Fun with a Webley Mark IV 38/200 AKA 38 S&W AKA 380 Rimmed

[pettypace]

I'm gonna have to read up on this whole "wound mass" thing, assuming it to be the quantity of tissue turned to pulp.

That's my understanding of it , too -- "pulp."

MacPherson's speculations on wound mass (in Bullet Penetration) harkens back to the 1904 terminal ballistics testing of Cols. Lagarde and Thompson on beef critters in the Chicago stockyards. For a variety of military handgun cartridges, Thompson and Lagarde documented the number of shots into non-vital tissue required to bring a large beef critter to its knees. The take away was that heavy, large caliber, flat-nosed, deeply penetrating projectiles at modest velocities were more effective than lighter, smaller caliber projectiles. (No fooling!)

MacPherson combined the Thompson/Lagarde data with his own mathematical models for bullet penetration and wounding characteristics of different bullet nose shapes and found some agreement among the various cartridges in the total wound mass required to incapacitate a steer. So, he speculated that if it takes about 200 grams of "pulp" to incapacitate a 1000 pound steer (whether that comes from 3 or 4 rounds of .455 manstoppers or 6-7 rounds of .38s), then maybe it takes about 40 grams of wound mass to incapacitate a 200 pound badguy. MacPherson acknowledged that this is just speculation. But at least it's speculation based on some factual foundation. It's worth noting that all this has to do with wounds to non-vital tissue and has nothing to do with the fact that a lowly .22 long rifle bullet hitting a CNS target can be instantly lethal.

My own take on wound mass is that it's easy enough to calculate, much harder to measure, and even more difficult to predict what effect it might have in any particular real world scenario. But I'm suspicious even of the calculation part. For example, here's a table from MacPherson's book listing wound masses for various calibers and bullet nose shapes:



It's important to realize that these numbers represent an "effective" wound mass in a human target. They don't include wound mass from penetration deeper than 18" (as already having left the target) or from the last 3" of penetration (where MacPherson assumes the bullet is going too slow to do full damage). That part I agree with. But note too that MacPherson has a line for "Cylinders" (i.e, wadcutters) and then lumps together "All others" regardless of nose shape. Maybe he's right. But MacPherson's penetration testing was limited and didn't include, for example, WFN bullets. It seems to me that there are way too many reports from the field about the effectiveness of a big meplat on game both large and small for it to somehow dissolve into "All others." On the other hand, while it's easy enough to tell a SWC from a RN from the hole it makes in a target, it's much harder to tell one from the other by its entrance hole, path, or penetration distance in Clear Ballistic gel. Full wadcutters, by contrast, make full caliber entrance holes, leave slightly wider wound tracks, and penetrate much less than either the SWC or the RN.

[robertbank]

This may be of some interest. The Brits along with the Canadians issued revolver to their officers in WW1 & !!. I asked my Grand Dad why, at Ypres the Canadians held the line when others fled the gas. Grand-dad replied, "Robert if we stayed in the Trenches the gas would kill us. If we ran the Officers (Armed with handguns), would have shot us." They dealt with the Germans in open ground and held the line.

The story might give you some insight as to why the transition to the smaller handgun & round.

My Uncle went across Northern Europe (19444/45) in a Sherman, He told me once he never fired his revolver once. He said he could not hit the broadside of a barn with it. As an Officer he wore it when circumstances warranted (Mostly staff Meetings). The revolver he was issued was the Smith & Wesson 38 S&W.

The switch to the smaller round I suspect was motivated by the realization how little importance was place on the handgun in warfare. It may have been complaints from the Officers about the weight of the Webley .455. One explanation is as good as another I suppose.

I had a Webley in 38S&W for awhile. Good little plinker but pretty anemic for real work.

2 Grains of Bullseye gave me 530fps under a 150 gr Lyman 358477 bullet.

Take Care

Bob

[LouisianaMan]

Some EXCELLENT analysis so far! Perhaps 9.3x62, RicinYakima, Doc, among others, will yet chime in with their recipes. I need to make time in my "busy retiree schedule" [Honey-do's, Christmas, PT, correspondence, two beautiful Smooth Fox Terrier sisters...the usual!] to pull out my old notes and make a decision in my own mind as to my load(s) of choice for combat and defense, then try to explain it articulately with some numbers and pics to illustrate my thinking.

In the meantime, BigSlug, maybe you can throw some fresh Mk 1 target results into this stew and stir it up still more...! Pettypace, I hope to be able to toss a couple of load ideas your way to run your wound mass calculations, which I find highly intriguing and helpful. Outpost, the heavyweight bullets you've designed and tested have given you an astonishing degree of insight into what works with this cartridge, how, and why. I think I'd like to put some of my load ideas and shooting results before your practiced eye to rank against each other, and against the results from your designs.

[Bigslug]

Like most of the terminal ballistic formulas that have been floated over the ages, I think this "wound mass" one runs into the same wall of "This Is Not An Exact Science". That said, I think McPherson is at least knocking on the door of something relevant.

Exhibit A: Obviously, you need a certain diameter of wound track to create sufficient rapid blood loss in the creature threatening you to take it out of the fight before it has time to do the same to you. To take this to a silly extreme, if your wound track is only the diameter of a couple of red blood cells, the body will be able to absorb the damage and carry on. There's basically ZERO wound mass in that example, and the diameter needed to be effective is obviously larger than this. How much so becomes the question. Wound mass SORT OF starts to look at this.

Exhibit B: Veral Smith is a big proponent of meplat/velocity combinations that leave wound tracks of - if I remember correctly without digging his book out - of not more than about 1.25" to 1.5" in diameter for critters of elk size on down. His observations and theories lean to that being the ideal for most rapid blood loss, and that past that point, the crush damage initiates a physiological reaction that can actually slow the blood loss down. (Weird, but that's what the man says)

Exhibit C: My own observation that solid cardio hits seem to take about ten seconds - give or take - to cause blood loss sufficient to make the target woozy enough to fall over. This does not seem to matter greatly what the caliber or velocity is, so long as it's a gradual penetrator and not a fragmentation grenade.

Obviously, we are not going to be able to do anything to a .38 S&W to make it comparable to full-speed, gas-checked WFN's out of a .458 Win Mag, but in assembling the above three points, there is decent evidence to suggest that we really don't have to. . . at least not for defense against things that go on two legs. The physical reality is that NO handgun is likely to get you RELIABLY to the point of blood loss incapacitation with a single shot that is so rapid as to INSTANTLY stop all hostile action from the target. We need to accept that the warm, fuzzy feeling we get from the notion of a "One Shot Stop" is a pretty delusion we LIKE to live in. The reality is gritter than this and the mission will commonly require continuing to shoot until there is nothing left to shoot.

We cannot make a handgun that delivers a nine-pellet 00 buckshot load - at least not one we'd really care to shoot. What we're really working with is probably barely measurable changes in effectiveness as you increase the diameter of the wound channel from the ineffective "pinprick" example in Exhibit A into something that is actually useful. We might get up to an inch in diameter with an expanding .45 ACP duty load, but as those tend to lack penetration, we might do slightly better in the wound VOLUME department with something slightly narrower that dives a little deeper. Because this is not an exact science, we're going to have a very hard time quantifying why one bad guy took ten seconds to fall over, when others took only five or went down instantly. What we HAVE learned in recent decades is that it usually has little or nothing to do with a couple tenths of an inch in projectile diameter or the paltry differences in velocity encountered within service pistol specs.

All of the above is just a really complicated way to say that our pokey little .38 S&W, with our heavy-for-caliber, non-expanding flat nose, is probably not significantly less of a performer than most of the things that occupy the top shelf of current defensive pistol shooting. What it does offer is a potentially small package with low recoil and relatively low noise with the mechanical simplicity of a revolver.

So I think we're maybe getting a little bit circular in our contemplations of "will this work?" It obviously has - we're just in refinement mode.

[9.3X62AL]

Most of my 38 S&W reloading has taken the form of the "38/200" loadings with the 202 grain RN castings from an NEI #169A mould. I use 3.0 grains of Alliant Unique or 3.3 grains of Alliant Herco, and from the 5" barrels of the S&W M&P and the Webley-Enfield they produce about 650-675 FPS. Throats in both are at a "fat .362", so sizing is at .363". Both revolvers print where the sights look at 25 yards.

I use the same powders/weights in 38 S&W loads for small-frame 4" revolvers (Colt Police Positive and S&W Regulation Police) with 150 grain SWCs (Lyman #358477). These impart about 700-725 FPS. I have steel plates at my club range set at 25 and 50 yards, and at both distances the 200 grain loads hit with A LOT MORE AUTHORITY than do the 150 grain SWCs.

I have taken quite a few jackrabbits with these 38/200 loads over the years, and some of the exit wounds show evidence of tumbling while traversing the body cavity. I don't recall an instance when these bullets did not go through-and-through these critters; some exit wounds were stellate and circular, others were ragged and oblong in form. Good hits anchored critters decisively, ranges ran from 15-50+ yards. I did not perform any necropsies in the field, tularemia is common in our hares and rabbits locally and I don't handle carcasses for that reason.

[Bigslug]

So the cool thing about science. . .

Sometimes all of your educated hypotheses turn out to be wrong.

THE MKI .380/200 BULLET OUT OF A WEBLEY MKIV IS A TUMBLER. Here're how I got there:

The load fired today was out of NOE's mold which was cut using the British MKI bullet blueprint. It is cast out of jacketed range scrap cores with enough tin added for decent fillout - about 9.5 BHN. Actual weight of 207 grains before lube. Load was 2.1 grains of Titegroup. I do not yet know the velocity of this load, but 2.3 grains of Titegroup gave me 625 fps with the more conical 200 grain NOE bullet discussed earlier in the thread.

Previous Webley jug tests did not give clear evidence of tumbling, or were obviously nose-on penetrations. To get a better register, I came up with the following:





A little bit of soda can and masking tape. In retrospect, the tape was unnecessary, as the jugs hold the aluminum in place just fine.

It took three attempts to gain a collection of interpretable data (one shot out the side and other too low), but shot #3 got us what we wanted:



Sorry for the auto-rotate, but top to bottom are the entries into the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th jugs in the stack. Even the second is showing signs of instability, and the fourth makes it crystal clear. Here's a pair of close-ups:





Top photo shows the penetration matching the profile of the bullet, and the right side of the lower photo clearly shows the impression of the MKI's nose hitting side-on.



If you look closely, you can see that the bullet has a slight banana bend at the lube grooves.

Compared with either the earlier "incorrect" NOE-200 grainer or the .455 MKII, this thing is surprisingly destructive:



The first 2-3 jugs in the stack took a beating. Penetration seems to be in the 5-jug range, but I was not getting well enough centered hits for this to be a certainty.

Some observations based on this new data and today's activities:

1. Maybe it's just because I emptied out some milquetoast factory 146 grainer to get brass the other day, but this .380/200 load is no joke. It is stout in comparison.

2. My jug testing with modern duty loads typically places them in the 3rd or 4th jug. These same loads frequently penetrate between 14 and 16 inches into FBI gelatin. Not necessarily apples to apples, but it wouldn't be crazy to guesstimate one jug = about 4-5 inches of gel. This load then seems to be comparable in penetration capability to what rides in many duty holsters today.

3. If the above jug-to-gelatin comparisons are correct, then the MKI is in fact capable of swapping ends within the confines of a human torso.

4. Non-compressible water is not the best media for testing destructive capability when it comes to comparing with more elastic tissue, but a sideways bullet may at least stand a higher chance of intersecting with something important or creating a wider blood pathway. The potential negative of course is if a tumble off line cancels out the benefits of your good aim.

5. I am forced to wonder what makes this bullet (which clearly DID tumble) different from the fairly similar Lyman 358430 which I tested at 570 fps from a J-frame Smith into calibrated gel (and it clearly DID NOT tumble)

So there ya go. Took me long enough, but that should move the conversation forward some.

[Outpost75]

Bravo Zulu BigSlug! Outstanding work! Would be great to try these loads on a feral hog or similar sized critter.

[LouisianaMan]

Great stuff! So, the bullet actually bent slightly under the pressures of tumbling? Interesting.

Granted that you haven't been able to wring out this load completely yet, what's your impression of how it compares in "effectiveness," however measured, against some of the widely available choices in .38 SPL? Various popular defense loads, of course, but some popular types that come to mind are: 110g JHP, 125g JHP or Nyclad, 148g WC, 158g LRN and SWC, GDHP +P 135g, 158g SWCHP+P. I realize you haven't done head-to-head comparison testing, but you've shot some or all of those other loads and have an impression, at least.

Thanks again for adding to our knowledge and scratching the ".38-200 itch."

[LouisianaMan]

Bravo Zulu BigSlug! Outstanding work! Would be great to try these loads on a feral hog or similar sized critter.

That would be the ticket!

[Bigslug]

Granted that you haven't been able to wring out this load completely yet, what's your impression of how it compares in "effectiveness," however measured, against some of the widely available choices in .38 SPL? Various popular defense loads, of course, but some popular types that come to mind are: 110g JHP, 125g JHP or Nyclad, 148g WC, 158g LRN and SWC, GDHP +P 135g, 158g SWCHP+P. I realize you haven't done head-to-head comparison testing, but you've shot some or all of those other loads and have an impression, at least.

Mmmmmmm. . .yeah. . .Given the huge range of variability caused by differences in both load intensity and barrel length, the .38 Special is gonna be a DEEP well.

I can say that I'm not real hot on the idea of anything .35 caliber and expanding below about 135 grains. In the .38 Special, this is basically not far removed from .380 Auto territory, in which you have the ability to penetrate or expand, but not both. As such, penetration on the light HP's is very often marginal. In snubbies, unless you have an HP load designed to do it's thing effectively given only two inches of barrel, I'd be all about bullet mass and flat noses.

Full wadcutters for me would be a non-starter. I believe in carrying the ability to reload, and zero taper ammo is not a friend of this.

[pettypace]

I'm sure I tossed out this idea before...

If that bullet didn't tumble, the models (of MacPherson and The_Schwartz) predict over 30 inches of penetration:



The models can't handle the complexity of a tumbling bullet. But if the bullets stops in, say, 16 inches, I think it makes sense to ask what diameter bullet of that weight and velocity and shape would stop in the same 16 inches. Then, by a little trial and error, we get this:



So, I think of the tumbling bullet as having an "effective" diameter of .50 caliber. And my best guess is that the wound mass of the tumbling bullet would be about 28 grams. If so, that's a big gain over the 16 grams of the non-tumbling bullet and fully the equal of .45 hardball or "full charge" .38 wadcutters. Certainly nothing to trifle with.

I agree with OP75 -- bring on those hogs.

[Bigslug]

Pettypace, I think your model is not far off the mark. A bigger sample is needed - - and I just don't drink milk and OJ all that fast.

It was a weird jug shoot. Neither of the two bullets I recovered were inside a jug, but found on the plank I rested the jugs on. Placement was a bit tricky - probably owing to the sights being regulated for the 178 grain FMJ load (these tend to hit high), making it difficult to tell how much was point of aim and how much was tumble.

I've got connections in the actual gelatin world. The stuff is too expensive for me to ask for a block on it's own, but if I can piggyback into an ongoing duty round demo, I'm all about it - now that I suspect that the MKI and 358430 are (strangely) different animals.

[Bigslug]

If we already discussed this earlier in the thread, apologies.

I think perhaps the best way to modernize this concept would be the 9mm Federal done RIGHT:

What's needed is basically a revolver designed for a "9mm Auto Rim" case that can also function on mouth-headspaced standard 9mm Luger cases either poked out with a stick, or with moon clips to engage the extractor.

On the same day as the MKI test, I did a jug shoot with some 147 grain/990fps non-expanding 9mm rounds and got straight-line penetration and "still going" out the back of the ninth jug. So, obviously, a lot of potential for different bullet behaviors based on manipulation of the slug design and load intensity, but THIS gets us there in a platform that can shoot "everyman's auto" cartridge, where the .38S&W or my .38SC concept will have to wrestle with the "old and weird" problem.

[35remington]

I have the NOE bullet featured in BSlug’s tests. The deep lube grooves are unusual in that the hot as cast bullet is fragile if it lands on them and the bullet is subject to fracture or bending unless well cushioned on landing. Double thicknesses of cloth help. Dropping the hot as cast bullet atop other bullets doesn’t work.

My use in 38 Special has been in aluminum J frames where a velocity of 600 fps or a bit more has been obtained in 1.875” barrels along with about 700 odd fps from a four inch.

Wet phone books rarely allow a bullet to tumble end for end but if a bullet turns broadside in them as it comes to rest it is a tumbler in my experience. This bullet, along with some 32 Long Remington 98 RN factory loads were found sideways at end of travel.

Wet phone books are about twice the resistance or half the penetration of gelatin depending upon how you look at it....that is, about nine inches in phone books is about 18 inches in gelatin with expanding or nose forward bullets, with the caveat that tumbling bullets seem to penetrate a little further than that ratio in phone books because the yaw seems to develop a little later than in gelatin or water.

So I figure my results mirror those that BS reported to the extent possible. Interestingly the 38/200/~600 and the 32/98/720 went to right about the same 9” depth mentioned, both sideways at end of track. As mentioned this would be less than 2:1 due to the sideways orientation at rest, so I figure about 16-17” is about right.

I suspect that from my testing that a milk jug is about equal to 3-4” of gelatin. Toward end of travel the skin of the milk jug presents an increasing obstacle to slowed and yawed or slowed widely expanding bullets.

[Combat Diver]

If we already discussed this earlier in the thread, apologies.

I think perhaps the best way to modernize this concept would be the 9mm Federal done RIGHT:

What's needed is basically a revolver designed for a "9mm Auto Rim" case that can also function on mouth-headspaced standard 9mm Luger cases either poked out with a stick, or with moon clips to engage the extractor.

On the same day as the MKI test, I did a jug shoot with some 147 grain/990fps non-expanding 9mm rounds and got straight-line penetration and "still going" out the back of the ninth jug. So, obviously, a lot of potential for different bullet behaviors based on manipulation of the slug design and load intensity, but THIS gets us there in a platform that can shoot "everyman's auto" cartridge, where the .38S&W or my .38SC concept will have to wrestle with the "old and weird" problem.

9mm Federal

Federal mad the ammo and Charter Arms made the revolvers 1988-1991. Rimmed version of the 9mm Parabellum.

CD

[Buckshot]

...............Brave man that I am, I am going to go out on a limb here and make a humble but honest prediction. Should some youngster or lover of the AR class of rifles, and/or prophet of the 6.5 Creedmore actually read even HALF of this post they'd be aghast. Probably that there should be this many adult males interested in such arcane, nea OTHERWORLDLY firearm as actual manually operated REVOLVERS. Furthermore that such a PISTOL cartridge as is under discussion here, could be capable of generating such interest. Lastly but not the least of all, had produced such a magnificent scholarly dissertation, and that it has lasted almost 6 years on it's main topic with such few asides.

..................Buckshot

[jrayborn]

Buckshot, I have been enjoying this thread and agree completely!

[35remington]

Certainly no argument with any of that. For the amount of comparative testing I did, most was limited to nondeforming handgun projectiles of the type mentioned here, in milk jugs, vice water alone. More apples and oranges.

Water jugs are just too messy with rifle rounds and I don’t enjoy the soaking I get. A relatively limited scope was all I could entertain, and there were some caveats noted with that as well. As always best not to extrapolate too much. Certainty is not something I expect when comparing nonstandard methodologies.

The slight yaw of the bullet near the muzzle of the gun versus more stabilized flight further downrange also yielded vastly different penetration results with some guns and loads with the variable I could control, which was distance to impact. On some handguns and marginally stabilized bullets the reverse could be true.

[Outpost75]

So, are you seeing any deformation of those .38-caliber NOE bullets at 600 fps when you shoot them into either the wet pack or water? How hard is the alloy that you are using?...

I am using 1 to 30 tin-lead from Roto Metals these are some recovered 240-grain FN bullets fired with 3 grains of AutoComp from a 20-inch .38 S&W chambered rifle, with ten-inch twist 9mm barrel at around 720 fps. Go straight through eight gallon water jugs like a laser. Very slight riveting. Just the thing for Sasquatch in your garden without disturbing the neighbors.

Attachment 277301Attachment 277297Attachment 277299Attachment 277303

[LouisianaMan]

I am using 1 to 30 tin-lead from Roto Metals these are some recovered 240-grain FN bullets fired with 3 grains of AutoComp from a 20-inch .38 S&W chambered rifle, with ten-inch twist 9mm barrel at around 720 fps. Go straight through eight gallon water jugs like a laser. Very slight riveting. Just the thing for Sasquatch in your garden without disturbing the neighbors.

Attachment 277301Attachment 277297Attachment 277299Attachment 277303

If I had one of those rigs down here on the bayou, Outpost, I'd call it my "Rougarou Rifle"! ))