If you cannot find any U.S.-made commercial wadcutters you may have to load your own cartridges. We always aimed for 750-775 FPS with our handloads and had very few problems - as long as the gun was kept clean and lightly lubricated with LSA or similar.

My particular 52 seems to have a tight chamber. The failures I've had with my gun were always failures to return fully to battery, which is probably a tired recoil spring, rather than one that is too heavy - or not-to-spec ammunition. I started checking every round with a maximum ammunition gage and my fail to return to battery problems decreased dramatically, but did not go away entirely. A bit more experimenting later I determined I was probably to blame for the remaining trouble. Even though a light recoiling gun, 52s do seem to require a pretty firm grip. When I put a Pachmayr grip on my 52 (and checked my ammo), that seemed to cure my problems, so I imagine my shot-to-shot grip on the pistol may not have been as perfect/uniform as it should have been. I didn't care for the feel of the Pachmayrs though and eventually replaced them with the standard stocks and a Hogue Handall, which is an ugly but comfortable combination for me.

Some 52 shooters will trim their brass slightly shorter than the usual trim-to length and they claim that aids function with touchy guns. (1.140" or so) I have never tried it but intend to the next time I start shooting my 52 again. Another common "52 trick" is to use .38 brass that came from factory wadcutters rather than .38 service loads. The theory is that there is some slight difference between the two and I believe that is the case with both the R-P and W-W brass that I was using at the time.