38 Spec. Surplus find

[fish_bait]

I just finished a two day job of bringing home a great find from a garage sale setting up in the little town just west of me, a "haul" of surplus 38 Spec. with the headstamp R A 66. I had seen this in Vietnam in 1967 as this is the ammo that was issued to us for the junk, rattly S&W Combat Masterpiece 38 Spec. revolvers that Army Huey pilots carried.

The lady having the garage sale was being helped by her daughter and my neighbor's wife. My neighbor told me about the ammo and I drove up the hill to check it out. It was in a late 1950's bomb shelter in what would be a 3rd basement. 25,000 rounds in the original boxes on some of the heaviest shelving I have ever seen. All the boxes except one were still sealed. The lady's daughter said if I was willing to haul it up 3 flights of stairs, it and the shelves were mine. No brainier, right.

After cooling off and thinking a little last night, I started to see what I could find out about this stuff. I know it has a 130gr. full metal jacket bullet, but no idea as to velocity. I do remember it seemed anemic at the time. None of my books list it.

Anybody know anything more about this stuff? Thanks

[Alan in Vermont]

I hope you got it out of there before you started thinking about it!

[Kraschenbirn]

What helicopter crews got 'Combat Masterpieces'...even rattly, junky ones...in 'Nam? I did two tours with 1st Cav and all I ever saw were rattly, junky M&Ps (fixed sights, skinny grips, and about a 20# DA trigger).

Bill

[ReloaderFred]

The Air Force Security Police were issued Model 15's during that time, and the 130 grain FMJ was their duty load. We used to hold pistol matches with the SP's and all the local law enforcement agencies and the SP's furnished that ammunition for the matches.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[PS Paul]

I have an employee who owns one of those same model 15 combat masterpiece revolvers she inherited from an uncle who was in the Air Force and on the Seattle PD afterwards. It is tight and not shot loose. Pretty good groups with 150 gr. boolits, it is a joy to shoot and has a wonderful trigger.

What a SCORE on the ammo, dude!!

[jh45gun]

Congrats on the great find!
.

[fecmech]

I chrono'd some WCC72 G.I. ball and out of a 6" it was 787 fps and a 2" it was 677 fps. You're right it was pretty anemic stuff and not all that accurate,4" 50 yd ammo out of my guns. God help anyone who had to use it for real. Some doofus I was practicing PPC with shot some poor rabbit that wandered into our range with GI Ball. I had to shoot the rabbit 2 more times to put it out of it's misery. Two good things about it though, it was free and cases last forever.

[dualsport]

WOW! 25,000 rds.!! Nice.

[Char-Gar]

That is a super treasure trove. While not super accurate, that stuff is great plinking ammo and the cases reload very well.

[tenx]

the air force used the same ammo, i believe the ammo with the bullet seated out was called m41 ball and if the bullet was seated deeper into the case is was called pgu 12 something another. the deep seated bullet was a high (somewhat higher) velocity load. hey i'm running off a fading memory. spent 12 years in aircraft armament and cross trained into combat arms training and maintenance in the late 1980's. that was during the transition when the beretta 92 was adopted and everything else phased out so i don't remembet too much about accuracy. cool find though..............

[dualsport]

Can we get a picture? I use the WCC72 for general practice, shoots fine. Hard to imagine what they were thinking though with the fmj round nose. Maybe penetration was a high priority.

[Char-Gar]

FMJ is a Geneva Convention thing. Military forces cannot use expanding "dum-dum" bullets.

[PS Paul]

"dum-dum"! ha-ha! I ALWAYS get a chuckle from that reference. I remember the Man with the Golden Gun when they called 'em that.

Not to get TOO far off topic, but anyone know the origins of the "dum-dum bullet" name? There has to be some good story behind that.

[polara426sh]

"dum-dum"! ha-ha! I ALWAYS get a chuckle from that reference. I remember the Man with the Golden Gun when they called 'em that.

Not to get TOO far off topic, but anyone know the origins of the "dum-dum bullet" name? There has to be some good story behind that.

Comes from the British arsenal in Dum Dum India.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dum_Dum_Arsenal

[Ilwil]

I'm going from memory here, but Dumdum was the name of an British Army arsenal in India during empire days. Fighting northern tribesmen, (think modern Pakistanis and Afghans) the British were unsatisfied by the stopping power of the .303 Enfield cartridge introduced in the 1890s. The .577 Martini-Henry had done just fine, but was used in single-shot rifles. Ordinance people found by filing off the top of a jacketed bullet and cross-hatching the tip, they got the kind of stopping power they wanted in a modern magazine-fed rifle. Later, in the 1900s, various Geneva conventions "outlawed" the Dum-Dum bullet as barbaric causing terrible wounds.
I shot a lot of that .38 during a career spent as an MP Investigator and CID agent. As was said earlier, it was made to conform to Geneva specs. The bullet has a heavy jacket, and the brass is very high quality like all GI brass. I think you will have a hard time loading it with full wad cutters, due to the thickness of the case, but you will have a harder time wearing it out. None of mine has failed in 25+ years of reloading.

[Fishman]

Gosh what a terrible misfortune. Looks like you won't be casting or reloading 38 special any time soon. I'm so sorry.

[Tim357]

FMJ is a Geneva Convention thing. Military forces cannot use expanding "dum-dum" bullets.

Actually, the Geneva Convention set the rules for treatment of prisoners of war. I believe you meant to say the Hague Convention set the rules for non expanding bullets.

[km101]

I still have a couple boxes of the 130gr .38 Spl ammo that I got from the rangemaster at Carswell AFB back in 1970. The AF was phasing out the .38 spl and he had a whole 55 gal drum of once fired brass. He said it was not accountable, and I could have as much as I waanted. The only containers I could find were two paper grocery bags, so I filled them full and brought them home. I'm still reloading some of that brass!:) He also gave me about 20 boxes of the hardball ammo.

What really hurt was the fact that he also had in the arms room, about 2 dozen S&W Mod. 15's that looked almost new and 10 more that were NIB. He had to send the out to be torched! No "salvage" on serially numbered items. We didn't want to be talking to the FBI!!! Ah the good old days!

[PS Paul]

Thanks Ilwil and Polara. Ilwil, like an elephant's memory, your memory seems pretty superb. The wikipedia desc. did not go into any detail like you did. What part of WA you in? I'm out in Kitsap Co.

Now, I've taken us WAYYYY off topic. LOL!!

[Ilwil]

That is very kind of you to say, when I can't remember what I had for lunch. I'm in Everett, was just at the Monroe WAC show. Lightly attended, because of the great weather, but the October show in Puyalluop is the big one. I had my 8 year old grandson along, he was spell bound by the "zombie" ammunition, but he had to settle for a zombie ammo can instead.

[John in WI]

I chrono'd some WCC72 G.I. ball and out of a 6" it was 787 fps and a 2" it was 677 fps.

Man--that's really terrible!
Was it that bad when it was manufactured new, or does the powder decompose over time and slow it down?

The .38 can be a decent man stopper--but not RN at below 800FPS. I feel bad for the men who were staking there life on that.

Still--the price was right, and that should keep you in plinking ammo for the rest of your life! And plenty of brass.

[fecmech]

Man--that's really terrible!
Was it that bad when it was manufactured new, or does the powder decompose over time and slow it down?
That was chrono'd in the late 70's and it was only a few years old. I was on a Nat Guard pistol team and that was some ammo we were given for practice. It was fresh out of the magazine at Albany! I still have some of the ammo cans for the brass.

[fish_bait]

Kraschenbirn,
I was in the 121st Spec Ops Group at a place we weren't supposed to be and Uncle has never admitted we were ever there. I wonder if that means I did not exist for the two years I spent there. I was the exec. officer for the two tours I did. They were back to back by my choice. We were a mixed bag of Army (me), Marines, Navy and Air Force personnel. If you had a specialty the CO wanted, he "drafted" your butt for his rag tag bunch. I flew a UH-1 Modified with two engines like a Navy Sea Wolf and a 5 blade rotor for "quiet". Quiet my ***. Instead of wop wop, it was a roar. Our job was to prowl over the Ho Chi Minh Trail under the cover of darkness looking for any movement worth shooting at. Our birds were all painted flat black with no markings of any kind. The Air Force guys flew Jolly Greens that had some nasty stuff mounted in them. All our pilots regardless of service branch had Model 15 S & W's. They all were in ready for the scrap heap condition. I managed to get hold of a nearly new Browning High Power. Most everyone had carried either 45 Colt or a Browning. A couple guys had Colt Pythons they had shipped from the states. I retired after 42 years in the active and reserve.

A friend of mine with a chronograph took a box of the ammo and my 6" GP100 to the range last Friday and shot them for velocity. He got an average of 797fps from the 6" barrel. He shot some through his Marlin 1894 with an 18" or 20" barrel and got an average of 1206fps. With my Marlin 1894 Cowboy with a 24" barrel he only got another 75fps out of the extra 4" of barrel. He said in my Marlin with its full octagon barrel there was not enough recoil to even call it that.

My grandkids are going to have a lot of good shooting and good marksmanship training with these anemic rounds. The lack of recoil will help this.

[fecmech]

He got an average of 797fps from the 6" barrel.
It seems it was probably specd(sp) for 800 fps out of a pressure barrel. It makes you wonder what the folks in the military were thinking to produce 130 gr .38 spl ammo@800 fps. If your target was behind an empty 55 gal drum he was safe!

[dualsport]

FISH BAIT! Thanks for your good work and the great idea too. Why I never thought of shooting this .38 M41 in my Marlin is a mystery. I bought a few cases, I think Sportsmans Guide had it on sale. Or CTD. No problem with the tube magazine since it's a round nose?

[5.7 MAN]

the air force used the same ammo, i believe the ammo with the bullet seated out was called m41 ball and if the bullet was seated deeper into the case is was called pgu 12 something another. the deep seated bullet was a high (somewhat higher) velocity load. hey i'm running off a fading memory. spent 12 years in aircraft armament and cross trained into combat arms training and maintenance in the late 1980's. that was during the transition when the beretta 92 was adopted and everything else phased out so i don't remembet too much about accuracy. cool find though..............

I was in the AF Security Police from 86-90, when I started out we carried the Smith M15. The ammo was PGU12, I suspect it had the same bullet but seated deeper in the case and crimped over the ogive. It was reported at the time to be loaded to higher pressure.

A couple of years ago J&G sales had some pgu12 for sale and I bought some to go with my M15, I chronographed some at 980fps, so it was quite a bit faster. I was always curious why the AF used a diferent load.

Congrats on the find and unique story to go with it!