What do you think of this old load for .38 special +P? With a 125 grain jacketed bullet, most load data today cuts off at 6 grains of Unique. Years ago I got some info from an old Sierra book, which I think catered to handgunner hunting loads at longer ranges. In other words, really stiff. The +P data was separate from the ordinary .38 special data. The starting load for +P was 6.4 grains of Unique and maxed at 7 grains of Unique.

I loaded a cylinderful of 6.4 grain jobs and went to the range.

BLAM!!!!!!

I didn't feel like the load was dangerous, but it definitely startled me and I decided to drop back to 6.2 grains as a max load. The question is, what would a 7 grain load have been like in my model 10?

I can test the load in my 686 and get some idea of the effect, but I can't help but think that this would be in the danger zone for a .38. I'll load up a few and try it.

In the meantime for your consideration. This gives me the impression that strong, modern guns are capable of much more than reloading books indicate. Now I'm NOT taking that as a license to increase my max loads for anything that isn't in a reliable data source. But I do wonder if that was a 'blast from the past' of what police .38s felt like in say, the 60s.

In the meantime, what do you guys think of a .38 special 125 grain jhp with 7 grains of Unique? Two full grains over the given max nowadays. Do any of you old timers that were reloading in the early 70's have any feel for this?

PS: This is for conversation only. In no way do I advocate using anything but modern, proven data for reloading.

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