38 supers in an Astra 400 ?

[tark]

I have an Astra 400 that I have been shooting extensively. It is a later gun, #92XXX and, since Largo ammo is rather hard to find, I buy 38 Supers, pull the bullets, drop the charge by 20% and reassemble. It is time consuming but it is a reliable source of ammo.

Long story short, I found a box of CCI Blazer 9mm Largo ammo and tried some in my 400. I was profoundly shocked by the greatly increased recoil and muzzle blast from the CCi ammo. Out of curiosity, and against my better judgement, I took seven of the Largo rounds and one factory loaded, untouched 38Super round, and loaded them in a mag without paying any attention to where the super was. I wanted to see if I could tell which one was the super.

Well, it was easy to pinpoint the super round. One of the rounds in the mag was noticeably weaker than the others. Yeah....that's what I said, too. Out came the chronograph.

Now, I don't know if I just got some hot loaded Largo ammo or some weak loaded Super ammo, but the 124gr Largo ammo was doing 1260. The super ammo was pretty close to the advertized 1240.

Two things here. Have the factories softened up Super loadings in recent years? I seem to remember that Supers featured a 130 gr bullet @ 1300 FPS. Current loads feature that bullet at 1200 and they call that +p!! Does anyone know if the ammo companies are loading Supers down to 9x19 levels.

The other thing is the Largo pressures. What the hell are they loading that stuff to? It feels noticeably hotter than a current Super. My 400 is in good shape, with all new springs, but I will hold off on shooting supers in it untill I get some answers Thanks, guys

 

[Big Shrek]

.38 Super was meant to be a replacement for the .38 special, and can be loaded for doing serious damage...
but it revitalized in the 70's as a target round, so a lot of loadings are for competition,
and frankly, a lot of MFR's really don't know exactly what to do with it,
so you get a lot of oddball FPS loadings...so its kinda Buyer Beware...
Works best when you tailor the loads to your specific use.

 

[Edarnold]

As far as the .38 Super is concerned, put the weak loading down to the liability lawyers. With dozens of manufacturers and gunsmiths cobbling together 1911-clones, somebody is bound to decide that the easy way to ensure reliable feeding is to ramp the chamber. With the back end of the case unsupported a full powered load may do something nasty, so the safe thing is to load down the ammo. Much like the problems with some Delta Elites (and early Glock 20s ) and the 10 mm Auto, the lawyer solution is to only sell neutered loads.
A fair guess is that your 9 mm Largo ammo was made by somebody like Fiocchi or S&B for CCI: those furriners seem to load ammo the way the original designers intended.

 

[Edarnold]

And another thing: speaking of neutered loads, the operating pressure set for the 9 mm Luger is about 34,000 psi. The NATO issue round is listed as 124gr. at 1260fps, with an average pressure of 27,000 psi. If you got those ballistics in a case the size of the Largo, I'd expect the pressures to be even lower. And of course if you got the NATO ballistics from an SD load from Hornaday or Remington, et al, it would be considered a soul-searing +P+, to be fired only if your life insurance is paid up. It's all the lawyers...

 

[Onmilo]

I have owned and shot an Astra 400 for 20+ years.
While I don't recommend shooting .38 Super in a 400 lets just say that the generic Winchester White box/ Remington UMC yellow box bulk pack stuff is currently loaded closer to .38 acp ballistics than .38 Super.
That said, you get into a box of something like Cor-Bons and you will learn why the stuff is called Cor-Booms,,,

My go to handload for my pistol is 5.2 grains of 231 under a 124 or 130 fmj bullet loaded in all brass .38 Super cases.
Works just fine and just a bit less abusive than factory 9mm Largo.

 

[RainDodger]

I've been reloading .38 Super for years. My everyday plinking load is the 130 grain FMJ over 5.3 gr of W231 - similar to Onmilo's load. It's pretty tame - on par or slightly hotter than factory stuff I think, although I have not used a chrono on it.

My favorite load is the same bullet over 9.4 gr. of VV N-105. It is significantly hotter than either of the above (manuals state it is ~1,320 FPS).

It's my opinion that factory .38 Super loads are far tamer than they should be.

 

[tark]

Thanks for the info, one and all. I will probably stick to my down loaded super ammo for my 400. I don't really see any need for shooting hot loads in a fun gun and pulling bullets and re-assembling gives me something to do....

 

[LAGS]

A common practice years ago , was to convert the 9mm Largo chambers to 9x19 mm by inserting a bushing in the front of the chamber and re reaning them to 9 x 19.
I had a couple of them years ago, and they were nice shooters, and at the time, I couldnt find any 9mm Largo ammo.

 

[stiab]

Good grief, there is some bad info in this thread. No, the 38 Super was not intended as a replacement for the .38 Special. And no, current factory Super is not downloaded from what it was years ago, based upon my actual testing of old and new factory Super ammo. In my opinion, that is an urban myth that keeps getting repeated on the internet. You can read about the tests in the link below...

http://smith-wessonforum.com/ammo/65553-ammo-test-old-vs-new-38-super.html

 

[abbylow1104]

9 Largo

Tark - I have a Star Modelo Super and after doing some research I decided to try 38 supers in it. I used both Armscor and Fiocchi, and noticed the same thing you did. The 9 Largo seemed to have much more recoil and power. As a matter of fact, the armscor felt more like .22 lr. I have fired 250 round of super in mine with no problems. I have also fired about 300 rounds of 9 largo with no problems. Nice pistol.

 

[tark]

not sure why this 6 month old thread I started suddenly re-appeared, but hey, why not. Worth a new post, and a responce, I guess.

stiab, you're right about the disinformation, but the down loading of the 38 sissy cartridge, formerly known as the 38 super, isn't part of it. The major ammunition companies openly state that they lowered the pressures on super ammo down to 9mm levels. I have a 35 year old Cartridges of the World book which lists the Super as a 130 gr bullet @ 1300. Several old Gun Digest books I have state the same figures.

I cannot put much credence into a study that compares 70 year old ammo to new ammo. Get real! 70 year old ammo has probably lost a little zip over the years.

124 gr bullets @ 1240 , or 130 gr @ 1200....do not a proper 38 super load make, as Yoda would say. And the ammo companies call that +P!!

Now, having said all of this, there are ammo companies like Cor-Bon, for one, that still know how to load REAL 38 Super ammo.. That ammo will not be used in my 400.

 

[Mainsail]

Here is mine:

I got this from a friend before he passed away. I got several guns from him actually but this was the one with the most sentimental value. He had looked a long time for one to replace one he'd sold a long time ago, and finally found one about two years before the cancer took him, so it's one I'll be holding onto. He tried to shoot it once but he wasn't aware it was a 9mm Largo and loaded it with a 9mm Luger, which discharged but didn't extract the empty. I has assumed it was because 9mm Largo had a bigger rim, but from what I've read these Astras are supposed to shoot anything that's 9mm?

 

[Jim Watson]

what I've read these Astras are supposed to shoot anything that's 9mm?

Supposed Definition
dictionary.search.yahoo.co
adjective

1.Presumed to be true or real without conclusive evidence.


Sometimes they will and sometimes they won't. They were not designed as multi-cartridge pistols. Some of the other Spanish 9mms were, they are marked 9mm/.38 for 9mm Largo and .38 Auto.

 

[HisSoldier]

There is a pae about this in the 9MM Largo website, "9mm Largo vs. Others". I'm not posting the URL, if you type that into the search engine you'll see it.
If you google "38 Super factory ammunition" you'll find a site solely about 38 Super loads, a page that compares various makers offerings. If you look that over carefully you will be bale to identify many brands that are far lower powered than others. See table 2.

All that said, I wouldn't recommend it for several reasons, the best one being that you can load your own Starline brass any way you want it. I have the Astra 400 and a beautiful Star model A, neither of which is used by me for anything but target and plinking. For plinking and target use the lowest power load that reliably functions is best for the longevity of the guns and the stresses of shooting, and there really isn't any good reason I can figure for trying to load it into a tank killer.