Thoroughly Pleased!!! (Balistics Test)

Wow, that looks impressive...especially out of a snubby wheelgun. Makes me want to switch my carry ammo. What kind of penetration did you get from these rounds?

JLaw

Remington/UMC loads the same bullet in their 100 round value packs of .357 magnum. It's a "full house" load at 1450 fps/ 583 FPE. Quite a handful from a 2" snub, but controllable with practice. The old scalloped bullet SJHP's are nothing to sneeze at!

Those "rose bud" jacketed bullets Remington uses always did expand well.

A while back I bought 3 boxes of 300 each in 158gr from a dealer who was going out of business for a very good price. I still have a box left and I think I'll save them for use in my Carbine.

That's enough penetration for me.

i'm not sure. my ballistics gel was a little colder than it should have been and the round only went in about 10".

Click to expand...

That's good, in my book.

I don't want to carry ammo that will penetrate an engine block - or go through a BG and hurt an innocent. My idea of a good expanding bullet is that one would stop inside the target - meaning the target took all of the kinetic energy of the bullet. Ten inches is a long way in any direction - like a torso shot - I'd carry that sort of ammo.

Just my two cents. That should be deep enough to go through, say, a heavy leather jacket and still do its job. I don't figure a home intruder or thug on the street is likely to be wearing body armor.

Calibrated Ballistic Gelatin

i'm not sure. my ballistics gel was a little colder than it should have been and the round only went in about 10".

Click to expand...

The big argument in favor of testing ammunition by firing it into ballistic gelatin is that it should yield reproducible results. However, it is crucial to remember that in order to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges, conditions have to be similar. My recollection of the protocol for gelatin testing is that (a) the medium must be 10% gelatin, (b) the gelatin blocks must be within a defined temperature range and (c) the gelatin block meeting the first two criteria must be calibrated in terms of a .17-caliber pellet, fired within a specified range of velocity, penetrating within a specified depth.

If the gelatin was colder than it should have been, the results are already questionable.

Doing such "haphazard" testing for your own use is one thing but posting results without an appropriate disclosure does not fall within my standards for "responsible reporting."

Delete

deleted too.

Test it against four layers of heavy denim cloth placed against the gelatin block.

The bullets will fail to expand (hollowpoint clogged with cloth).

Get yourself Speer .38 Special Gold Dot Short Barrel ammo. It's designed to perform reliably from snubbies.

I love catchin' me some bullets.

Here's a brief test that I did on some popular .38 +P loads, although not with proper ballistic gelatin.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=399106

Blazer is designed as practice ammo, I did some unscientific
shots of various .45 ACP into the old wet/soaked magazine stack
the BLazers hardly deformed - it's cheap practice ammo not HD/SD

I use Double Tap 9mmx19 & .45 ACP as well as .38 Special +P
with Gold Dots for HD/SD.

Randall