Indeed. Glad to see you're still paying attention to this one. This thread was the gold standard for setting up my .380Rs. If only I could find a Ruger . . .
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Indeed. Glad to see you're still paying attention to this one. This thread was the gold standard for setting up my .380Rs. If only I could find a Ruger . . .
Last time I checked, Fugate Firearms had a mint, boxed, Service-Six with 4" barrel. Price is steep, but it's a find! They also had it on GB auction.Originally Posted by Drydock
Oh, and thanks for inspiring me to re-read this thread! It's now on my official to-do list.
The British Army's 1930-ish adoption of the .38 S&W in the form of the .38-200, aka .380 Rim, intrigued me as a historian and as a shooter. When I decided about 2007 to get my wife and daughters each a duplicate set of S&W J frame 2" and 4" revolvers, seeking something lower-powered than a .38 Special, I knew it would likely be a choice between .32 S&W Long and .38 S&W "Short." A search of online auction sites quickly showed me that the .38s were available in great shape (dresser drawer guns) and at reasonable prices.
Of course I had to get myself a set, too! I'd owned an Enfield in my college days, but that was pre-Internet, before I became a reloader, and before I owned some suitable rural property to load in my garage and shoot from my driveway, over my own chronograph, at water jugs and other fun targets.
Some of those factors have since changed, but my interest in this caliber never waned. Quite the opposite, actually, as I often carry 1-2 of them. Maybe someday we can scare up somebody to do modern gel testing with 200g handloads, vintage Super Police ammo, and British Army 178g FMJ Mk. 2Z ammo. Ideally, we need to test it side by side against .455 Webley, and see what modern terminal ballistics testing tells us about the (in-)famous British Army determination that the .38-200 had essentially the same "stopping power" as the .455.
If only I could find a .380 rimmed Ruger . . . that I could afford!
I got lucky and found an India Model Ruger without box, manual or packaging, which had been gently shot and well taken care of, or about half of the usual collector price. It is a wonderful shooter.
Attachment 239062
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That's a beauty, Outpost, and your published work with it is much appreciated! A great test vehicle for load data, isn't it? Impervious to any pressure that could be generated in load developments, short of using nitroglycerin instead of powder!
There's my Speed-Six, which does similar duty for me. I got lucky with a .357 cylinder that turned out to be a drop-in, and it does "six for sure" nightstand duty in Pachmayr grips, lanyard ring removed, and Winchester PDX-1 125g JHPs. (In the top right corner you can glimpse the lanyard ring of the matching Service-Six I had...past tense. Oh, painful recollection! One of many, tragically enough, lol. My home would require armory certification if it and many others had stayed instead of having to pass through, I guess, so there's that.)
More pics:
Interesting tidbits:
I rechambered my S&W 940 in 9mm, using the Manson .380 Rook Rifle reamer, based on the .38 S&W case, having a rifle throat. It can now shoot .38 S&W without clips, or 9mm Parabellum with clips. Similar to the mod done at the Ruger factory to rework leftover 9mm Service Six cylinders from the French order, to fill early guns of the India order. Later India revolvers had purpose-built .38 S&W cylinders.
My S&W Model 10-5 .38 Special will accept R-P brand of .38 S&W, but not Kynoch, WRA, Rem-UMC (balloon head), W-W, Starline or Fiocchi, because those case heads are bigger and won't enter the .38 Special chambers. Handloads of R-P .38 S&W brass which have been fire-formed in the Model 10 also work, using .38 Special carbide dies with a .38 S&W RCBS Cowboy seater.
My S&W Model 37 Airweight Chief's Special will do the same thing.
And thanks to you, I also have a reworked .38 Special cylinder shortened to fit into my S&W Model 32-1 Terrier. As you know, the Terrier cylinder is shorter, so the swap-cylinder is limited to .38 Special rounds of ctg. OAL shorter than 1.40" - wadcutters are fine, and I made a trim die to file the noses off 158-grain LRN to fit the cylinder, produce a 1/4" meplat, and reduce bullet to 146 grains, which shoots to the fixed sights of the Terrier and is much more effective than LRN.
Attachment 239096Attachment 239097Attachment 239098Attachment 239099
Attachment 239100
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I'm glad this thread got a re-boot - I've been dabbling more in the realm of archaic British terminal ballistics. We were able to push through a group buy with MP Molds for the .455 Webley MKIV (HB wadcutter)
My adventures on that last summer are recorded here: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...(HBWC)-Testing
Usable intel, I think, for what can be achieved with a sub-700 fps pill. Once again I'm struck by how prescient (by modern standards) the British thinking was. Being on target and penetrating being understood to be more important than diameter, this heavy wadcuttter concept still manages to give you all the diameter feasible, and the radiused nose still facilitates fairly easy reloading. But for the Hague Accords, that round would have been no joke.
Outpost and Louisiana - those Rugers are SWEEEEEEEET! I wonder if it's even possible to create a suitable "proof load" for those guns using a .38 S&W case.
WWJMBD?
In the Land of Oz, we cast with wheel weight and 2% Tin, Man.
I need to catch up on lots of things, including the .455 thread and the June 2018 Minutes of Her Majesty's S.A.A. (Revolver, Service, Webley .455-inch) Terminal Ballistic Science, Testing & Experimentation Board.
Pending fuller review, let me ask this: did you verify whether the conoidal-pyramidal-cylindrical &c. (I'm getting in the spirit here!) bullet shape tumbles in water jugs? I scanned your results with those nifty flat-nosed bullets and see that they did NOT tumble. My own shooting in various calibers .32, .38, .44 also has consistently resulted in flat-nosed bullets penetrating straight, nose-first. Round-nosed heavy bullets at low velocity were the ones quite likely to tumble, with .38 caliber efforts yielding most consistent tumbling with 200g LRNs at sub-600 fps MV. The British military spec for the .380-inch Mark 1/1Z 200g LRN was 590 fps, which corresponds closely with what I was finding to be the "sweet spot" when shooting water jugs.
In shooting CIS Mk 2Z 178g FMJ ammo of modern manufacture, I was observing a strong tendency to tumble. My impression was that tighter bores such as Colt and Ruger generally developed higher velocity, more stability, and were less likely to tumble. I should've done more shooting with Enfields when I had the chance, but having the largest dimensions and looser military/wartime tolerances, I consider them the most likely to develop low velocities and tumble after penetration.
That's safe with lead bullets such as the 200g, but that combination of characteristics is what gave the guns and Mk 2 FMJ ammo such a disastrous reputation for bullet-in-bore incidents when shooting low-powered or degraded ammo built to loose wartime tolerances. "Tolerance stacking" is the engineering concept Outpost explained to me, and it makes perfect sense even to this History-German major...!
So, is the lead, bottle-nosed .38-200 Mk 1 bullet, and/or in its guise as the Mk 2Z 178g FMJ, the "poor man's hollowpoint"? The low-pressure, low-blast, low-recoil way to enhance terminal ballistic effects without violating the Hague Convention restrictions against expanding bullets? Did the transition to jacketed bullets make a good thing go wrong?
And did the .455 in its round-nosed forms perform the same way, and thus show the way for reduction to .38-200? Given the dimensions of the .455" and .380" bullets, how do their surface areas compare in cross-section? Assuming that maximum terminal ballistic effect is achieved when the bullet is vertical, how does the "stopping power" potential of the two cartridges compare?
Let's say, for example, that the cross-sectional surface area of the 262g .455 bullet is 1.00. Is the 200g .380 bullet, say, .890? Therefore the .38 might be calculated as having 89% of the permanent crush cavity (aka wounding potential, aka "stopping power") of the .455, assuming (1) equal depth of penetration, and (2) equal number of revolutions as each bullet tumbles through its target.
Conventional Internet wisdom scorns the British Army's c. 1930 conclusion that their new .380" 200g LRN bullet offered essentially the same "stopping power" as their .455" 262g LRN bullet. If Fackler is correct in asserting that permanent crush cavity is the only thing that truly matters as a handgun bullet wounding mechanism, might the Brits have been onto something after all?
Do any of our CB engineering types care to calculate the cross sectional surface areas of the two bullets in question?
.455 MKII - pretty solidly convinced it is NOT a tumbler
.38 MKI - pretty solidly convinced of the same, having shot it's near clone Lyman 195 grainer into FBI gel twice from a 2" S&W 640 at 570 fps and observed perfectly straight, nose-first, full-18"-block penetrations on both rounds.
I think if any of the British handgun bullets would tend to tumble, it would be the WWII, fully jacketed .455. Given that this was a hard, solid, jacketed slug being fired through the MKVI revolver's odd combination of small-throat / big bore which was designed for a soft, hollow-based one, this seems like the ideal combination for stability failure.
Maybe the 178 grain .38 had better luck in the "wobbly" department - I dunno. I do not think the terminal effect of this slug would be greatly altered travelling sideways, at only 600 fps. At any rate, how much COULD it tumble within the target depth (underfed youth) it has to work with?
One current statement of duty round performance seems to be that a coroner probably can't tell if someone was shot with a 9mm, .40, or .45 until they actually recover a bullet and start measuring it. Another is that a pistol-velocity bullet really only damages the tissues it comes into direct contact with. I think what the Brits probably meant in their 1930 statement is that, by the time you factor in tissue elasticity, heavy .38 and .45 round noses with enough sectional density to pierce a full torso, will leave effectively identical wound tracks.
And truthfully, I don't find this odd. Consider that the big players in British ammo at the time were in the business of equipping folks for African hunting. They were ALL ABOUT this straight-line penetration game, and it seems unlikely that they would say "this formula worked perfectly well to bag thousands of elephant and Cape buff. . .so let's do something COMPLETELY different for handguns".
WWJMBD?
In the Land of Oz, we cast with wheel weight and 2% Tin, Man.
FOR RUGER ONLY! Speer 135-grain Gold Dot HP, R-P case, Federal 200 primer, 4.0 grains AutoComp, 953 fps, 8 Sd from Ruger Service Six .380 Rim with 4-inch barrel, - equals .38 Special +P "Lawman" load. Does hit low to sights, which are regulated for 178-grain .380 Mk2z. I use the same charge in my S&W Model 940 revolver in ether .38 S&W or 9mm Parabellum brass.
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Way to do this would be to measure "energy deposit" comparing entrance and exit velocities of the bullets in perforating a gelatin block of standard thickness.
http://www.grantcunningham.com/2011/...rge-wadcutter/
"The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) conducted “energy deposit” studies in 1970s in which rounds were chronographed near the muzzle, and again after the bullet exited a 20cm (7.8″) gelatin block. A standard velocity 158-gr. lead round-nose .38 Special bullet fired from a 4-inch revolver at 755fps produces 200 ft-lbs of energy, and exits the gelatin block at about 655 fps with a residual energy of 150 ft-lbs.
Permanent crush cavity volume in gelatin is measurable and in direct proportion to kinetic energy. A round which deposits twice as much energy in the gelatin block produces approximately double the crush volume. A target velocity factory 148-gr. hollow based wadcutter fired from a 6 inch K-38 which strikes the gelatin at 780 f.p.s., produces the same 200 ft-lbs of kinetic energy as the LRN load fired from a 4 inch gun, but it exits the gelatin at 474 fps, having a residual energy of only 74 ft-lbs and depositing 126 ft-lbs! This compares to many common .38 Special JHP +P loads, but with deeper penetration approximating .45 ACP hardball."
Firing Accurate 36-176P giving about 620 fps from my 1-7/8" barrel S&W Model 32-1, with 2.5 grans of Bullseye would have potential.
Attachment 239152
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Outpost,
That is indeed a timely, cogent, and welcome refresher on info I've read a few years back, "filed away" in my brain housing group, and (in-)conveniently forgotten. I didn't make the connection, so thanks for making it for me!
I also recall reading an old article by a former Dallas P.D. officer who did a field-expedient version of this type of testing in the 1960s or early 1970s, when tasked with selecting new duty ammo for the DPD. He tested a LRN 200g .38 Special "Super Police" load, alluding broadly to the manufacturer's name as an insider cop joke that left me wondering which bullet configuration he meant: the famous blunt (Winchester or Western?) bottlenose like the Brit Mk 1 bullet, or the Remington (?) that visually duplicated the 158g standard police duty ammo of the day. (I know some cops carried that 200g ammo, as a supervisor's quick glance was likely to mistake it for the required 158g department-issued load.)
At any rate, this Dallas officer noted that this (mysterious) 200g bullet sailed straight through his test medium in the same way the standard 158g load did, with minimal energy deposit/velocity loss.
Certainly, boosting velocity on a .38 200g bullet increases FPE, momentum, and impact power when it strikes bone, etc. Everyone's experience also indicates, however, that this increased velocity also increases bullet stability and straight line penetration. Which begs the question of whether the British approach, which specified low velocity, and which was widely understood to destabilize upon penetrating a soft target, provided significantly enhanced terminal ballistics.
As a retired US Army 91D (Ammunition Materiel Management) officer and former member of the faculty at the USMA Dept. of History, I've developed a wacky sort of Holy Grail fixation on the historical question: "What led the British Army to conclude that their blunt LRN .38-200 Mk 1 ammo provided 'stopping power' substantially equal to the .455 service ammo used in the Great War?" They were well aware of flatpoint bullet designs, velocity and energy calculations, etc., but for some reason(s) they specified very low velocity (590 fps), 200g, and a bottlenose LRN bullet configuration. They piddled around from about 1921-1930 settling on that decision, then spent further years ironing out production issues with it. Certainly, a great deal of their effort is best understood as giving hastily-trained soldiers a weapon-ammo combination they could employ at a basic level of proficiency, and which provided "acceptable target effects." But why didn't they just choose a flatpoint? And boost the 200g velocity a bit? Or select a lighter bullet weight and higher velocity, similar to American .38 Colt New Police loads?
As a lifelong shooting enthusiast who often carries I and J frame revolvers in this caliber, I'd love to understand as well as possible what advantages and disadvantages accrue to the various options. I've loaded a variety of bullets that give me performance roughly equivalent to many .38 Special loads, and you've designed, developed, and professionally documented a far wider variety of bullets and loads than anyone ever has, as far as I can tell: 148g WC, 150g LFP, 178g "Coke cans," 200's of several types, 135g GDHP...and those are only some of your very best!
From a standpoint of utility, my quest for understanding the Brit Mk 1 .38-200 would qualify me for nothing short of a rubber room and a funny white jacket that zips in the back! Just load 'er up with something that gives a comforting "bang!" and recoil, and shoot the heck out of it. Put bullets on target and fight to win. Stop theorizing and practice shooting. Simple. Ah, if only my brain worked that way! lolol
Someday I need to load up my truck with these classic old .38's, the buttload of vintage ammo I've assembled (buttload being an unofficial Army unit of measurement that's as handy as it is flexible), and get up to the old Outpost in West By God Virginia and burn out some gun barrels with you. Terrorize bunnies, rooks, milk jugs, and dent some chronographs....Your next article could be something like "When the Going Gets Tough, the .38 S&W Goes Cyclic."
A refresher on why the Brits picked the .38 S&W:
Prior to WW1 service pistol instruction in the British Army was one-handed, single-action slow fire. Shooting was conducted at 30 paces on 8-inch bullseye targets. Two-handed or double-action shooting were not taught. Rapid, continuous fire was expected only in an extreme emergency.
WW1 British Army practice was to arm officers and NCOs, as well as cooks, trumpeters, farriers, gunners, transport drivers, pilots, observers, engineers, and sappers with “pistols.” (Brits call all handguns “pistols,” and the term “revolver” was also commonly used to describe any handgun.)
Trench warfare spurred the development of “practical pistol shooting” as we know it today. Revolvers, Mill’s bombs, cutlasses, hatchets, and clubs were the preferred armament carried on trench raids. In 1916 Capt. C.D. Tracy and Capt. J.B.L. Noel produced the “Instructional Course for the Webley Pistol,” which emphasized instinctive point shooting with the objective for every soldier armed with a revolver to be able to accomplish “The War Shot” — hitting a 16” high x 12” wide steel plate at ten yards in one second.
Pistols were universally thought of as close-range weapons for fast encounters:
“The revolver is . . . a weapon for quick use at close quarters . . . looked upon more as a defensive weapon than an arm of precision . . . for delivering a knock-down blow within the limits of its normal short fighting range . . . used instinctively . . . aligned and discharged as a shotgun is used on moving game, rather than being consciously sighted . . . .”
Soldiers were taught to hold pistols with two hands only when engaging the enemy at distances beyond 20 yards, such as when firing at the charging Hun over a trench parapet, or when in “No Man’s Land” from the shelter of a shell crater, firing from a prone position. Otherwise WW1 British soldiers were taught a one-handed, stiff-armed position, intended to absorb recoil, pivoting the body as if a gun turret, and to thumb-cock the revolver as it is raised in a smooth motion after the draw, discharging the gun instinctively at the top of its vertical rise at the precise instant the sights came into alignment with the target, without dwelling upon sight picture.
The expectation was for a soldier to produce six hits on a man-sized silhouette at 15 yards in 12 seconds. By 1915 it began to be recognize that when threats presented at contact range to ten yards, as was common in clearing trenches and dugouts, double-action shooting began to be recognized as preferable. After trench warfare training an expert shot, firing double-action, was expected engage three targets, firing six shots in 3 seconds, engaging from near-contact to 10 yards, firing instinctively from the hip.
Training conditions were realistic. Elaborate trench systems with canvas houses featured moving targets which fleetingly appeared, advanced, and retreated, crossing quickly in front of the shooter or just popping up momentarily before vanishing. Instruction included ambidextrous firing around corners when moving through a trench, clearing a dugout or house room-by-room. Training emphasis stressed use of cover vs. mere concealment, to protect raiding parties from shells or enemy fire, exploiting wall corner beams, rubble piles, or shell craters. Two-handed shooting recommended beyond 20 yards, using aimed, precision fire out to 50 yards or more.
Common-sense instructions included advice such as:
• Keep track of the number of rounds fired and top off the revolver as frequently as possible.
• Never advance with fewer than 3 chambers loaded.
• When loading single rounds, load the chamber at 10:00 first, with the others to follow anti-clockwise, because the Webley (and Colt) cylinder rotates clockwise, the cartridge will be rotated into position straightaway.
• When unloading, to avoid a spent case being trapped under the extractor, always hold the pistol muzzle up or on its side when breaking it open.
• If in the heat of battle should a revolver run empty or become unserviceable, attempt to bluff the enemy,
• If the above fails, use the pistol as a bludgeon. Use the barrel to jab at the eyes or throat or use the front sight in a backhanded slash across the neck.
• The grip on the gun must never be relinquished, nor should the gun ever be held by the barrel to use it as a club!
(Indeed, there had been accounts of officers being shot after having experienced a misfire when they grasped the barrel for bludgeoning purposes, only to have the enemy grab the butt, and pull the trigger repeatedly until the weapon discharged).
Tracey’s Revolver Shooting in War (1916) describes these methods in detail.
Consider that by the mid-1920s the British Army was mostly a conscript force. Its career officer and NCO cadre having been decimated during the First World War. There was no longer the luxury of time to develop his competence in firing the heavy .455 revolver.
A lighter “pistol” (the Brits call all handguns “pistols”) of smaller caliber was sought.
Webley & Scott was then producing its Mark III, a 26 oz., top-break, simultaneous ejecting police revolver, in .380 Rimmed (.38 S&W). This was basically a scaled-down version of its Mk VI .455. Samples submitted to the British Army were tested on July 19th, 1921. The Army suggested changes to better adapt the civilian police revolver for military use. The modified Webley Mark IV submitted for testing in January, 1922, received favorable reports from the Small Arms School at Woolwich. The smaller .38 revolver was well liked for its lighter weight and reduced bulk, shorter barrel and mild recoil.
A .38 revolver was easier to train inexperienced, hastily trained troops to adequacy.
The Army concluded it was better to hit with a .38 than to miss with a .45, but asked that a cartridge loaded with “a heavier projectile of sufficient stopping power” be developed.
In the meantime the sample Webley & Scott Mk. IV revolvers were sent to the Small Arms School in March, 1924 and underwent trials from September 4th to 11th, 1924. These guns, one with a 6 inch barrel and one with a 5 inch barrel achieved 1 inch groups at 10 yards and 2 inch groups at 20 yards.
In Britain’s post WW1 financial austerity, the government chose not to pay Webley for its design. Webley sued for development costs, and years later received a token settlement, while the British Government severed its long relationship with the company. As fate would have it, RSAF Enfield wasn’t able to produce its No.2 Enfield revolver, a blatant Webley “knockoff”, in sufficient quantity, and the Webley & Scott firm received contracts from the British Government in 1942 to produce about 120,000 Mark IV revolvers which were issued to British and Commonwealth forces during the war.
Because the Webley's 1.3 inch length cylinder precluded using a longer cartridge (such as the .38 Special), Kynoch was approached to produce test ammunition loaded with blunt, 200-grain lead bullets propelled by 2.8 grains of "Neonite" nitro-cellulose flake powder in a case dimensionally identical to the commercial .38 S&W. The objective was to ensure that bullets tumbled predictably after having lost their gyroscopic stability during initial target penetration, thus improving their lethality. Despite low initial velocity, retained velocity was 570 feet per second at 50 yards, which was deemed adequate. The 200-grain cartridge was adopted as the .380/200 Mark 1 in 1929. Specifications were 625 fps +/– 25 fps from a 5-inch barrel.
Western Cartridge Company in the US followed Kynoch’s developments with great interest because a heavy-bullet .38 S&W cartridge providing an “improved knockdown blow” was being requested by police to dispatch heavily armed criminals. So, in 1929 Western introduced its .38 Super Police, a direct copy of the new British service round, loaded with a 200-grain, blunt, soft lead, hemispherical-nosed bullet loaded with 2.5 grains of Hercules Infallible (similar to modern Unique) producing 610 fps and 166 ft.-lbs., capable of penetrating four 7/8” pine boards.
In 1937, the British Army lead-bullet MkI cartridge was replaced by the 178-grain FMJ Mk2 cartridge, to comply with the 1899 Hague Declaration. Remaining MkI cartridges were expended for marksmanship training and civilian law enforcement purposes. The .380 Mk.IIz cartridge with 178-grain FMJ bullet is still loaded by Chartered Industries of Singapore, Fiocchi and the India Ordnance Factories. Postwar commercial production Webley Mk. IV revolvers remained in service with police in Britain, Jordan, Israel, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia into the 1980's, and may still be found in Iraq, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.
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Outpost,
Thank you very much for this superb survey! I've read your articles of the past several years with great interest, but this digest is extremely useful as a "one-stop shopping" reference on this topic I hold so near and dear. I culled some great new info, to boot. Certainly, the British Army's thoughts on the combat use of revolvers by 1917-1918 remain worthy of consideration to this day, a century later. Anyone is his right mind today would greatly prefer to have Capt. Tracy on his side, rather than as an opponent in a handgun fight!
Questions: the British Army chose the slow 200g LRN with its tendency to tumble within the target, AND because they concluded this gun-ammunition combination would be readily controllable and adequately effective in the hands of hastily-trained conscripts. If I'm not mistaken, isn't your personal preference for a flat nose/large meplat and perhaps a bit more velocity? Since almost all surviving British military revolvers are regulated for the 178g Mk 2 FMJ load, I believe you prefer a 178-ish grain LFN to a 200g bullet, and your velocity preference is primarily a function of matching load to sights. Now, if the trajectory match weren't at issue, i.e. if ballistic performance and recoil management were your only concerns, would you prefer the 178g or the 200g? And why do you prefer the flat meplat and straight-line penetration over the tumbling hemispheric LRN?
Since I often carry 1-2 of these revolvers, in any combination of 2" and 4" barrels, I commonly 200g bullets in the snubs and 150-ish grain bullets in the 4" guns. The assumption is snub for instinctive shooting at extremely close ranges, thus trajectory and sights are non-issues; and a possibility of using the 4" gun for a longer shot that might profit from a close match between the load and my gunsights. In I framed snubs, I use slow, soft lead bullets which closely duplicate the Mk 1 hemispheric 200g load at about 575 fps over the chrony. In J frames, I typically load a harder cast 200g SWC at a true 600-640 fps (i.e. 640-675 from a 4" gun). I bump ("smush") the .28" meplat to about .32" before loading the bullets. Spare ammo is is loaded with 200g long-ogive hardcast LRN bullets whose profile somewhat resembles the Mk 2 178g bullet; they're loaded "slow" to tumble, and the long, tapered ogive provides ease of reloading. If that bullet is fast enough to stay nose-first, it'll pass through a target medium like an arrow and put very little of its energy to work inflicting much of a permanent crush cavity.
Thoughts on any or all of this are most welcome!
I prefer the flat-nosed bullet which combines good crush with dependable through and through penetration. That way I can depend upon shot placement and knowledge of anatomy to do the job, instead of wondering in what direction a tumbling bullet might or might not take. Bullet weight is solely dependent upon what shoots best to the sights of the particular revolver.
Attachment 239166Attachment 239167
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The 38/200 cartridge gets a lot of bad press from the tacticool mall ninja types, but those worthies don't seem willing to stand downrange and field the incoming bullets with baseball gloves in order to recycle the bullet metal.
I don't know whether or not the Lyman #358430 or the NEI #169A tumble after impact on live targets. I have shot a bunch of jackrabbits with both bullets, and started at 625-700 FPS both bullets exit with far more ragged wounding than I would expect to see from a RN bullet form exiting nose-first. Driven at 1100-1200 FPS, Lyman #358430 clearly runs straight-through, with exit wound characteristics that bear this out--and are far less ragged than those produced at lower velocity impacts. "What does it all mean, Mr. Natural?" It don't mean......jack.
Those heavier 38 bullets do produce a pretty solid impact on downrange iron. I have always noticed the "PA-TINK!" produced by my Lyman #358477 150 grain SWCs at 725-750 FPS at 25 yards (standard 38 S&W loading) vs. the "WHANG!" that results on the same targets when the 200 grain NEI #169A connects at 675-700 FPS. Lots more goes on with that heavier bullet. Net result? All of these calculations we use to quantify ballistic performance are lacking one or several elements of applicability for purposes of assessing a caliber--a bullet weight or form--or a weapon system used to keep one's frame unhit. Ya pays yer money and takes yer chances.
And NO, I won't be swapping out my Glock 23 for a Webley-Enfield as carjacker repellent.
I don't paint bullets. I like Black Rifle Coffee. Sacred cows are always fair game. California is to the United States what Syria is to Russia and North Korea is to China/South Korea/Japan--a Hermit Kingdom detached from the real world and led by delusional maniacs, an economic and social basket case sustained by "foreign" aid so as to not lose military bases.
Very interesting thread. Agree on the tacti-cool group, but I am hoping it is a generational thing and they will outgrow it. Quite tired of seeing nothing but black plastic pistols at local gun shows, row upon row, with very few older Smiths and Colts. I am mostly reloading cartridges developed before about 1908 - 32 S&W Long, 38 Special, and 44 Special. But upon reading this excellent thread y'all have gotten me thinking about Webleys and 38/200.
Louisianaman - I'm going to weigh in on your post #216 with a little bit more modern feedback.
I'm in the process of attempting to convince my agency to ditch the .40S&W in favor of 9mm. As such, I've been spending a lot of time picking through the current science on the topic. Most of that resulted from the FBI's '86 Miami shooting, and that's when they really started looking at the "Why?" of why some bad guys fell down and some didn't.
One of the things that's been largely debunked in this is the once-common notion of "knockdown" or "energy transfer". This is simple Newtonian equal/opposite reaction physics. If a handgun actually had the force to knock a man down on his backside, the recoil of the pistol would do the same to the man trying to shoot it.
We've also largely debunked hydrostatic effects from anything striking below 2000 fps. Below that speed, most human tissues are elastic enough to spring right back into shape, so all you really get from handguns is a bullet-diameter-sized permanent channel. At 600 fps there might be some yaw. . .some banana shape to the wound path. . .the bullet might swap ends 180 degrees and travel through the target backwards. . .but basically, you might get a .36 wide projectile travelling sideways briefly. A MKI bullet might, at times, present its .36" width x .812" length to the axis of the wound path, but there really isn't going to be any predictability to this.
Another concern I'd have with tumbling - does the bullet stay on line with what I'm shooting at? It would be darn inconvenient to line up a perfect heart shot through a sideways-presented torso, and have the bullet spin off line after encountering solid bone in the upper arm.
The major lesson we've learned since the Webley's heyday is that if you aren't causing bleed-out from major arteries or scrambling brains or upper spine, you aren't stopping the fight quickly, and that takes penetration to the Tootsie Roll Center.
So on this topic of tumbling - I don't WANT a projectile to be reliant on a lot of weird, "magic bullet" special effects. I want it to stay irrevocably on the line I launched it on, which hopefully I was skillful enough to make intersect with something important. If it happens to open up to 1.5x its original diameter with some nifty razor jacket petals on the way to being stopped by skin or clothing (or not) on the far side of the body, that's great, but I want that non-deviating penetration along the path I choose rather than the wobblings of random chance. To that end I would NOT select a bullet known to tumble, but would instead prefer something closer to the wadcutter profile that will tend to grab, tear, or crush tissue as far beyond it's basic diameter as possible. This will ensure not only maximum trauma, but maximum trauma on the line of sighting.
But at any rate, since I flat out don't believe the information on the 200 grain round nose MKI .38 bullet being a tumbler, I have just now elected to "pee on the electric fence for myself" and ordered a 4-cavity mold from NOE and these will be shot through a 1944 production Webley. I don't think we'll get more authentic than this. Don't know how long I'll be in getting around to it, but stand by to learn stuff!
WWJMBD?
In the Land of Oz, we cast with wheel weight and 2% Tin, Man.
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