Two-Projectile Loads in Snubby for Self-Defense

[pettypace]

I've been experimenting recently with two-projectile loads in a snubby for self-defense. I'm wondering who else has given this serious thought.

Here are some combinations I've tried:

Attachment 238451

(1) Lee 356-95 RF base-to-base with 105 grain H&G #50 = 200 grains
(2) Lyman 356402 base-to-base with NOE 70 grain WC = 195 grains
(3) Two Lee 356-95 RF base-to-base = 190 grains
(4) Two Lyman 356404 base-to-base = 190 grains
(5) Lee 356-95 RF base-to-base with NOE 70 grain WC = 165 grains
(6) Two NOE 70 grain WC base-to-base = 140 grains
(7) One 000 buckshot over NOE 70 grain WC = 140 grains

I've been using 2400 powder for the 190 - 200 grain loads with velocities about 750 ft/s with easy extraction and no serious flattening of primers. I've flirted with 4756 for the 140 grain loads with velocities approaching 1000 ft/s but I don't like it. I won't list any specific loads and caution anyone first trying something like this that the bullets are probably going to be seated deeper than a single bullet of the same weight, so even published loads might give excessive pressure.

With everything I've tried, accuracy at 7 to 10 yards has proven more than adequate for the purpose. So my bigger concern has been penetration. Early on, i was relying on Hatcher's energy-based formula for penetration through 7/8" pine boards. That's what (mis)led me to the 140 grain combinations at high velocities and I won't admit how much time I wasted trying to determine a useful R (for resistance) value for ballistic gel. Then I finally broke down and bought the kindle version of MacPherson's Bullet Penetration book. From MacPherson I learned (what I should have already known) that penetration depends more on sectional density than energy.

Both MacPherson's graphs and the "expedient equation" from Schwartz's Quantitative Ammunition Selection show that the 190 to 200 grain combinations at, say, 750 ft/s, should exceed the 12" FBI minimum penetration standards in bare gel. So far, my actual penetration testing has been limited to a few shots into some homemade (uncalibrated) gelatin and a couple shots into a fresh brick of Clear Ballistic gel. With the homemade gelatin, three shots of the #3 combination -- two Lee 356-95 RF bullets loaded back-to-back at about 750 ft/s -- coasted through a 14" brick of uncalibrated gel proving absolutely nothing.

To date, I've only fired two shots (#1 combination -- Lee 356-95 over 105 grain H&G #50 WC at about 750 ft/s) into a 16" brick of calibrated Clear Ballistic gel. The results were at least thought-provoking. Both MacPherson and Schwartz predict the front bullets should penetrate over 16" and the back WCs about 13-14". Surprisingly, all four bullets penetrated the full 16". More testing awaits the construction of a mould to re-melt the gel.

Now, I suppose the obvious question is "Why bother?" One answer is that I accept the "Shot placement is King and penetration is Queen" mantra. But to that I would add "Lady Luck is the Court Jester." Given good shot placement and adequate penetration, whether any given bullet hits a vital target and immediately ends the threat is very much a matter of luck. And if I'm shooting at the Fitz Luck Target, I figure I have a much better chance of a winning score with two shots rather than one.

But another answer to "Why bother?" has to do with what I call the "Hamburger Factor." There seems to be some consensus that the mass of tissue crushed in the permanent cavity is a reasonable measure of wound trauma. Given full penetration of a non-expanding and non-tumbling bullet, MacPherson sets this wound mass for a .38 at 24 grams for a wadcutter and 16 grams for any other bullet nose shape. The corresponding numbers for a .45 would be 39 grams and 26 grams.

So, if both bullets from combination #1 really will reliably penetrate more that 16" of ballistic gel. That would indicate a wound mass of about 40 grams per shot and put a cylinder full from a 2" snubby on a par with a magazine full of GI hardball from a 1911.

Now, I understand that there's a lot of hand-waving involved in this with graphs and equations and theories. But 200 grains of lead at 750 ft/s is nothing to scoff at and two .36 caliber holes are bigger than one .45 caliber hole and two shots at the Fitz Luck Target will usually out-score one shot. So, if I can convince myself that the back wadcutter will reliably penetrate 16" of gel, I think I'll become a believer.

[JBinMN]

Interesting concept.

I will be pondering on this.

I do not have anything helpful to say, though, as I have not considered this before.

I am thinking someone here , with all the experienced folks on this forum, will possibly be able to offer you some reasonable & helpful advice for your doings.

G'Luck!

[Tom W.]

I've done it using some 77 (or so) gr. collar button bullets a man sent me once. I loaded them up into my 4" S/S Security Six. They did better than I expected, and I had several e-mails with a now deceased person who went by the name of "Wooly." I don't know if I still have the papers or not. They were in my loading shed about two months ago.....
I do remember that I used a pretty light load, due to the novel nature of the attempt. I was a lot younger then, but as I look at it I realize that the two little boolits almost equaled or exceeded the weight of a full wadcutter.....

[RED BEAR]

I have actually seen loads like this with 2 and 3 bullets stacked for self defense.https://www.lehighdefense.com/collec...ple-projectile
Is one
https://www.venturamunitions.com/cat...rojectile.html.
Is another. Not sure just how effective it is but surely worth looking into.let us know how t goes.

[JSnover]

I tried it years ago with a .357, medium charges of 2400 and Blue Dot and round balls. It worked ok but kept splitting cases.

[rintinglen]

Attachment 238463Attachment 238464Attachment 238465Attachment 238466
I have done a fair bit of experimenting along these lines, mostly with 358-101 75 grain wadcutters, 358-345 115 SWC"s in 38/357, but also with NOE 434-110 wc in 44 magnum.
Generally, all three projectiles strike within 2 inches of one another, often with two in virtually the same hole and the third an inch or so away.
Photo number one shows both a 3, 358-101 load 357 load and a two boolit one WC, and SWC. Both in 357 cases. Approx 225 grains in the former and 190 in the later.
Photo two shows 6 shots, 3 boolits each, from a 357. IIRC, this was at 33 feet.
Photo Three shows 10 shots of 3 boolits in 44 Magnum, intentionally scattered about, they were printing too close together at 7 yards
Photo four depicts the 3 boolit 44 magnum load. Approx 330 grain.
In loading these multiple ball loads it is necessary to size the base boolit 1 to 2 thousandths under nominal to prevent bulging the cases beyond the size that will chamber. The base boolit in the stack of 357 is .355. The base boolit in the stack of 44 magnums is .427.
I can not recommend them for defensive purposes. The heavy weight loads reduce velocity to the point where the light-for-caliber boolits would have trouble penetrating, especially if used in a short barreled revolver. They are however, fun to play with.
Both Dean Grennell and George Nonte wrote about similar loads back in the day.

[Petrol & Powder]

I think all you are accomplishing is achieving the worst of both worlds.

While you will make two holes in a piece of paper, you're not getting a free lunch in terms of accuracy, penetration or anything else for that matter.

Because two projectiles will raise the total weight of the payload AND reduces the available case capacity - you must compensate by using lighter projectiles. You end up with the pressures associated with a 190-200 grain projectile but the penetration of a slow moving 70-100 grain projectile, plus you give up the higher velocity normally associated with a lighter projectile.

This concept is a loser on every level.

This is not something "new" and "recently discovered"; this is something old and previously rejected (repeatedly) for the above listed reasons.

I'm sorry to rain on your parade but this one has been long settled.

[Winger Ed.]

That's what some of the .410 self defense loads do, and some have three OOO buckshot balls in them.

Depending on the legal climate where you are- you ever shoot someone with a re-load, even if it's reduced power-
When you're in front of a judge, some attorney is going to try and make you look like a kill freak/gun nut
that was looking for a chance to murder someone.

[MT Gianni]

I have had good luck with 15 00 buck out of a 3" 12 gauge. Other than that reread Petrol&Powders post above.

[MT Gianni]

That's what some of the .410 self defense loads do, and some have three OOO buckshot balls in them.

Depending on the legal climate where you are- you ever shoot someone with a re-load, even if it's reduced power-
When you're in front of a judge, some attorney is going to try and make you look like a kill freak/gun nut
that was looking for a chance to murder someone.

Mossad Ayoob made his claim as a gunwriter with this statement. To the best of my knowledge, 30+ years later there has yet to be a court case involving this thought process.

[stubshaft]

In the 70'2 Remington made some 3 ball loads for the .357 magnum to be used by police only. I still have a box of them around somewhere and they worked well on paper. Don't know if anyone ever used them in a shoot out.

[onelight]

That's what some of the .410 self defense loads do, and some have three OOO buckshot balls in them.

Depending on the legal climate where you are- you ever shoot someone with a re-load, even if it's reduced power-
When you're in front of a judge, some attorney is going to try and make you look like a kill freak/gun nut
that was looking for a chance to murder someone.

Some of the .410 have 5 buckshot

[jjay]

Does this include Civil Cases too. The world is filled with “hungry” lawyers. I load all my carry guns with factory ammo.

[Petrol & Powder]

Does this include Civil Cases too. The world is filled with “hungry” lawyers. I load all my carry guns with factory ammo.

This horse has been beaten to death a hundred times over.

In a criminal case the use of deadly force will either be justified or not. The type of ammunition will not come into play in that decision.

In a civil case,.....a savvy plaintiffs attorney could attempt to use the defendant's choice of ammunition as evidence that the defendant was seeking to use deadly force long before the event. I don't know if that tactic would work and I don't know if it has ever worked.
One line of thinking is, "why even give a potential plaintiff's attorney that tiny toe hold if you don't need to"? A person that decides to carry a weapon has no time to make those decisions when confronted with an imminent threat but he/she has all the time in the world BEFORE the event when selecting ammunition.

Do as you see fit but remember the time to make those decisions is way before a use of force. There is NO opportunity to make those decisions about ammunition once the events start to unfold.

[35remington]

I do not know what firearm these are being shot through, but will note that 200 grains of weight seated as deeply as these bullets appear to need to be seated to produce the claimed 750 fps in a functional length cartridge probably exceed plus P pressures from a snubby.

Combo 6 and possibly 5 and 7 with the top bullet seated partway out of the case for all the combos appears viable. The remainder appear either ill advised or not at all recommended, again depending upon what gun is shooting these loadings. I would back the loads 6 and 7 way way off if the 140 grain combos see the top projectile flush with the case mouth. Of course combo 5 cannot be anything but loaded with the top bullet seated out.

Heaving 140 grains of double wadcutters at 1000 fps out of a snubby is exceeding Plus P pressures as well. 850 is more sane if the bullets are not deeply seated in combination and the gun is a Plus P rated J frame 38, for example..

[JSnover]

Mine worked ok on paper but I just never felt like they would have been any more effective than anything else in the real world.
If the shooting was justified, you didn't break any laws/conceal evidence, etc and you can behave in the courtroom, it won't matter what you loaded. If the shooting wasn't justified or you managed to blow your own case, it won't matter then either.

[shooting on a shoestring]

Pettypace, here’s a thought on cheap but effective test media. Gallon water jugs lined up in a row. It’s not calibrated, but you can use a known factory load, see how many jugs it penetrates, then you have a comparison, maybe a rough one, but often for my purposes, it’s close enough. Boolits stop quicker in gelatin, so a rough comparison is if a boolit goes 24” in water jugs it’ll probably get about 12” in gelatin. I work with my SD loads and consider penetrating 4 jugs to be what I want.

It’d be interesting to compare your 38 full wadcutter load and how many jugs it’d penetrate and compare to your double projectile loads and see how far they get. If the double gets close the same or pretty close to what a wadcutter does, it might be a good SD load.

I’m a big fan of full wadcutters cast soft and driven hard. I’ve seen them expand in 44 and 357, and stop in the 4th jug, absolutely shreading the first three. In snubby 38s I think the full throttle full wadcutter is as good as it gets. But I’m open to anything that can be shown to me to work better.

[Bigslug]

It seems that what you're trying to to is have your .38 shoot two .32's or .380's at the same time.

Now the thing I recommend with .32 and .380 auto is to run a flat-nosed FMJ because when you ask rounds with that little mass and that little speed to expand, they no longer penetrate enough to reliably reach the Tootsie Roll center of the Tootsiepop. However, as long as they don't expand, they can penetrate deeply enough to make the FBI's protocol happy.

Thing is, there are loads for .38 snubbies that both DO expand and CAN penetrate deeply enough.

My next concern - where do your duplex projectiles land relative to the sights? At what distance? How far can you reliably reach before you have to worry about uncontrolled strays?

Rather than hope for a shotgun effect to maybe put a projectile into something that will solve your problem, I would contend your energies would be better spent on practicing with A LOT of cheap wadcutters. Then putting the bullet where it needs to be will be more a matter of skill and less counting on the law of averages.

[big bore 99]

I've tried them in 45Colt with 2 balls and unique. Had decent results.

[Michael J. Spangler]

Subscribed.

I like this idea.
If you are in fact getting that much penetration with each projectile then you’re doubling the crush which is what really does the damage. Permanent wound cavity not temporary.
Very interesting.

Have you read all of the IWBA articles? McPherson has some good stuff to teach.
I have a link to alll of the files if you want it. PM me