Ballistic gelatin test results : Various .38 Special (2" barrel)

[Brass Fetcher]

Firearm : .38 Special revolver with 1 7/8" barrel length

Ammunition : Various .38 Special

Block calibration : All depths corrected depths

Shot 1 - Remington 158gr +P LHP. Impacted at unknown velocity (chronograph malfunction), penetrated to 12.6" and expanded to 0.592" average diameter.

Shot 2 - Remington 158gr +P LHP. Was fired through the IWBA 'heavy clothing', 4-layer denim test (12.5 ounce denim fabric was used). Impacted at '551 ft/sec' (chronograph malfunction), penetrated to 11.5" and expanded to 0.592" average diameter.

Shot 3 - Winchester 110gr Silvertip hollowpoint. Impacted at 835 ft/sec, penetrated to 8.7" and expanded to 0.572" average diameter.

Shot 4 - Pro Load Tactical Grade 125gr +P JHP. Impacted at 823 ft/sec, penetrated to 10.2" and expanded to 0.503" average diameter.

Shot 5 - Buffalo Bore Ammunition 125gr +P Grain Speer Gold Dot. Impacted at 1091 ft/sec, penetrated to 12.9" and expanded to 0.543" average diameter.

Shot 6 - Buffalo Bore Ammunition 158gr +P lead SWCHP with gas check. Impacted at 1006 ft/sec, penetrated to 13.0" and expanded to 0.577" average diameter.

 

[Stephen A. Camp]

Hello and thanks very, very much for the effort you are putting forth in these reports.

Best.

 

[Iggy]

I agree with Stephen. You are providing some wonderful information.

Keep up the good work.

 

[Jim March]

VERY interesting!

It looks like the Winchester standard pressure 110 Silvertip "didn't suck too badly" but...I suspect it would do worse with denim.

It looks like the BuffBore 158gr "monsters" aren't really giving you all THAT much over the Remington, in exchange for more recoil.

Here, the Remmie still holds up well after four layers of denim. Very impressive.

Damn that's a sweet round.

Again: if your gun weighs less than 15oz, you probably can't shoot any +P 158gr plain leads loads. They may yank out of their shells and tied the gun up due to big recoil and the bullets being too slick. If your gun is exactly 15oz, you *should* be OK with the Remington or Winchester versions of this load, but the BuffBore may be questionable as the recoil is higher.

If you face this problem, the answer lies in the Speer Gold Dot 135gr, either 38+P or 357 "Short Barrel", or maybe the Winchester 130gr 38+P Supreme or one of the 125gr Gold Dots such as the Buffbore tested here.

THANK YOU for all this data!

What we need to do soon is stick all this into a single thread and sticky it. I can work with the moderators on that. JE223: do you by chance have all the various links to these noted down somewhere? Otherwise I can start searching for them.

 

[Brass Fetcher]

Hmmm. I don't have any record of them, but you can do an advanced search for posts by JE223 and you can filter that by '.38 Special', I imagine.

Let me try it...

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=262430&highlight=.38+Special
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=262409&highlight=.38+Special
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=260768&highlight=.38+Special
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=242348&highlight=.38+Special
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=183794&highlight=.38+Special

Is what I came up with.... usage/distribution of my results/information on those threads is unlimited, for your purpose.

 

[Jim March]

Well I want other calibers too .

What I'll do is, I'll start compiling all the links tonight, and then we need to get a moderator involved in creating a new thread and stickying it with all your prior posts copied in.

The way I'm visualizing this, the stickied thread would contain just your text and pics (and full credit to you), with links to each thread where commentary by us in the "peanut gallery" was posted if people are interested in digging into that.

 

[jad0110]

+1 on making this a sticky. Kudos to Jim for your efforts. And thank you JE for the fascinating data.

It looks like the BuffBore 158gr "monsters" aren't really giving you all THAT much over the Remington, in exchange for more recoil.

Here, the Remmie still holds up well after four layers of denim. Very impressive.

Damn that's a sweet round.

I must draw the same conclusion. It would be interesting to see the difference in a 4" or longer gun. In addition to more recoil in a small airweight or airlite snub, I bet those Buffalos are a lot harder on the gun. Doesn't look like it is worth it to me.

It sure is tempting to carry the FBI Load in my snub, but I'll leave them for my 686 and stick to the Speer 135s for now.

 

[Brass Fetcher]

Whatever the terminal effects (increase in effectiveness vs. the recoil), I do have to give it to Buffalo Bore for customizing their loads for such a popular defensive caliber/barrel length.

 

[gomer]

Thanks so much for the tests. Tests like that make me feel much better about my wife packing her 85 ultra-lite with the Remington 158 LSWCHP+P. Stephen Camp's testing turned me on to that round and I bought a LOAD of it last year to have "just in case". Thanks again for the tests.

 

[Jim March]

It would be interesting to see the difference in a 4" or longer gun.

One of his tests did cover the Remmie 158 from a 4" tube. It held together, but barely - the whole "mushroom" was in danger of falling off.

It looks to me like the Winchester variant of the same thing would work about as well in a 4" tube and might be better in a 6"+. The Winchester's ballistics are about identical to the Remmie but the lead alloy is a bit harder. The Winnie doesn't do so well in 2" tubes.

 

[DawgFvr]

What? No Corbon DPX included in this test? Copper tops are here people...they are now the standard.

 

[mdao]

DPX Test.

Test was already done and link was posted above.

Looks like the old school 158 gr. LSWCHP is still the golden standard.

 

[Sundles]

Sundles

A few things should be noted when comparing the Buffalo Bore loads to the Remington loads.
1. The buffalo Bore loads are flash suppressed. The Rems are not. This matters big time. Over 90% of all civilian shootings in America happen in low light and you dont want to be blinded by your own gun fire.
2. The Buffalo Bore loads are gas checked and will not lead your barrel. The Rem. loads are plain based and lead your barrel badly and your accuracy goes bye bye.
3. The Buffalo Bore loads will NOT jump crimp in my 11 OZ S&W mod. 340 in five rounds of shooting.

 

[Dr.Rob]

That Remington load is impressive, esp through the denim.

 

[RON in PA]

Have to comment on lack of flash supression in revolvers or shooting compensated semi-autos. I've done a fair amount of shooting under very low illumination conditions mostly to test the idea that you can lose your vision. First observation is that 38 special revolvers have more flash than a compensated Glock 19 and second observation is that neither seems to affect vision. Maybe shooting a 357 magnum would be different but I'm not going to try.

 

[Sundles]

Night Vision and muzzle FLASH

Perhaps my night vision is unusual, but once my eyes have adjusted to darkness, any ammount of light, depending on degrees, will have a varying effect on my night vision. So, I dont know about losing your vision altogether, but for me, any ammount of flash will cause varying degrees of vision impairment once my eyes have adjusted to the darkness--this cant be a good thing in a life threatening situation. Any improvement in this area can only be a good thing.

 

[loplop]

Guys, I'd love it if you'd comment with experiences over here:
Night vision loss?

I'm quite interested.

OP: very nice work, thanks for all the time you've spent doing this. Maybe I should try some of the FBI load in my snub.

 

[Jim March]

Mr. Sundles,

First, thank you for posting.

The lack of flash in your loads is something I wasn't previously aware of. Are all of your personal-defense-oriented rounds set up that way, or just a few?

I have to take issue with you on one point though: while the lack of barrel leading is very important and I think your use of a gas check on this round is well advised, the Remmie and Winchester lower-speed variants aren't leading THAT badly in my personal experience. The loads simply aren't as hot as yours.

Cor-Bon used to sell a load ballistically identical to your 158+P, except with no gas check. While I haven't shot any, I have heard that leading in that round was ghastly which is probably why they discontinued it.

A question: are you able to get Speer's low-speed 135gr Gold Dot projectiles, and drive them faster than Speer does? In 38+P in particular that should work great - Speer loads the same projectile as a mild 357 at around 200-250fps hotter and it still holds together, so edging up on Speer's 135 spec should be fine. Hot-rod it in 357 and you'd likely have a frangible - not so cool.

All: if this is him, and it likely is, Tim Sundles runs Buffalo Bore Ammo. Really cool having him around and I hope he stays.

 

[Diamondback]

Night Vision and muzzle FLASH
Perhaps my night vision is unusual, but once my eyes have adjusted to darkness, any ammount of light, depending on degrees, will have a varying effect on my night vision. So, I dont know about losing your vision altogether, but for me, any ammount of flash will cause varying degrees of vision impairment once my eyes have adjusted to the darkness--this cant be a good thing in a life threatening situation. Any improvement in this area can only be a good thing.

Flash matters to me....or should I say, I am definitely affected by "big" flash when I shoot in low light. No doubt about it. Whether or not I would notice it in a "defensive scenario" I honestly don't know. However, I do factor flash, among other things, into the equation, when I pick my defensive carry rounds. YMMV.

- Regards

 

[Sundles]

Jim,

Unfortunately we cant get powders that are falsh supresssed in the correct burn rate for all of our defensive loads. When we can get flash supressed powders that give us the right burn rate for the speeds we are after with the bullet weights we want, we use it. The only down side to flash supressed powders is that they tend to burn a little dirty, but that is such a worthwhile trade off, that I will take the tactical advantage of flash supression any day, err night.

Right now we are developing three new loads in 357 mag. that are designed just for short barrels. They are quite flash supressed and are throttled down a bit from our fire breathing full powered 357 loads.

As for barrel leading, we found that Rem 158gr. + load in question did lead barrels, but it depended largely on the barrel, as to just how bad they leaded. Some rough barrels or poorly designed forcing cones, leaded horribly. Even with a very rough barrel, our gas checked loads wont lead.

Yes I can get the 135 gr. low velocity Gold Dot Speer bullet if I order them in huge bulk. In fact the 125gr. Gold Dot load tested in this thread, that gave roughly 12 inches of penetration, is also a low velocity Gold Dot, made to open up down around 700 fps. These low vel. Gold Dots are real neat and pretty squishy. If you accidentaly drop them on concrete, they are no longer round.

Thanks for the kind words, Jim.

 

[Brass Fetcher]

@Sundles - Your 'tuning' of the loads to the short-barrel weapons is indeed a fine idea and is a moral decision in light of the issuance of such great numbers of CCW permits (the short barrels being the most commonly carried CCW, in my opinion).

If you could apply this approach to .25, .32 and .380ACP, that would be great. I've handloaded for all of the above (to what I considered maximum pressure) and have achieved promising results in .25ACP and FBI-compliant results (http://www.brassfetcher.com/71grand76grModifiedXTP.html) in .32ACP.

The problem, is that most people are (quite understandably) not setup for loading such cartridges. Making those rounds one-by-one is very hard, but for mass production would probably be a lot more practical.

 

[doc2rn]

+1 for thank you for the test results.

 

[Sundles]

Loplop,

Sorry I neglected to respond. If you want to learn a bit more about night vision loss due to muzzle flash, take any 2 or 2.5 inch revolver out at night, locate the sights as best you can and pull the trigger. Try this with several types of ammo. You'll find that most ammo will generate a muzzle flash that will seriously impede your vision and reaquiring the sights and the target in a hurry will be very hard to do.

None of this would matter if all criminal human aggression took place only in the light of day, but the fact remains that more criminals are at work in low light. Once you fire, Mr. bad guy wont wait around for your vision to clear up before he ressumes his attack on you or your wife and children. Thus flash supressed powders can be a life saver.

We did a lot of "night" shooting in choosing the powder for our 38 SPL+P ammo. Even the best flash supressed powders will still generate some flash out of 2 inch revolvers, but it becomes a question of degrees and the right flash retarded powder will allow you to see pretty darn good after firing in the dark.

 

[Jim March]

Tim,

May I suggest noting on your site which rounds are flash-suppressed?

Because you're right: it does make a difference.

 

[Sundles]

Jim,

We do note the use of flash supressed powdes on our site, but it can be hard to find if a person doesnt know where to look.

Go to www.buffalobore.com, then click on "Product List and Ordering" then click on 38SPL+P or Heavy 10mm (for example) When the shopping cart for that cartridge comes up, very slowly scroll down and read the text for whatever cartridge you clciked on, if we are using flash supressed powders for that particular cartridge, the text will say so.