Guys, I had so much fun doing the .357-Magnum muzzle flash photos that I couldn't wait to try some more pics, only this time I shot some .38-Special (factory and reloaded ammo) from a Model 442 Airweight Centennial. Thank God there was no rain this evening! No adjustments were made to the exposures on any of the following pics, other than a little bit of cropping.

I was very interested to see what the muzzle flash would look like from Speer's 135-gr +P Gold Dot Short Barrel ammo.



And also a factory load of Remington Express .38 +P LSWC, which has no hollow point but is basically the exact same velocity performance as the FBI load.



Here is my personal favorite load for my 442. Unique 5.0-gr under a 148-gr cast BBDEWC.



And finally, a 158-gr LSWC over some Titegroup.



I hope to continue doing these photo shoots for anyone who shows an interest.

Cordially,

Dave (nitesite)

who needs NIGHT? this is a heavy H110 load in .22 Jet. BTW, that is an
8 3/8 barrel...



that's why I use this tag....


Terry

Dave,

I appreciate and am interested in what you're doing a great deal, and have a question which is somewhat related, though a bit afield.

Among those of us who are vitally concerned about self-defense and particularly home defense, there is much discussion about the effects on the shooter's eyesight of firing in the dark; in other words, does muzzle flash 'blind' the shooter to the degree of greatly hampering his/her ability to make hits with follow-up shots. I'm wondering what you've experienced in this respect as you've compared the flash of various loads. Maybe since that was not what was on your mind you haven't paid much attention. But if you've noticed anything noteworthy about the effect on your sight, I'm interested in hearing about it.

Thank you.
Andy

Very interesting and informative. Keep up the good work.

I use a similar 148 gr WC and Unique load for my 642. I'm real surprised (and very pleased) it doesn't have more flash.

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Andy

Great photos! The first one looks like a bird in flight at a vertical straight up) angle.

Good thing I wasn't into guns in the late 60's early 70's

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Still Running Against the Wind

If I can find the end of my pistol/revolver and place it on my target, I pull the trigger. The flash lets me see a sight picture at the moment of discharge. If I don't like what I saw, a correction is made and I fire again. Interval between shots is .2 to .5 second. Some ball powder may flash enough to blind but I have never had a problem with military small arms or any thing I have shot as a civilian.

Those are really cool pics. What kind of camera, film, etc are you using?

Great results, Dave. AFAIK noone yet has systematically looked at muzzle flash of different loads under the same conditions. I find your pictures very informative. For example, I would have never thought that Speer 135 gr. SB load makes more flash in 2" snub than Remington full house magnums in 4-incher. Target wadcutters look very attractive - almost no flash to speak of.

Great job!

Mike

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9x19, 9x29R, 9x33R, 10x22

The 148 gr DEWC/Unique load he photographed chronos around 1000 fps out of a 1 7/8" barrel (or at least my version of that load does). It's as accurate as a "Target" load but can legitimately be carried for SD. The low flash characteristics demonstrated in the photo reinforce that potential use.

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Andy

Super good photos. Thanks for taking the time to do the short barrel. It is pretty amazing to compare them to your earlier post with the longer barrel. I'd have thought that the snub nose would have a lot more flash compared to the longer barrel, but the photos don't show it.

How long was the barrel in you 357 in the last post?

Andy,

"Target wadcutters" is just a name. It is of course one of the classical SD loads for belly guns.

Can you check on the velocity number you reported above? Thought this load was much slower than 1000 fps.

Mike

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9x19, 9x29R, 9x33R, 10x22

I'm not Dave but I've done a lot of shooting in low light conditions and have a thought or two.

Having done a lot of shooting in poor light,I can say that there is an element of truth that inspires the concern about muzzle flash but it's FAR OVERRATED.In the first place,one who shoots in pitch black darkness is foolish.In the second place,when one is even moderately trained,his piece will be brought back to the original position immediately after recoil recovery.In the third place,flash has nowhere near the blinding effect that is spoken of when done in low light.

I base this on experience and not theory.

Great post, thanks for putting so many excellent pictures up. After looking at your pictures I would wonder what the flash of a heavy load of 296 in my 357 would look like, with a 125 grain bullet the recoil is not that bad but the mussel blast is something else.

Thanks again for the pictures.

Troy

Great photos. How were you able to "time" the camera lense to be open at just that instant (I am not a camera guy)?

wyo-man

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Live free or die

I greatly appreciate the encouragement and the nice compliments.

To capture the moment, I used a Canon 30D DSLR camera, which I pre-focused during the last hour of daylight. To pre-focus and maintain the focal plane, I stuck a steel target stand in the ground which looks like an upper case "H" turned sideways and welded to a steel upright rod. That way, I had a repeatable reference point over which I could aim the guns. And the arms of the stand were pointed directly at the backstop (a round hay bale about six feet away) so it was easy to maintain the flat plane and height necessary to be in the zone of focus.

I set the camera in MANUAL mode and set the self-timer so the shutter would trip several seconds after I pushed the button. Since the focus was manually set and not on "auto-focus" it didn't matter if there was light or not for the camera's focus to be just about dead on.

The camera was approximately 3.5-feet from the steel target stand that I used as a constant reference point. I set the ISO to 640 and the aperture to f/4.5 with a one-second exposure time.

A small flashlight was used off to the side to illuminate the hay bale so I could actually see the backstop and also hold the guns directly over the silhouetted target stand.

All it takes then is to press the shutter release, and a little white LED on the camera starts to blink. I then get the gun over the top of the stand and wait.

My camera in self-timer mode blinks eight times, followed by a half-second steady light, and when the steady light turns off the shutter trips open for one second. With hearing protection on, I can't hear the shutter open but I can see that the light just went out and one-second is plenty of time to pull the trigger.

Since the camera doesn't move between shots and there is a vertical and horizontal reference to hold the guns over, I can take about five new photos every minute and I know I have the moments captured on "film".

I use Photoshop Elements 5.0 to crop the image a tiny bit based on the length of the flash signature, and change the image size to 600-pixels wide and just let the results speak for themselves.

Pretty simple, isn't it?

Thank you all, again, for your replies. I've enjoyed doing it.

Hoptob, you are correct that that Unique load won't clock 1000-fps.

But the cast 148 DEWC and Unique makes for one fine snub load.

And for anyone interested, I can tell you that not only from this photography experiment but additionally from some law enforcement and military duty, I have never been BLINDED from muzzle flash in the scenarios I have photographed (even momentarily).

Best wishes to you all. If any of you have some suggestions I am all ears!

Dave (nitesite)

Mike,
With 5.1 gr Unique and TVB 148 gr. DEWC I got an average of 963 fps @ 15' out of my M642 with 1 7/8" barrel. So actually a little under 1000 fps... but still a very capable load. A comparable load using 5.0 gr. Universal with the same bullet averaged 1009 fps out of a M19 with 2 1/2" barrel. I don't feed my 642 a steady diet of either of these loads. I'm not sure the aluminum J frame would hold up to it. It's a handful. But it does put a lot of knockdown power in a lightweight pocket gun.

For anyone wanting to duplicate this load- please work up to this load with caution. IMO It is at the top edge of 38 +p data...

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Andy

Nice pics and interesting topic. If you don't mind I'll post this one of my son shooting my 629 3" with factory loads.
I caught this one in daylight a few years ago. enjoy!

Great shots! hope you don't mind me popping one in.

629 Classic 8 3/8", 13.7 grains of ADI AP-100 and 240 grain plated projectile (maybe Berry's, don't quite remember).



Cheers,

Yes, please keep up the great work! It is good to see 'real life' photos and hear about the fallacy of night blindness! This is real world stuff!

If you can't shoot them, burn them.

Sorry. I thought that I had mentioned that the .357-Magnum photos were done with a 4" Model 686.

I have a 6" .357 Magnum revolver but I thought there would be a bit more interest with the 2-inch and 4-inch guns.

I appreciate everyone's participation and interest in both threads!

Excellent post. Thanks for the hard work. Don

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"Don't worry be happy"

Great pictures everyone. I think that if your doing near total darkness photos, the length of time you leave the shutter open will not make too much difference, except that you'd catch all the flashes. If that makes since. I'm still experimenting with Digital Photography, but I know with film you can do this. I used to do night shots where I'd open the shutter for long periods and walk around with a flash and 'paint' various objects. I'd have the shutter open a minute or more, if memory serves me. I noticed in some of your pictures the lines, which I'm guessing is pieces of powder burning after it came out the barrel. I'd be interested if a longer exposure didn't illuminate more of this. Nice when you can combine two hobbies.