Infamy of .38 Spl

[Mr. Mosin]

Found this on a webpage, doing more research.

"The 38 special is not a weak round. Not even with a RN bullet in its original power level which was a 158gr RN bullet loaded to between 850-900fps. It was designed to be a step up in power over the 38 Long Colt with a 150gr bullet at 755fps. And it was. The modern loads at 775fps are no better than the 38 LC it was supposed to replace. Instead of 38+P which is really nothing more than original 38 special loads they should have kept the original power level and made 38-P ammo which is in reality what modern 38 special loads are.

There is nothing wrong with a 38RN load. Its still a hard hitting round that put in the right spot will kill you grave yard dead. The problem with that loading is that of all the excellent 38 special loads available now its the very worst choice. Why would anyone pick that load for a SD load in their gun?
When Lee Jurras invented his lightweight high speed 38 special load the 38 became a very viable SD round, way better than it had been in anytime before. Now everyone had a serious defense round with no more than a box of ammo. And the PD grabbed on to that loading and all the copy cat loads that came along after the ammo makers saw his success.

What killed the 38 special and the revolver for PD use was a combination of several things coming together at once. Semi Autos had been around for decades. And they were very reliable in use. As long as you stuck to RN bullets. Nearly all would choke on HP bullets. But when S&W came out with the model 59 in 1971 that would feed HP bullets as well as it fed FMJ RN and had a 15 round mag and then bullet makers designed HP bullets that would reliably expand the days of the revolver for police use were numbered. The cops took to the auto and never looked back. And then Glock came along and opened up a whole new concept in fire control systems and the revolver went away for police work."

 

[Monac]

...The 38 special is not a weak round. Not even with a RN bullet in its original power level which was a 158gr RN bullet loaded to between 850-900fps. It was designed to be a step up in power over the 38 Long Colt with a 150gr bullet at 755fps. And it was. The modern loads at 775fps are no better than the 38 LC it was supposed to replace. Instead of 38+P which is really nothing more than original 38 special loads they should have kept the original power level and made 38-P ammo which is in reality what modern 38 special loads are.
There is nothing wrong with a 38RN load. Its still a hard hitting round that put in the right spot will kill you grave yard dead. The problem with that loading is that of all the excellent 38 special loads available now its the very worst choice. Why would anyone pick that load for a SD load in their gun?
When Lee Jurras invented his lightweight high speed 38 special load the 38 became a very viable SD round, way better than it had been in anytime before....

OK, I am still trying to work out the logic of saying "There is nothing wrong with a 38RN load" and also saying "The problem with that loading is that of all the excellent 38 special loads available now its the very worst choice." Why would the much better self-defense rounds we have now have been developed if there was nothing wrong with 38 Special round-nosed lead? You can't have it both ways. Either 38 Special RNL was fine, or it was inadequate and needed replacement.

I'm not going to attempt to deal with the last paragraph, the one about automatic pistols, because A) that is not what this thread is about, and B) I got stumped on the 38 Special part and want that explained first.

 

[labnoti]

Apparently, they were saying there was nothing wrong with .38 Special LRN when comparing it to 9mm FMJ. Then, according to the author, Super Vel (Lee Jurras) came along and the high velocity made hollowpoints work so that the LRN was then relatively worst.

I completely dissent. The 158 grain LRN 38 Special always had sufficient penetration but very poor tissue disruption. If it were competing against another popular choice throughout the early and middle 20th century, it would certainly have been the .45 ACP. Even with FMJ, the 45 is substantially more effective than 38 LRN. On the other hand, Wadcutters and semi-wadcutters were the choice of most revolver handgunners that weren't issued ammo from an institution, and bullets of the various wadcutter-type designs were very effective. Lightweight Super Vel sucked. It impressed people with the hollowpoint expansion, but it didn't penetrate. The wadcutters and semi-wadcutters were still better and that's what most shooters were casting and reloading and maybe still are today. It wasn't really until the late 80's that heavier JHP's delivered dependable penetration and expansion -- bullets like the HST and Gold Dot. I believe that up until the 1986 Miami shootout, people that were buying into hollowpoint handgun bullet hype were content with high velocity bullets that blew up on the target -- bullets like the Super Vel and Winchester Silvertip. If this type of bullet was actually working, it would have worked on Platt and Matix.

I also disagree about what killed the 38 revolver or made the semiautomatic pistol popular. First, let's be cler that the 38 revolver was only ever killed for police work. It lives strong elsewhere. The 38 revolver had been a poor choice for law enforcement since at least the 1920's. The only thing that had been keeping it alive was inane police bureaucracies in America. It wasn't better equipment that killed it. Better equipment for police work had been around for over 80 years by the 1990's. What killed it was a coming around of the stubborn administrative bureaucracies and nothing else.

The Model 59 was a double-stack version of the Model 39 which was direct copy of the Walther P38 only with a full-length slide. So, no the Model 59 did not innovate reliable hollowpoint feeding. It just added double-stack magazines to a 1938 pistol design.

Glock appealed with its claim of a Double-Action-Only trigger, which was a slightly dishonest appeal to the markets where revolvers were entrenched. Glock offered a manual-safetyless pistol.

But police departments didn't flock to the Model 59 or the Glock until about 25 years after the Model 59 and at least 10 years after the Glock were introduced. Instead, the adopted S&W's 4006's in .40 S&W because the 9x19mm Mdl. 59 and Glock had failed to earn their trust, particularly in 1986. That shootout occurred right when Glock hit the US market and the fallout would prevent the widespread adoption of 9mm handguns by US law enforcement for decades.

 

[labnoti]

Of course Glock would go on to introduce .40 S&W (actually days before the S&W 4006 did), and it would eventually usurp the police market leadership position that S&W and Sig held temporarily with their DA/SA pistols. I believe they did this primarily because of light weight, but the simpler action, the lower cost, and the go go dancers helped.

 

[Mr. Mosin]

The .38 Spl 158 LRN is no better or worse than any other service caliber non-expanding bullet. Viewed in light compared with most any other service FMJ/LRN ammo, it is just as serviceable (or not, depending on your view).

 

[labnoti]

If the shift to semi-automatic pistols for police happened because there was a perception that police were outgunned by criminals, why didn't it happen in the 1920's when the criminals had Thompson submachine guns?

Criminals also had double-stack, detachable box magazine fed pistols like the Mauser C96 which had 10 or 20 round magazines as standard but also had 40 round magazines available (in a 1917 prototype). The '96 in C96 stands for 1896. So these "high-capacity" double-stack magazine pistols have been around for longer than the 38 Special which was introduced in 1898. It was actually 1932 when the C96 with detachable magazines became popular. Prior to that the magazines were usually filled with stripper clips. Beginning in 1932, there was also select-fire available -- like a Glock 18. The Mauser had a fiercesome reputation among police in Shanghai who faced criminals armed with it in the 1920's and 30's -- not because of the high capacity or the select fire -- Fairbairn and Sykes don't even mention that in their book (because those things were not remarkable by the close of the 1930's). Instead they mention the reputation the high-velocity thirty-caliber cartridge it fired: the 7.63×25mm Mauser. They mentioned it in the context of a discussion on "stopping power" that generally discouraged small caliber handgun ammo but that acknowledged that the type of results they encountered allowed for a wide variety of outcomes with all kinds of handgun ammunition. In essence, they make the very same observations that Greg Ellifritz did in his more recent study on the subject.

 

[Dibbs]

There's another point of view. For folks with a .357, who like to practice a lot, 38 Special rounds are cheaper than .357. So
a little infamy, mostly from folks who don't use the round, anyway, helps keep the price of 38 Special down.

 

[Paul R Zartman]

My 38's ...

 

[Monac]

If the shift to semi-automatic pistols for police happened because there was a perception that police were outgunned by criminals, why didn't it happen in the 1920's when the criminals had Thompson submachine guns?

Because moving to automatic pistols by the police in general was not a reasonable response to the problem of a small number of criminals with submachine guns. Instead, the solutions were A) for the police themselves to acquire some submachine guns and BARs, and B) the National Firearms Act of 1934, which placed heavy restrictions on the ownership of submachine and machine guns, which were not seen as very useful or necessary weapons for the general public. (Yes, yes, I am sure someone can make a case that they are useful and / or necessary. They were not perceived as such in 1934.)

 

[labnoti]

Well, I disagree that the mob, other bootleggers and later criminal narcotics organizations ever followed the NFA restrictions. It is true that the Thompson fell out of favor, but that was because it was brutally heavy, expensive, and hard to conceal compared to better options that came along after world war II. Criminals switched to options better suited for their purposes like the Uzi and mini uzi and then the Mac 10 and 11.

Irrespective of whether criminals used submachine guns or how often they did so, I still proved that there were high-capacity, double-stack magazine pistols available to criminals for over 90 years before police in the US switched from revolvers, and that criminal use of those handguns was recognized at least as early as the 1930's.

 

[Monac]

Well, I disagree that the mob, other bootleggers and later criminal narcotics organizations ever followed the NFA restrictions. It is true that the Thompson fell out of favor, but that was because it was brutally heavy, expensive, and hard to conceal compared to better options that came along after world war II. Criminals switched to options better suited for their purposes like the Uzi and mini uzi and then the Mac 10 and 11.

Irrespective of whether criminals used submachine guns or how often they did so, I still proved that there were high-capacity, double-stack magazine pistols available to criminals for over 90 years before police in the US switched from revolvers, and that criminal use of those handguns was recognized at least as early as the 1930's.

laboti, of course criminals do not follow the law. Does that mean we should not bother to have laws? But it meant than any criminal could not just go and buy one. It made them hard to get and more expensive. And just having one, without legal paperwork that a gangster would be unlike to have, as you point out, became a crime. All good and worthwhile things.

BTW, I very much do NOT believe that criminals were extensive users of Mauser Broomhandles of any kind. Can you show examples where they were? Generally speaking, the cops and bad guys of the 1920's and 30's were using the same weapons. When the gangsters used heavier weapons, like Thompsons, the response was, as I said A) to also get Thompsons, and B) legislation. That approach held up until high-cap pistols were ubiquitous (late 70's on, IMO) and until the NFA became outmoded because the burden of the $400 transfer fee shrank due to inflation, and because of new weapons like ARs.

Once again, I would suggest that police adoption of automatic pistols constitutes thread drift, and that a separate thread, with a better defined question, be started for it.

 

[Kleanbore]

Once again, I would suggest that police adoption of automatic pistols constitutes thread drift,

Yet it, along with the same trend among civilians, is the major reason for the .38 Special falling out of favor as a service cartridge.

The terminal ballistics are adequate, but the firearms put the users at a disadvantage.

That has been stated more than once. Is there anything left to be said here?

 

[Monac]

Yet it, along with the same trend among civilians, is the major reason for the .38 Special falling out of favor as a service cartridge.

Good point. I failed to grasp this. Sorry, labnoti.

 

[Mr. Mosin]

If it had not been for bureaucratic stubbornness, we wouldn't have such glorious wheelguns such as the Mdl 19, 27/8/9, or the legendary (for some wierd reason) Colt Python.

 

[Kleanbore]

If it had not been for bureaucratic stubbornness, we wouldn't have such glorious wheelguns such as the Mdl 19, 27/8/9, or the legendary (for some wierd reason) Colt Python.

What "bureaucratic stubbornness" do you believe led to the development of the S&W N-frames and the Python, which were intended for civilian markets?

 

[labnoti]

Here is a good article describing the adoption of the "Treasury Loads" from Winchester and Federal by various law enforcement agencies: https://revolverguy.com/ammo-evolut...=Standard pressure .,fps out of the cartridge.

They note that the flawed "Relative Incapacitation Index" had a lot to do with the transition from 158 grain loads, both LRN, and LSWCHP to the light-weight Super Vel-type JHP ammo. It seemed like a good idea at the time. High velocity always impresses for the wrong reasons. I contend it was a mistake. At the time, loads like the Saint Louis Police ("FBI") load were better but appeared less attractive due to poor test criteria.

"The RII was the output of a model that had many flaws. The worst were an overemphasis on temporary stretch cavity dimensions and a scoring system that rewarded shallow penetration depths. In the model, only frontal torso shots were evaluated, and since the vital organs are close to the surface of the body from this angle, the model favored loads that expanded quickly and created a large stretch cavity in 20% ballistic gelatin very early in the wound track.

Rounds that performed like this were given a higher RII value than those that didn’t when the test results were published in 1975. For example, the low energy, non-expanding, and highly penetrative 158 RNL received an RII of only 8.6, but the high energy, rapidly expanding, and shallowly penetrating Treasury Load scored a 17.9 RII. The FBI Load didn’t score as well as the Treasury Load, earning a 17.2 RII in the test.

STREET RESULTS
Buoyed by the results of the NIJ study and its prestigious adoption by the Secret Service, the Treasury Load was adopted by many federal, state, county and municipal agencies across the country. The largest of the non-federal agencies was the influential California Highway Patrol, which adopted the round in 1976....

The biggest problem with the Treasury Load was its shallow penetration (using a modern day yardstick: About 10” through heavy denim into 10% ballistic gelatin from a 4” gun, as compared to 13” – 15” for the FBI Load), which prevented the bullet from going deep enough on some cross-torso shoots, some shoots where an arm was struck before the round entered the torso, or even some frontal shoots on very large individuals with a lot of fat or muscle mass...."

Note that the Secret Service in particular had a long history of repeating the mistake of choosing lightweight, high-velocity ammo. They chose these 110 grain overpressure "Treasury" loads, then they chose 115 grain 9x19, then they chose 357 Sig. Martin Fackler castigated them for these poor choices more than once in his editorial columns because these loads all add a lot of flash, blast, gas, sound, recoil, and then some of them don't even penetrate. The ones that do penetrate, like the 125 grain Sig, don't do anything that regular loads don't also do without all the drama.

 

[Kleanbore]

That is a very interesting article. Thanks much, on behalf of everone.

I have three .38 revolvers (actually they are .357 Magnums, but they are loaded with .38s). One has a 2 inc barrel, one a 3 inch, and one a 5.

They are not primary carry.

They are loaded with PDX1.

I put a lot less importance on terminal ballistics than seems to be common, but the article is interesting and thought-provoking.

 

[4thHorseman]

Nice cartridge. Not expensive, easy to shoot, controllable, small gun, easy to conceal, 38+P for higher performance and you can find the ammo anywhere.
It’s the “standard” revolver cartridge as the 9 mm is to semi autos.

 

[Zendude]

Check out this test of the 38+P Underwood “FBI load”. I was very impressed. 1,000 fps 158 grain bullet out of a snub! If this was the FBI load, I would say it’s a good load.

 

[shoebox1.1]

..

 

[Monac]

Check out this test of this 38+P Underwood “FBI load”. I was very impressed. 1,000 fps 158 grain bullet out of a snub! If this was the FBI load, I would say it’s a good load.

Didn't Norma or someone make a "38 Special +P+" load like that? It was way over normal 38 +P pressures. I think I saw it called "a low-end 357 Magnum load in a 38 Special case." IIRC, it wasn't on the market long.

 

[Zendude]

I wonder if someone can use the Quickload program to see if the Underwood load stays under 20k psi. Maybe assume a powder used is Power Pistol or HS-6.

 

[golden]

LABNOTI,

I disagree on your post about the .38 Special +P+. My former agency used that round. We had complaints from the field of inconsistent results. Sometimes, it hit like lightning, sometimes it did not. Interestingly, the MARSHALL/SANOW tests did not find much difference between them and the 158 grain +P lswhp rounds.
Many police departments went with the 158 grain +P lead semi-wadcutter hollow point and found that it worked much better than the over penetrating lead round nose. Which is not surprising, with either the 110 grain +P+ or the 158 grain +P LSWHP round, they had a MUCH better round than the LRN.

After experimenting, my agency went with the 110 grain jhp .357 round. Our testing had shown that the 110 +P+ .38 Special did not get the high velocity that it had advertised. With the 110 grain jhp .357 magnum, we got the +P+ "ADVERTISED" velocity and then some.
Result, no complaints from the field!

The .38 Special has some advantages for self defense and police use. It comes in many different size guns. You can go from a 5 shot J-frame to a RUGER Redhawk. Mostly, it became popular because the gun that was designed around the .38 Special was so good. The S&W K-frame. It has a "just right" frame size for the average male. It weighs about 2 pounds loaded, so it is not a burden to carry and it recoils pleasantly. Without +P pressures, it is not loud or has a bright flash. The only problem is that "IT DOES NOT WORK!"
The round nose lead bullet was a poor design in the .38 Long Colt or .38 Special or .38 Special +P or even the .357 magnum. It is an inconsistent performer with a high probability of over penetrating.

The .38 Special has improved in its standing as a defense round due to the MANY, MANY non-round nose lead loadings! If you want a heavy 158 gr. +P or a 125 grain +P sjhp or a 110 grain jhp or FTX standard pressure .38 Special load, all are going to work better than the round nose lead. I have seen nothing in many years to dispute this.

Jim