innocent bystander.Such a case happened in New York City.While it has been many years this illustrates the point.Police had a shoot out with a perp.One officer hit the bad guy one time.The bullet dropped him but went on to pierce a wood door and killed the lady on the other side.I shall not bother you with more stories.Save to say I have a lot of old copies of this kind of horror story.158grain LSWCHPSs+P have the best track record.Newer generation JHPs were designed to open as low as 680 feet per second.So newer 158JHPs will work.There are even newer loads to work and expand in snubbie revolvers.The ammo companies have done their homework on this and come up with decent ammo.Even 125+Ps will get the job done under most circumstances.Yes there can be failures but that is true under all circustances and can happen at any time.And yes,the .223 can be used.How realistic is it to use inside a dwelling? I have a a Ruger in.223 and a military style shotgun.Due to tightness of quarters I'll use the revolver in most cases.

Doesn't New Jersey have some silly law against hollow point ammo, to the extent that even LEOs can't carry hollow point ammo?

American sizes...

If you were 5'9" tall and weighed in at 160# in 1940...you were bigger than average which now is average. As far as terminal ballistics...a .38 special is still effective against thin skinned targets at 25yds and as always with any caliber, if the shot is correctly placed (center of mass). The 40SW was developed for women and men who are inept or incapable of using the .45ACP. In other words, the .40SW is for girlie men.

Funny, I thought .40 "Short & Weak" was developed for men and women who were inept or incapable of handling 10mm Auto Pistol.

I am very comfortable with the S&W Model 10. In fact, a 4" heavy barrel Model 10 is my dedicated house gun. It's loaded with 158 grn LSWCHP +P. I wouldn't by choice use LRN ammunition, but if that's all there was like some one said earlier, it beats a sharp stick.

I shoot 158 hollow points. Round nose ain't what I want, personally. Oddly, all the round nose lead loads I've ever fired in any of my .38s or .357s were not that accurate. That right there is the main reason not to use 'em. If you could find one that would shoot decent and could put it where it counts, fine.

But, round nose loads have a pretty pathetic record in law enforcement. Someone mentioned in another thread that in NYPD, they were known as "widow maker" loads, that is if you carried 'em, your wife could become a widow. I prefer the good ol' FBI 158 grain +P hollow point in .38 caliber and see no reason to choose otherwise, frankly.

From Old Fuff's post:

“fair” gunfight. “Fair,” he said, “was for losers,”

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I'd say, truer words have seldom been spoken. Cheaters can lose in games by virtue of disqualification, but will less often lose the real deal where you are disqualified when you're pushin' up daisies.

Exactly what is the penetrative capability of 158gr LRN? Has anyone seen a gel test done with this ammo? 755 FPS is quite slow and I really wonder how deep they can actually go.

I have some 158gr LRN loaded to 800fps and it's enjoyable to shoot but it doesn't instill me with confidence for two legged troubles.

Doesn't New Jersey have some silly law against hollow point ammo, to the extent that even LEOs can't carry hollow point ammo?

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In that case, my choices would be....

1) Move to Texas.

2) Use a SWC with a big, flat point.

good point...

"Funny, I thought .40 "Short & Weak" was developed for men and women who were inept or incapable of handling 10mm Auto Pistol. " Applies to anything with some knock down power I would think.

Beats throwing rocks.

Exactly what is the penetrative capability of 158gr LRN? Has anyone seen a gel test done with this ammo? 755 FPS is quite slow and I really wonder how deep they can actually go.

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In a real-life incident I investigated the bullet went through one side of a wall, then through a pocket door pulled back into the wall, then the other side of the wall, and penetrated the body of a woman and came to rest against her spine.

Back during those long-gone years when the "Standard Police Load" was commonly carried by law enforcement officers and others, penetration was rated by the number of 7/8" clear pine boards a bullet could go through mounted 1" apart. the .38 Special LRN was listed at 7 boards @ 15 feet.

I sure it would go much further in jelly...

Gun is fine, give me a better load for it, like LSCWHP or the Speer short barreled load and I'm right at home.