I recently happened upon the motivation to pursue loading .38 specials with black powder, to try and capture the original performance of my long favorite "do anything" cartridge.
I loaded a .38 special case with 13 grains of Pyrodex RS powder (FFG equivalent, or so it says on the bottle), underneath a 190 grain Ranch Dog tumble lubed bullet.
This being my first black powder cartridge load (I have no other experience with black powder, save for model rocketry), I had no idea what to expect. I used my Smith model 13, and was very pleased with the results. The performance matched or exceeded my light "cat sneeze" IDPA loads, and judging from how it knocked my steel plate around, it was on par with standard non plus-p .38s.
Has anyone any experience in this? I am curious if a more compressed load, or the use of FFFG powder would make better results, or if it could yield a broken gun and a broken ego.
Thank you for your feedback, I'm "shooting in the dark" at this point, but having fun at any rate.