PMC .38 Spl. Tubular Ammo

ZEVON88 · #1 08-20-2010, 09:52 AM

A couple of years ago my brother and I bought a lot of new old stock from a defunct gunshop. Among the goodies was an assortment of discontinued ammo of various calibers. I recently was going through what we had left and found two boxes of Ultramax .38spl ammo. Manufactured by PMC, and marked 38 J Special +P 66gr. Tubular. I remember these from back in the 80's or 90's. They weren't on the market long and I think they were banned since they were supposedly solid bronze tubing with a teflon plug base which fell away after being fired. They had sharp edges and got the nickname "cookie cutters". I think they are fairly rare these days. At first I was going to try a few at the range with thoughts of using them in a carry gun but the fact that they were banned and may be considered illegal, not to mention being pretty old changed my mind. Has anyone ever had any experience firing these rounds? Would they be of any value to cartridge collectors? Just wondering.

Kelly Green · #2 08-20-2010, 10:38 AM

I believe the UltraMax original .38 Special loadings with brass bullets is on the Fed banned ammo list. The copper plated and aluminum alloy bullets are OK by the Feds.

Model520Fan · #3 08-20-2010, 10:49 AM

I have heard rumors that some of the earlier ones may have been legislated against as "armor-piercing," but that later production differed and had been found by the ATF to be OK. Again, rumor-level reliability; I used to remember the details, but even then I did not have reliable documentation.

I can tell you for a fact that the later production is definitely not armor-piercing, armor being Kevlar in moderate amounts.

These rounds are very accurate in my 2.5" M19 and M66. They are rated +P. They shoot low, as would be expected of a very light bullet - I think about 2.5 revolutions (900 degrees) on the rear sight screw of a 2.5" K-frame. They don't drop much at distance.

AFAIK, PMC stopped producing them because the patent owner, Abe Flatau, came after them, and between the cost of not stealing and the modest sales, it wasn't worth it. They also made some in .44, which I wouldn't mind encountering.

I chrono'ed some out of my 2.5" Diamondback at 1446 fps; my 2.5" 19 gave 1387 fps, both with a standard deviation of velocity of 18 fps.

moxie · #4 08-20-2010, 03:51 PM

I shot a box of .44 Specials about 20 years ago. As I recall, they were very inaccurate and shot about 3 feet low at 21 feet. At 25 yds., forget about it.

CTG_COLLECTOR · #5 08-20-2010, 04:37 PM

The original PMC Ultramag load in 38Spl did use a brass alloy bullet that was declaired armor piercing by BATF. The 2nd Grn loading in 38Spl and 44Spl used a copper bullet to get around the AP designation.

This Tubular ammo is highly collectable and you can probably get $50-60 for a box or $2 per round if you can find the right people to buy the ammo a single round at a time.