Hot loading .38 spl full wad cutters

[John McCorkle]

I used to use an old, dried out, osage orange log(hedge) for a backstop for handgun shooting. The log was about 30 inches in diameter with a layer of soft white wood about 1 inch thick on the outside.
I shot light wadcutter, full power jacketed, and 44mag loads into that log.
Nothing penetrated that log beyond the white wood. Most bullets fell on the ground right next to the log. A few even bounced back a considerable distance.
Very few even expanded as much as the boolit in the picture jacketed included.
Using a hard substance for penetration testing can be deceiving. According to that log, nothing had good penetration.

I wanna know what happened to the saw that cut that 30 inch log down?

Bois d'arc is tough stuff...once saw a guy use an aged piece as a knife after honing on an edge...

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[Petrol & Powder]

A type III wadcutter allows a bit more weight in a wadcutter design and about as large of a meplat as possible for the caliber. At short ranges that type of bullet may have some usefulness as a SD bullet. I'm not sure it would be significantly better than Type II wadcutter of approximately 150-160 grains in a .357" diameter. I'm not a fan of "heavy for caliber" bullets. As weights go up, you just start trading velocity for mass.

I do believe a full charge solid WC has some usefulness, particularly in standard pressure loads where that full diameter meplat may get the most performance out of a relatively slow bullet. As a small game bullet that may be called upon for self-defense in a pinch, I think the solid WC pushed a little faster than target velocity has some real merit.

However, in a snub nosed revolver carried solely for self-defense, I'm still going to rely on one of two loads: The "FBI Load" or the Speer 135gr Gold Dot "Short Barrel" load. I'm not claiming they are the best loads available but they have long track records and I find that fact comforting.

[mdi]

I've only been casting for a few years and only tried one wadcutter "style"; a Lyman DEWC. 38 cal, 148 gr.. Can anyone share what Type I, Type II, and Type III wadcutters are? (Google doesn't show much). None of my cast bullet texts mention anything about type either...

[Forrest r]

Have you done any testing yourself?
I’ve read very good results with wadcutter a actually especially loaded a little hotter. You can see luck gunner results below or dig through the IWBA papers. Those articles were the developments of the FBI test as we know them and also some very good criticisms on some of the things the FBI did and still does that are irrrelivent to proper performance.

I’ve actually read articles about wadcutter and semi wadcutters cutting into a Target much better than a round nose and having way less of a chance of glancing off. Even Keith wrote about this when shooting his SWC designs into the heads of animals.

Your picture above kind of demonstrated this. You hit a hard surface that is radiused and the WC grabbed on tight. It’s hard to sell from the angle of the picture, maybe it was just a perfect square hit

I’m not trying to pick a fight or be disrespectful I’m just trying to pass on some good well written and highly respected test results.

https://www.luckygunner.com/labs/rev...llistics-test/

https://drive.google.com/drive/mobil...3pWYVVJeGlGaFE

Thank you, you have a very well thought out post with excellent links.

The picture above is a solid direct hit. You want to hit a bowling pin on the trademarks. They are made out of maple and are solid at the trademarks. Hit lower and there's holes in them, the bottom of the pin tends to kick out and the pins stay on the table. Hit the pin a little to the left or right and the pin spins as it falls backwards. Strait hits drives the pin strait back and the bullets grab/penetrate. Back in the day I'd use full house loads in the 357's with ww820 pulldown powder and the lyman 358311 158gr rn bullet in a 6" bbl'd 586 for bowling pins. Hits in the trademark (see picture above) with that combo & the bullet would be either sticking out the back of the pin or leave a lump in the back of the pin.

I understand that some people can not correlate the similarity between a bowling pin and a solid core wood door or a piece of wood molding. This is what the FBI uses to test bullets/wood :
Test Five - Plywood – One piece of 3/4 inch “AA” fir plywood is set 18 inches in front of the gelatin block. This
test event simulates the resistance of typical wooden doors or construction timbers.

The gelatin block used in that test is this:
The gelatin block is covered with four layers of clothing: one layer of cotton
t-shirt material (approximately 5.25 ounces per yard, 48 threads per inch); one layer of cotton shirt material
(approximately 3.5 ounces per yard, 80 threads per inch); one layer of Malden Mills Polartec 200 fleece and
one layer of cotton denim (approximately 14.4 ounces per yard, 50 threads per inch).

Yes I've done testing with wc's over the years. My 1st mold was a H&G #50 6-cavity mold back in 1985, couldn't even begin to count how many of those wc's I shot in 38spl's & 357's in 2"/3"/4"/6"/8"/8 3/8"/10" bbl's. Back then my landlord had a auto junkyard. Cars that were marked to be crushed he didn't care what you did to them. Spent a lot of time there testing different alloy/bullets/powders/firearms.
I've also spent a considerable amount of time testing on houses. People buy old houses for the trim/fixtures/etc and then bulldoze them. They hire me to recover items that they want in these houses. They don't care what happens to the houses & they become a tests ground. Things like sofa's, fridges, stoves get thrown into the mix as do walls, windows, doors, trim, stairs, cabinets, etc.
For several years I was part of a rapid response team for homeland security. I went around the county doing security upgrades on federal offices. Depending on the level of security they wanted for that building/office. It could be anything from 3 different grades of solid core doors, bomb blast film on the windows to different grades of demising walls. When You start putting up layers of 5/8" drywall with 3/4" plywood, expanded metal, bomb blast film and then more 5/8" drywall on demising walls. You know they mean business. Typically when you did that to the walls you put up 2" thick doors that were clad with metal on both sides and the interior of the door had a metal plate in the center and a resin/sawdust mixture for the wood core of the door. These doors had a 2 hour fire rating.

Anyway, yes I've done a little testing with wc's in the 38spl's/357's over the decades. Tested the h&g #50's & 42's, lyman 358495/358395/358093 & mihec 148gr hbwc's/170gr wc's. Did the testing with several different bbl lengths/powders/alloys. Shot a bunch of different critters with them along with 100's of cars, houses, household items, etc. I've also worked on 200+ government offices installing what the fed's deemed safe.

If you like wc's by all means use them. If anyone has a hard time with recoil, wc's are an excellent choice even though the OP asked about "hot wc loads". In a perfect world using them on simple gel blocks or soft tissue would be the cat's meow. In the real world sometimes it just isn't that simple & if anyone does a little of their own testing they'll find out where the wc bullet design falls short. A wc would be my last choice of bullets for sd, hot load or not. I choose not to put myself at a disadvantage with a poor choice of bullet design for a sd load.

And yes I've also done a little testing with the 44spl/44mag and wc's/hbwc's. Sold off some of the 44cal wc molds over the decades, but I still have these laying around.
[IMG][/IMG]

[Petrol & Powder]

I've only been casting for a few years and only tried one wadcutter "style"; a Lyman DEWC. 38 cal, 148 gr.. Can anyone share what Type I, Type II, and Type III wadcutters are? (Google doesn't show much). None of my cast bullet texts mention anything about type either...

http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Chap..._Wadcutter.htm

A type III wadcutter extends beyond the casing. The extra length results in a heavier projectile.

[tazman]

http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Chap..._Wadcutter.htm

A type III wadcutter extends beyond the casing. The extra length results in a heavier projectile.

One slight detail is incorrect. The type three does extend beyond the case but does not necessarily result in a heavier projectile. It just leaves more room inside the case for powder and thereby reduces pressure somewhat. It allows for a full power load in 38 special.
My Lyman 358432 is a type three and it drops at 148 grains. There were two versions of the 358432. One is a heavier boolit at 160 grains. The other is a 148 grain projectile.
For reference----http://www.three-peaks.net/bullet_molds.htm
I use the same powder charges for this boolit that I use for 150 grain SWC boolits and it shoots very well. Easily is more accurate than my capabilities allow.
The same thing can be accomplished by crimping a standard wadcutter in one of the middle lube grooves instead of the crimp groove or over the end.

[texasnative46]

John McCorkle,

Exactly what I wondered when I read that. = When I as single & had a house in rural NE Texas, my local friends in the PD, SD & I used to shoot .22, .32 & .38 "target loads" down the long central hallway. - Our backstop was a bale of cotton.
(When I married my late wife in 1987, that shooting "came to a screeching halt". - "VK" said that it made the whole house reek of gunpowder. = She said, "NO WAY is that going to continue".)

yours, tex

[mdi]

Thanks for the reference, I guess I missed that article. I use a Lyman type II DEWC cast with about 13-15 BHN alloy over a near max/max load of W231. I have purchased a few type III in 44 caliber for my 44 Magnums, but don't have that data on hand...

[John McCorkle]

So as a confession, all this discussion has me really thinking hard about the 38 spc as a good HD round...loading a metric ton of 148 wadcutters over bullseye and spending alot of time with my model 10.

Wheather the 148s would be my go to or not....don't know. Speer 135 gold dots are cheap enough I can load alot of them to practice full house loads but focus on really honing my precision with handgun after let's say 20k rounds downrange is high on my interest list now. I've always kept the 38spc as a great practice gun but man...it would be cheap to get tons of practice in and put a razor hone on my shooting skill...2.6 grains at a time and just watch the mechanics of practice take over.

If I can make a backstop to catch some of that lead to recast that would be even better...450 lbs of lead is getting more and more difficult to come by now at the local tire shops...

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[RED BEAR]

it matters more where you shoot than what you shoot. the majority of bad guys stop what they are doing when shot for fear of being shot again. now not all will stop but several more rounds pretty much does the trick.

[Michael J. Spangler]

Thank you, you have a very well thought out post with excellent links.

The picture above is a solid direct hit. You want to hit a bowling pin on the trademarks. They are made out of maple and are solid at the trademarks. Hit lower and there's holes in them, the bottom of the pin tends to kick out and the pins stay on the table. Hit the pin a little to the left or right and the pin spins as it falls backwards. Strait hits drives the pin strait back and the bullets grab/penetrate. Back in the day I'd use full house loads in the 357's with ww820 pulldown powder and the lyman 358311 158gr rn bullet in a 6" bbl'd 586 for bowling pins. Hits in the trademark (see picture above) with that combo & the bullet would be either sticking out the back of the pin or leave a lump in the back of the pin.

I understand that some people can not correlate the similarity between a bowling pin and a solid core wood door or a piece of wood molding. This is what the FBI uses to test bullets/wood :
Test Five - Plywood – One piece of 3/4 inch “AA” fir plywood is set 18 inches in front of the gelatin block. This
test event simulates the resistance of typical wooden doors or construction timbers.

The gelatin block used in that test is this:
The gelatin block is covered with four layers of clothing: one layer of cotton
t-shirt material (approximately 5.25 ounces per yard, 48 threads per inch); one layer of cotton shirt material
(approximately 3.5 ounces per yard, 80 threads per inch); one layer of Malden Mills Polartec 200 fleece and
one layer of cotton denim (approximately 14.4 ounces per yard, 50 threads per inch).

Yes I've done testing with wc's over the years. My 1st mold was a H&G #50 6-cavity mold back in 1985, couldn't even begin to count how many of those wc's I shot in 38spl's & 357's in 2"/3"/4"/6"/8"/8 3/8"/10" bbl's. Back then my landlord had a auto junkyard. Cars that were marked to be crushed he didn't care what you did to them. Spent a lot of time there testing different alloy/bullets/powders/firearms.
I've also spent a considerable amount of time testing on houses. People buy old houses for the trim/fixtures/etc and then bulldoze them. They hire me to recover items that they want in these houses. They don't care what happens to the houses & they become a tests ground. Things like sofa's, fridges, stoves get thrown into the mix as do walls, windows, doors, trim, stairs, cabinets, etc.
For several years I was part of a rapid response team for homeland security. I went around the county doing security upgrades on federal offices. Depending on the level of security they wanted for that building/office. It could be anything from 3 different grades of solid core doors, bomb blast film on the windows to different grades of demising walls. When You start putting up layers of 5/8" drywall with 3/4" plywood, expanded metal, bomb blast film and then more 5/8" drywall on demising walls. You know they mean business. Typically when you did that to the walls you put up 2" thick doors that were clad with metal on both sides and the interior of the door had a metal plate in the center and a resin/sawdust mixture for the wood core of the door. These doors had a 2 hour fire rating.

Anyway, yes I've done a little testing with wc's in the 38spl's/357's over the decades. Tested the h&g #50's & 42's, lyman 358495/358395/358093 & mihec 148gr hbwc's/170gr wc's. Did the testing with several different bbl lengths/powders/alloys. Shot a bunch of different critters with them along with 100's of cars, houses, household items, etc. I've also worked on 200+ government offices installing what the fed's deemed safe.

If you like wc's by all means use them. If anyone has a hard time with recoil, wc's are an excellent choice even though the OP asked about "hot wc loads". In a perfect world using them on simple gel blocks or soft tissue would be the cat's meow. In the real world sometimes it just isn't that simple & if anyone does a little of their own testing they'll find out where the wc bullet design falls short. A wc would be my last choice of bullets for sd, hot load or not. I choose not to put myself at a disadvantage with a poor choice of bullet design for a sd load.

And yes I've also done a little testing with the 44spl/44mag and wc's/hbwc's. Sold off some of the 44cal wc molds over the decades, but I still have these laying around.
[IMG][/IMG]

Sounds like you’ve had some fun work and done some fun research and testing.
In the IWBA articles they actually mention how testing with hard barriers was detrimental to proper designs. From a law enforcement perspective they’re not really allowed to (or weren’t at the time) shoot through solid barrier like doors and walls. No blind shooting. Of course there were times were you knew who was behind the door.
That being said. Making a bullet perform wel in the FBI hard barrier test makes the Bullet perform poorly in soft barrier and soft tissues.
So bullet companies at the time wouldn’t make the proper changes because they were worried that bad ratings on the FBI test would put them out of business by losing big LOE contracts. Even though their improved ammo would work way better in soft barrier and tissue which is the overwhelming majority of the police shootings.

I’m only about 70% of the way through the articles so I’ve still yet to see what changes the FBI made if any to their testing.

I agree there are better choices in SD ammo but the lowly wadcutter is better than a RN or TC or a poorly matched hollow point that won’t expand at snubbie velocities and therefore act like a RN or TC.
The full diameter nose crushes much more tissue.

I’ve been taking a serious loook at the new HST micro for my 38 carry gun. It’s basically a hollow point jacketed wadcutter. Seems to be the bees knees.

Thanks for the great post.

it matters more where you shoot than what you shoot. the majority of bad guys stop what they are doing when shot for fear of being shot again. now not all will stop but several more rounds pretty much does the trick.

Agreed.
There are also great articles on this in the IWBA papers.
Psychological vs Physiological incapacitation.
It’s amazing how the body compensates for trauma and how long you can function when you have a few holes in you.

If anyone hasn’t read the articles but took the time to read this post. You should be reading the articles.
They’re serious stuff. Not some gun rag junk but the modern basis for all we know in terminal ballistics and how we judge ammunition today.

[David2011]

Early in the thread someone said they loaded their DEWCs backwards. I tried that but they looked the same either way. (DEWC=Double Ended Wad Cutter)

Swaged soft lead hollow based WCs can be loaded backward. I think a polymer tipped J-word would be better at getting through heavy clothing.

[pls1911]

Placement, placement, placement...
John Wayne's instruction was simple... "Windage and elevation, Mrs. Langdon; windage and elevation." (The Undefeated)

Between the eyes, between the ears, between the shoulders, or between the boys, one shot should end the fight.

[Michael J. Spangler]

There was a push to get rid of some of the hard barrier tests a long time ago.
They found that the bullets that performed well in those tests performed poorly in the soft barrier and gel tests.
If the manufacturers made bullets that didn’t perform well in the FBI test they would fall from favor and lose big PD and GOV contracts. They knew they were doing it wrong but couldn’t sacrifice their companies profits to fix it.

Great reading in this group of books linked below.
They have great things to say about wadcutter and give real world results and proper terminology and effects of bullets in flesh. Amazing works.

https://drive.google.com/drive/mobil...3pWYVVJeGlGaFE