I am a former LEO. Carried a S&W 15 as a duty weapon, and a 36 off-duty. That was during the days when they taught us to get two good shots off rather than bury ‘em with the brass. Standard issue ammo was 158 grain lead. I lived in Indiana and was given one of the first boxes of Super Vel. Without going into the whole story, two of us had an opportunity to shoot at a “fleeing” car. The 158 grain lead bullets put dents in the steel bumper. The 110 grain Super Vels punched nice holes through bumper. Wow, a new feeling of power. I, and several others, started carrying Super Vels. (The department eventually issued a policy addressing this.). Anyway, not knowing any better, I carried and shot Super Vels, and other +P ammo, in my Chiefs Special all the time.

I recently purchased another Model 36 (vintage 1979) and a newer Model 60. I've been poking around this forum for days reading about the different ammunition choices for self-defense and the "controversy" surrounding +P and standard loads, especially in older J-frames. Rather than being educated, I am confused.

Given my above experience, I’m not concerned so much about running a few +P rounds through my J-frames. Not too concerned about carrying them either. I’ve still got some 30 year old +P ammo, that I use for practicing. It’s probably alright, but I’m not comfortable depending on old ammo for carry.

Forgive me please if this has been posted, but is there a good article or chart that compares the muzzle velocities and pressures of modern .38 +P ammo with the standard velocity of the “old days?” Does anyone know a good source for specs on older ammunition?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Pocketman38,

Look over in the "reloading" forum section, and you will see two or three current threads addressing this exact issue.

Paging the Brotherhood . . .

You'll have to do some work yourself - there's apparently a conspiracy to hide the fact that .38 Specials went out of the factory at much greater pressures in the past than they do today.

Why don't you look at the velocities listed in the Speer loading manuals? They are taken from actual firearms with the barrel lengths listed. Look at how they've varied from, say, the Speer # 8 Manual to whatever fish wrapper they've published lately.

As for pressures, well, it's well established when SAAMI set present-day pressure levels for the .38 Spl and .38 Spl +P. You might look at old _Handloader_ articles to see how things were in days of yore. nkjnut has an amazing _Handloader_ collection, but he's out at a show this weekend.

This does not fully answer your question, but may be useful.
About the only way to be sure of the comparison is to take the various ammo samples and run them through a specific gun and measure the velocity with a chrono. A strain gauge can be put on to get a RELATIVE measure of pressure.

A lot of the old data are from test barrels, which are minimum chambers and give higher vel. Older tables I have going back to the 70s are in CUP; there is no standard universal way to convert CUP to PSI. It varies from cartridge to cartridge and one test setup to another. Thus data from the old charts often cannot be compared directly to new charts.

Then there is the problem that different powders and bullet sizes cause different problems in various revolvers.

I have one old model 14 I bought in 1973 and have shot a truckload of standard .38 through it in practice and competition. It is as tight as new. The best advice I ever got about wanting to shoot a steady diet of hot +P was to buy a 686 and blast away. I bought one of the first 686s.

quote:

Forgive me please if this has been posted, but is there a good article or chart that compares the muzzle velocities and pressures of modern .38 +P ammo with the standard velocity of the “old days?”

Pocketman,

Welcome to the forum. That's the experience and attitude we need here!

Your question was asked before and some of us, myself included, would have been very interested to find this data. But aparently it does not exist. Stiab on this forum is gearing up to do it himself and the rest of us are looking forward to see his data. Check out pages 9 and 10 of this thread.

BTW, if you have 30 yr old factory ammo - we should talk... There are better ways to use it, you know, than practice with it

Mike

quote:

Why don't you look at the velocities listed in the Speer loading manuals? They are taken from actual firearms with the barrel lengths listed. Look at how they've varied from, say, the Speer # 8 Manual ....

Sir, I'd be very careful about using any data from the older Speer manuals. In my Speer No. 11 manual, page 86, Speer says:

"The data in the Number Eight and earlier Manuals was based on primer appearance, ease of extraction, and case head expansion."

No pressure barrels. That might explain the hot loads listed in the No. 8 and earlier manuals and the lighter loads in the later manuals.

Hope this helps, and Semper Fi.

Ron H.

quote:

...Stiab on this forum is gearing up to do it himself and the rest of us are looking forward to see his data.

Holy Moly! I just read the entire thread and am impressed with the weapon and Stiab's willingness to go through this exercise. It's obviously expensive and I know what happens to my hand after 50-100 rounds.

Some of the other postings in the thread touch on my original question about modern +P compared to older standard loads. A lot of useful information.

Thanks Mike for pointing this out to me.

Sure, Pocketman. Note though that it's our moderator Osprey (not Stiab) who is killing his shooting wing

Ron, that's an interested find indeed. At least we now know that at some point Speer felt compeled to explain the differences between their manuals to reloading public.

It is particularly interesting because there was an article in Speer #5 arguing in part that one should rely on appearance of the primers and on extraction for top loads development. Their point was that knowing pressure in the test barrel tells one little about pressure in one's gun with the components one uses. Here is a link to the first page .

Mike

What we'll apparently never hear is an explanation of why S&W and Colt advertised for years that their revolvers were safe with .38-44 ammunition with pressures up around 30k psi, but then suddenly SAAMI came up with astonishingly anemic "maximum" loads in the early '70s. No one has yet come forth with a protocol that SAAMI used to determine what was "safe" or why the loads people had been using for 40 years were suddenly unsafe. Though we lack that, we certainly don't lack for Chicken Littles to run around telling how some manual they read now claims that what folks had been doing for decades was unsafe.

Perhaps they made better steel in the '30s, '40s, '50s and '60s than they do now. Or perhaps it's all a bunch of nonsense.

quote:

Sir, I'd be very careful about using any data from the older Speer manuals.

And, if you'll more carefully read what I wrote, I was suggesting the Speer # 8 as a data source for determining velocities with old loads (something which the original poster requested), NOT advocating it as a reloading resource.

Sorry if I sound grumpy, but I want to be clear: I do NOT advocate that anyone do ANY reloading practices at all (I figure that all you adults out there can do what you have determined is sensible and don't need my advice), and I will not let implications that I somehow am advocating something dangerous go unchallenged. (If that was not what you were implying, than my challenge to the perceived implication will not trouble you. )

Again, I did NOT say to USE Speer # 8; I said that the velocity data contained therein might be of interest to the OP - who was asking about old-time load velocities. (Whether one should use the Speer # 8 is a question addressed elsewhere and best left up to the free will and grown-up brains of the responsible adult reloaders out there.)

Speculation - There was a time in decades past when manufacturers would make the assumption that someone buying their products would use them as intended and would undertake to learn what they needed to know. Many early single action revolvers, due to the mechanics of their design, needed to be carried with an empty chamber under the hammer for safety and the makers rightly assumed someone planning to carry one knew or could be expected to know that.

Along those same lines, higher preasure ammunition could be sold for use
in "appropriate" firearms secure in the knowledge that no one would be uninformed enough to fire it in a weak, poor quality top break revolver. "Everybody" knew that.

Today, with our excess of hungry litigants, any company making such assumptions about it's customers would soon be sued into receivership, and thus the rise of the "lowest common denomenator". Now companies must assume that if a cartridge can be put into the chamber, somebody out there will do it and pull the trigger. Their only choice is to make standardized ammo weak enough for use in any firearm ever chambered for it. What the knowledgeable consumer might prefer is overridden by concerns about liability.

quote:

... we certainly don't lack for Chicken Littles to run around telling how some manual they read now claims that what folks had been doing for decades was unsafe.

Sir, call me "Chicken Little" if you wish, but I'll continue to err on the side of caution, thank you very much.

Semper Fi,

Ron H.

quote:

I was suggesting the Speer # 8 as a data source for determining velocities with old loads (something which the original poster requested),

It did not sound that way to me, I thought the original poster was asking specifically about FACTORY ammo. But I could be wrong.

In the late 1970's the industry changed the methods of testing FACTORY ammo and for revolvers went from long unvented barrels to 4" vented barrels. The previous unrealistic published velocities naturally dropped down to realistic numbers that everyday shooters of factory ammo could expect to achieve. But, some interpret that as lowering the power of the loads, when it was just giving honest results.

Stiab,

Not sure the contention here is about velocities of factory ammo. Sad state of affairs is that until you publish results of your upcoming test - there is no data to contend with

Most concerns, I think, is about load levels in old and new reloading manuals. As you had said in another thread we all know about it. Some of us do believe that those differences would be reflected in factory ammo levels; some don't. I guess your ol' chrony will be a judge of that...

Mike

quote:

In my Speer No. 11 manual, page 86, Speer says:

"The data in the Number Eight and earlier Manuals was based on primer appearance, ease of extraction, and case head expansion."

The Bible Speer#8 problematic no way? Ya right!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: dennis40x,