Why Is There No Love For The .38 Super?

[floydster]

You can't beat the 38 Super in the Witness Elite Match platform, I don't care how much you pay, just an absolutley fantastic gun.

 

[Travis Bickle]

The .38 Super was introduced by Colt in the 1911 for cops to have something with the ability to penetrate barriers/car bodies. It was
loaded then hotter than it is today. Today, factory offerings are in the
same velocity range as the comparable bullet weight in 9mm luger.

Cor-Bon makes a +p .38 Super load that's supposed to be comparable to the older, hotter .38 supers.

 

[oldFred]

FYI - Every Georgia gun shop I've been to has a 1911 in .38 Super for sale. Guess tells you WE like them down here!

Ammo is only a couple dollars higher, unless you get "match".

 

[Ankeny]

FWIW, in USPSA (IPSC) .38 Super or .38 Super Comp dominates Open Division with 9mm major coming on strong. A .40 caliber Open gun is kind of a rare beast. In the iron sighted divisions .40 is the smallest bore diameter allowed for major regardless of the actual "power" of the round.

 

[makarovnik]

Bad reputaion in the past as far as accuracy goes but that was fixed a long time ago with proper headspacing. I love the .38 super.

 

[groundhog34]

A good cartaridge just never became popular because the 9mm came along at the same time with larger selection of ammo. Now days it is hard to find ammo and when you do it is pricey. sometimes things just don't work out because the gods do not smile. I think that is the case with the 38 super

 

[D-Day]

I'd personally love to acquire a .38 super 1911 one day...nickel plated and pearl grips. My, yes, that would be fine.

 

[Radagast]

I have a Bul M5 polymer framed .38 super double stack 1911. I've managed a 5 shot 1.5 inch group at 25 meters with it using factory ammo, so I'm more than satisfied with it. using my spare 9mm barrel groups were quite a bit bigger, so I had a compensator threaded onto the 9mm barrel for training kids and ladies and keep the .38 super barrel for when I want to shoot a truly accurate gun.

 

[rkamp]

I will turn 50 later this year. I built up a Colt .38 Super with fully supported bar-sto barrel in the mid 80's as my primary defense and woods walking pistol, use to spend a lot of time in the mountains. Hand loaded 147 gr XTP's to 1250 fps, and 124 XTP's to 1400 fps gleening most of the data from the IPSC guys. Back then this was the best 1911/cartridge combo available for my purposes, plus there was a romantic element to the combination. I finally bought a Delta Elite and was hooked on the 10mm - nothing like walking up on a downed feral hog with 200gr XTP's mfd'd by Double Tap. Sold my pet .38 Super and now use a 9mm Kimber stainless with fixed sights as my primary carry/home pistol. There are so many good +p, +p+ loadings readily available in 9mm that it is just too practical for me to ignore. I sure do miss my old Super chambered in "9mm on steroids" though.

 

[krs]

You can't beat the 38 Super in the Witness Elite Match platform, I don't care how much you pay, just an absolutley fantastic gun.

That's good to hear 'cause I just bought one of those just because it's different.

We all know that ammo costs aren't the issue to reloaders - hazmat fees are.