Freedom Munitions has
38 Special 125 gr. XTP Hornady Average Velocity: 1025 fps. This is ammunition loaded with Hornady XTP Bullets by Freedom Munitions. Would you trust these to expand and fill your need for a carry load for 1 7/8 inch and 3 inch J frames? These are loaded to Freedom's specs. Velocity, if true, should still be over 900 fps even in the shorter barrels, right? Does this seem overly fast as it is not labeled + P ?

From what length barrel do they make 1025 FPS? Their website does not mention anywhere on their specs page. Typically 4" barrels are used. So the question is how will it perform from your noted barrel lengths. In the end it is dependent on velocity, which is a guess, but 900 or less is a fair assumption. It does not matter who makes the loaded round, as long as velocity is known. If you go here Snubby .38 Special Ballistics and scroll down to this bullet in Hornady's load you will see the speed and a failure to expand, causing extra penetration indicative of perhaps a failure to dump energy. If you want a bullet to penetrate without expansion, you don't need a fancy bullet to do that. Scroll down further to the Speer 135g (their short barrel HP) and see what it looks like. Granted it is a simplistic test, but it may give some insight as to the proper operating velocities of these bullets under similar circumstances. If a bullet won't expand in a jug of water at a particular velocity, I'm not sure where it will expand. But this is not to say the bullets that worked well here will work reliably in the real world, or in clothing tests-YMMV. there are several good threads on this forum recently about short barrel 38 rounds.

From this site Hornady says only 800fps to expand. http://www.hornady.com/assets/files/...ts_handgun.pdf

I'm sticking with Hornady's American Gunner 38 Specials.

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Loyalty Above All.. but Honor

I'm very pleased with the FM XTP loading for the .380. In fact, it's my carry load but when it comes to .38 special I still trust the Speer +P short barrel to get the job done out of a J frame. There is just too much evidence that it works to mess with anything else.

I use almost exclusively Freedom Munitions ammo for all my guns for plinking, range work, steel challenge, USPA. But for SD rounds I only use Speer or Hornady JHPs. The weight of the round and the caliber, and barrel length figures in to which exact round I use. I always use Speer SBJHP for my snubbies.

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John 1:17
NRA Life Benefactor

I called Freedom and they test with a 6 in barrel. Looking at ballistic charts, it seems that fps out of a 6 in vs a 4 in barrel are very close. Is that true? It then drops about 100 fps with a 2 in barrel. Mainly looking for a just in case stash if a SHTF situation hit and it was that or my FMJ when the Gold Dots ran out. Just a cheap insurance policy that I hope to never use .