Infamy of .38 Spl

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I’ve carried an old Taurus 85 UL 2” stubby for years, I have it in a Sticky on me right now AAMOF. It has some nicks and holster wear but I keep it clean and functional. I’ve forgotten what ammo is in it, I think it’s Hornady some kind of HP. It’s an accurate little thing. I shoot it very well considering the short sighting radius. I don’t plan to retire it any time soon. It’s like an old friend. BTW there are a lot of ppl in cemeteries downed by the 38SPL. When it was new 850ULGRY.jpg
 

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Since a very small percentage look at it as their primary SD, let's consider the shooting characteristics for target/ recreation. It's readily capable, and available for that unless you're stuck on the benefits of a high round count semi for target use.
 
ive read where the 22 long rife if quite deadly for two reasons. it penetrates and it wanders around inside a body to do a lot of damage. 3 rounds from a 22 long rifle is hard news to the one receiving it. i did have a patient who was native american at 6 ft 6 and weighed 300 pounds and was not very fat at all. he took 4 rounds from a 38 special in the abdomen and in the excitement of the moment didnt even know he was shot until all the shooting was over. he had to have surgery to repair the muscle their but as big as he was it didnt do much to him.
 
I carry a snub 38 pretty often. If my HD 357 is out, it's usually loaded with 38 special. I use various weights of +P JHP (flavor of the month).

When I shoot strong +P 38 special and regular 9mm out of my Blackhawk, they feel the same to me. 357 is a different story.
 
Much wisdom is in this you-tube video, which is also available as a podcast. Notably, the Primary & Secondary you-tube channel has been cleaning-up its language. The main interviewee is Darryl Bolke, who gleaned so very much revolver knowledge from LAPD, other southern CA LE, and Pat Rogers, of NYPD.

An advantage of watching the you-tube version, is seeing Pat Rogers’ working pair of .38 revolvers, and a similar working pair used by an LAPD counterpart. Notably, these are personally-owned duty/secondary weapons, used by these officers, who were assigned to go after the worst of the worst.

Also notable is that, although the title is about snubbies, much of the discussion is NOT centered on two-inch revolvers.

 
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A hit with a 22 rimfire trumps a miss with anything bigger.

I can shoot my 2" J-frames accurately with 38 Special level loads. They may not be deemed the best "manstoppers" but at least I get a hit.

I prefer heavy bullets for the momentum factor vs worrying about the bullet expanding at less than optimal velocities.
 
A question regarding the capability of .38 Spl. It seems to me that the venerable .38 still maintains an aura of inadequacy even into the modern age (or perhaps *due to* the modern age). I know the old 158 LRN was absolutely pathetic as a manstopper, but the later SWC and LSWCHP designs worked wonders to bring the ole .38's capability up to snuff. The same w/ the 125 grn +P JHP in a snubby. I would dare say these loads revolutionized the service .38 revolver. My question is... why does .38 Spl still retain this aura of ineptitude ? Is my ballistics research off base, or are the proponents of this just ignorant ?

My answer to "why does .38 Special still retain this aura of ineptitude ?" is that it does not. In my opinion, it never did to the extent you are implying. 38 Special RNL was not considered as good as 45 ACP FMJ, but it was as good any other 38/9mm. And why do you say has "an aura of ineptitude" today?

It does have less kinetic energy than, say, 9mm Parabellum, which is immensely popular these day. But in a 4 inch barrel gun with a good +P hollow point, who considers it "inept" for self defense against people?
 
That's the conventional wisdom [about the effctiveness of 38 the Special RNL load].

I think it smacks of a poor understanding of handgun wounding mechanics.

My impression was that the conventional wisdom about the stopping power of simple round-nosed lead or FMJ bullets was based on lots of actual experience, enough to be considered non-anecdotal. Are you saying it is not? And that now we know better, and that those RN bullets really were effective?
 
My impression was that the conventional wisdom about the stopping power of simple round-nosed lead or FMJ bullets was based on lots of actual experience, enough to be considered non-anecdotal. Are you saying it is not? And that now we know better, and that those RN bullets really were effective?
There were a few well-known gun writers who so claimed. I remember eating that stuff up, but they presented opinion wi h little support.

That was in the days when the idea of "stopping power", since largely put out of the lexicon by scientific studies of handgun wounding effectiveness, was in vogue.

Attempts at improvement centered on changes in bullet shape. "Semi wadcutters" became popular.

That addressed some things about how flesh was damaged, but to my knowledge, there were never much, if anything, conclusive showing significant improvement in the rapidity of physical stops.

Today, specifications for defensive ammunition call for two things: (1) certain minima and maxima for penetration, and (2) reliable expansion in the neighborhood of a 50% increase in diameter, starting with about .356 or more.

Today's premium defensive ammunition meets all requirements if the barrel length is sufficient. The old stuff does not.
 
A six-shot revolver vs. 13 shot+ auto-loaders explains some of the vile directed at the .38 Special, but so does ammunition choice available for the auto now and for the past, say 20 years. The FBI load, a soft, easy expanding 158 gr LSWC-HP at 950 fps is no slouch even when compared to today's boutique defensive rounds.

But if you compare a .38 Special loaded with one of the new 'wonder' loads, against a 9mm similarly loaded, I'll predict you'll find them about equal...capacity of the gun, however, is a major difference in usefulness, especially for LEO's, but perhaps less so for those of us in civilian garb. YMMv, Rod
 
Quite honestly (speaking hypothetically) your average citizen is perfectly armed with a snub .38 Spl. Your average citizen is also at their best against one lone assailant armed with either fists or a knife. Your average citizen does not train like they should. Irrelevant of *what* weapon you have, short of an M60, when you start adding more thugs to the equation, the odds rapidly started dimming for the citizen.
 
There were a few well-known gun writers who so claimed. I remember eating that stuff up, but they presented opinion wi h little support.

That was in the days when the idea of "stopping power", since largely put out of the lexicon by scientific studies of handgun wounding effectiveness, was in vogue.

Attempts at improvement centered on changes in bullet shape. "Semi wadcutters" became popular.

That addressed some things about how flesh was damaged, but to my knowledge, there were never much, if anything, conclusive showing significant improvement in the rapidity of physical stops.

Today, specifications for defensive ammunition call for two things: (1) certain minima and maxima for penetration, and (2) reliable expansion in the neighborhood of a 50% increase in diameter, starting with about .356 or more.

Today's premium defensive ammunition meets all requirements if the barrel length is sufficient. The old stuff does not.

I am confused, for which I apologize. What did the old time gun writers claim? That round-nose bullets were ineffective? And they had little support for that opinion?

I guess what confuses me is that I did not think there was much debate that modern expanding pistol bullets were better than non-expanding bullets of any shape - round nose, wadcutter, or semi-wadcutter.
 
What did the old time gun writers claim? That round-nose bullets were ineffective?
158 LRN, yes.

And they had little support for that opinion?
I do not remember seeing anything meaningful.

I guess what confuses me is that I did not think there was much debate that modern expanding pistol bullets were better than non-expanding bullets of any shape - round nose, wadcutter, or semi-wadcutter.
There isn't--but good ones are a rather recent development.
 
I am a “sample” of one, but, most of the shooting victims I saw, in 33+ years of big-city policing, had entrance wounds that closed, leaving just a weeping amount of bleeding. The one wound that I knew was caused by a gaping, wide-open .357 JHP*, was what appeared to be a caliber-wide hole, that did not close, unlike anything I have seen, before or since. It bled, like a hose. I saw it happen. (Yes, it expanded, and then fragmented, as JHPs of that era did, at high velocity, but I am talking about the cutting of the initial hole.)

Darryl Bolke, who interviewed numerous LAPD, other CA LE, and NYPD gunfighters, and investigated numerous police shootings, developed his opinions about the effectiveness of RNL-versus-SWC, and rather than try to parrot him, I recommend seeing his articles, posts, and the interview, to which I linked, above.**

Personally, I am going to carry the widest, gaping-est JHP I can find, as first choice, then a full-wadcutter, as second choice, and then the widest, flattest, solid bullet, as next choice choice, and, finally, a rounded-nosed bullet, as a distance choice. I reckon that the wide-mouth JHP will cut a more-defined hole, even if it does not expand.

I will concede that a RNL that tumbles can produce dramatic results, which may be why one old-school RNL, the 246-grain .44 Special, worked so very well, in some incidents, anecdotally.

FWIW, as it is a sample of one, my wife, as a Forensic Death Scene Investigator, for the M.E., in one of the most-populous counties in the USA, was particularly impressed by the rapidity of incapacitation caused by a CCI/Speer 135-grain JHP, which, at the time, meant that it was either a .38 or .357 Short Barrel load. The weapon was a 4” .357 revolver. The bullet path was a diagonal, through the torso. The decedent not only dropped, instantly, he barely bled, as his heart had stopped pumping him out, so quickly. This is, of course, a wide, gaping JHP bullet.

Sorry, but the one thing my wife could not remember, as she did not bring any notes home with her, was whether the load was Magnum or Special. As the published chronograph velocities of Speer’s Short-Barrel .38 and .357 loads are not far apart, I do not think it matters which load one uses.

When we can get it, we load our revolvers, up to 4” in barrel length, with CCI/Speer Short Barrel 135-grain ammo, either .357 or .38 Special. I normally use the full-pressure .357 in revolvers with 4” full-lugged barrels, or, longer barrels, lugged or not.

*To be specific, Federal .357 Magnum Hi-Shok, as loaded in 1993, sold in silvery-gray boxes.

**On a side note, Darryl Bolke believes that one reason for the success if the 125-grain .357 JHP, in so many actual close-range police shootings, was the “flash-bang” effect tending to produce a desire to avoid THAT thing happening again. IOW, a psychological stop component, in addition to the actual damage done by the bullet. I embraced this sound and fury, as a street patrol officer, in the early Nineties. (In the Eighties, I still believed in Big Boredom, and carried .44 and then .41 Magnums, on duty. The training wrecked my hands, so I do not recommend Magnum big-boredom.)
 
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I've seen a few 38 Special gunshot wounds in my work as a big city LEO. The majority were suicides or accidental self inflicted.

I do believe the old 158 LRN is LESS effective than a hollow point or SWC of flat point as the actual wound track of the latter will be greater. I'd compare it to FMJ 9mm, which I've seen kill a lot of people.

That being said, shot placement still is king. Even if the LRN doesn't create a full caliber wound, a 30 caliber hole in your heart/liver/lungs is still pretty detrimental to your overall health.

One thing I can say about 38 Special, in my experience it's always had more than adequate pdnetration. Even out of snubs (the majority of firearms used in my investigations).
 
In "The Custom Revolver" Hamilton Bowen wrote of hitting a squirrel with a 350 grain round nose at about 850 fps from a .50 Special: "One would think that a half inch hole in an animal the size of a tall beer can would suffice. Evidently not". That's from memory, but I think it's verbatim. Apparently he had to chase the critter down and shoot him again. That matches my experience with LRNs exactly. I personally won't be shooting any more of them into live targets if I have any choice.

As an aside, I find the thread title jarring. :D
 
The issue with LRN must have to do with bullet BHN. Because .36 cal round balls of pure lead at 700-750fps certainly did a lot of damage in the Civil War and for a decade or so thereafter..

That may be a very good point. I am deeply impressed by the wounding ability of the round ball, but I do note that when recovered from animals, they almost always look like used chewing gum. The few LRNs I have been able to recover (they almost always whistle right through, in my experience - I suppose that's a clue) may have had the noses slightly chewed up, but otherwise showed little distortion.

Perhaps a pure lead RN would behave more like a round ball?
 
That may be a very good point. I am deeply impressed by the wounding ability of the round ball, but I do note that when recovered from animals, they almost always look like used chewing gum. The few LRNs I have been able to recover (they almost always whistle right through, in my experience - I suppose that's a clue) may have had the noses slightly chewed up, but otherwise showed little distortion.

Perhaps a pure lead RN would behave more like a round ball?

Im not sure if this has been mentioned.. but from what I have read and heard the old
200gr LRN would yaw and tumble , causing much damage
 
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