Wad-cutters as self-defense ammo?

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Wild Bill Hickok was undoubtedly a deadly gunman and he carried 36 caliber revolvers. His load was probably a 65 grain round ball travelling at 900-1000 ft/sec. If Hickok had no trouble ending gunfights with these loads I think that a 38 Special 148 (or heavier) LWC, HBWC or SWC bullet travelling at 900 ft/sec should be very effective for defense against two-legged predators.
I too read Skeeters article on reversing the 38 HBWC to serve as a hollow point in defensive situations and I even reloaded a few at that time. I never tested penetration and expansion on wet phone books (as we did back then) but I tend to agree that this bullet would cause severe soft tissue damage.
 
Charlie Martinez said:
Wild Bill Hickok was undoubtedly a deadly gunman and he carried 36 caliber revolvers. His load was probably a 65 grain round ball travelling at 900-1000 ft/sec.If Hickok had no trouble ending gunfights with these loads I think that a 38 Special 148 (or heavier) LWC, HBWC or SWC bullet travelling at 900 ft/sec should be very effective for defense against two-legged predators
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I would base my opinion on something other than that.
 
Charlie Martinez said:
I think that a 38 Special 148 (or heavier) LWC, HBWC or SWC bullet travelling at 900 ft/sec should be very effective for defense against two-legged predators.
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I do too. The problem is that the usual midrange target wadcutter is advertised at 750 fps and doing maybe 700 fps in a regular revolver.

Buffalo Bore will sell you a heavily loaded wadcutter or you can handload one. Best to use a solid wadcutter, there are scare stories about blowing through a hollow base wadcutter, leaving a lead tube in the gun.
 
Jim Watson said:
I do too. The problem is that the usual midrange target wadcutter is advertised at 750 fps and doing maybe 700 fps in a regular revolver.

Buffalo Bore will sell you a heavily loaded wadcutter or you can handload one. Best to use a solid wadcutter, there are scare stories about blowing through a hollow base wadcutter, leaving a lead tube in the gun.
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A WC going 700fps is enough for close range SD. Faster is of course better.

I have shot the hollow based WC bullets with heavier powder charges and have never blown a base. But there is not much point in pushing it since solid base WC bullets can be pushed hard with no worries about the bullet separating.

I have tried the HBWC bullets loaded backwards several times and they just aren't that good of a load. With the heavy nose of the bullet now at the back they are close to being unstablized right out of the barrel. They may be OK at just a few feet from the target but but get any distance away and they are starting to tip. In testing I had a few that would land just right and give perfect mushrooms. But most were tipped enough at 15 feet that they mashed the bases flat or made bullet profile holes in the target. I have a box of the reversed WC loads now and wish I hadn't wasted the bullets loading them this way and had of loaded them the proper way instead.
 
I pulled all the reversed WC loads last night. I am going to reload them the proper direction this time with around 3grs of Shooters World Clean Shot powder. I was surprised I was able to pull them. Usually wad cutters stick in the case really tight. But these were Hornady bullets with the knurled surface and they slipped out of the cases with about 5 whacks each with the hammer style bullet puller.

The Clean Shot powder is supposed to be the same thing as Accurate #2 powder. I bought a 5 pound jug of it from Grafs a few months ago.
 
ThomasT said:
I pulled all the reversed WC loads last night. I am going to reload them the proper direction this time with around 3grs of Shooters World Clean Shot powder. I was surprised I was able to pull them. Usually wad cutters stick in the case really tight. But these were Hornady bullets with the knurled surface and they slipped out of the cases with about 5 whacks each with the hammer style bullet puller.

The Clean Shot powder is supposed to be the same thing as Accurate #2 powder. I bought a 5 pound jug of it from Grafs a few months ago.
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Good idea! No.2 is really good for HBWC .38's. In my opinion Bullseye is just a smidge better but, use what you got, for sure. And, it's not but a gnat's hair difference between the two, really. I use the same load for each (2.8gr.)
 


Not sure if it was posted already but a decent review by Luckygunner
 
BLACKHAWKNJ said:
Yes, their light recoil should make that elusive shot placement easier to achieve. A reversed HBWC would have to be a reload, IIRC there is broad agreement today to use only factory ammo for self defense.
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The original Hydra Shok Scorpion was basically a reversed HBWC with a central post. Federal acquired the Hydra Shok name and put out a line of hollow point ammo with the central post, but I don't recall HBWCs with the Federal name.

More recently Atomic Ammunition has been selling commercially loaded backwards HBWCs - http://www.atomicammunition.com/ammunition/38specialplusp.html - no idea of the quality or (in today's market) what the availability is. Years back, I loaded up quite a few reversed HBWCs to fairly warm levels, and they performed very well - but brand mattered. The ORIGINAL Hornady bullets worked best, their "improved" knurled bullets, not so much. Speer HBWCs were decent as well. Performance in all manner of casual expansion media was always excellent, and when used to administer the coup-de-grace to a wounded whitetail it did just fine. Accuracy was just fine up to 50 feet and I never noticed any tumbling.
 
GeoDudeFlorida said:
Good idea! No.2 is really good for HBWC .38's. In my opinion Bullseye is just a smidge better but, use what you got, for sure. And, it's not but a gnat's hair difference between the two, really. I use the same load for each (2.8gr.)
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I loaded these with 3.3grs of Clean Shot. The max was shown as 3.5grs. And I have several choices on powder including Clean Shot, Bullseye, 231, Tite Group and Red Dot. I have a lot of powder.

HankB said:
The ORIGINAL Hornady bullets worked best, their "improved" knurled bullets, not so much. Speer HBWCs were decent as well. Performance in all manner of casual expansion media was always excellent, and when used to administer the coup-de-grace to a wounded whitetail it did just fine. Accuracy was just fine up to 50 feet and I never noticed any tumbling.
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In one of the early 1980s Guns And Ammo Annuals Jan Libourel wrote about using reversed WC bullets. It seems that the whole secret for success was the nose of the bullet which is now the base. IIRC he said Remington had a better nose shape than the Speer bullets. I don't know if Hornady was making WC bullets then or not or if he even mentioned them. I still have the article saved in my attic. Next time I am up there I will give it a look and see what it says.
 
This is my first post on THR but Im a bit of a revolver nut. My "go to" 38 Special load is a 125 grain jsp over 6.2 grains of Longshot. Out of a 3" barrel I average 979 fps. Now, that is not what I carry in my "go to town" gun since we all know carry handloads is a recipe for disaster but it is my "farm load". It is very accurate and expands very well. My wife and I both use the 130 Federal HST in town but that load is really hard to reload quickly. The bullet is seated too deeply in the casing to allow it to hit the cylinder chamfers properly so the back up moon clips is usually loaded with 130gr Winchester Ranger SXTs.
 
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