The great impact pictures of the water jugs, impact pictures in the 9mm thread too, were taken by my Mom who is also a shooter & S&W junkie.

Hornady Critical Defense .38 special 110 gr +P

S&W 442

bullet recovered in the 3rd water jug
weight of the recovered bullet 108 grs
recovered bullet's diameter .527"

BEFORE




AFTER

Thank you - good pictures, data, and report.

Good pics, I carry this in my 642 on ocassion groups well for me.

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Take it easy. Chris

I started carrying this load in my 642. Nice to see it lives up to the hype.

Cool stuff! Thanks.

Awesome! That's excellent expansion and weight retention from that bullet, picture perfect really.

Thanks for your effort.

Good pics and report!

Doesnt look like the expanded bullet is much bigger than the original diameter!!!!

Did you chrono them by chance?

Here is a better picture of the bullet. Coming from a 2" barrel, it expanded to .527" which is pretty good.

Nah, I haven't chronoed them yet. I plan on doing the same water test on them as above except from a 4", and then a 6" barreled gun to see how the bullets will react/hold up. I may bring out the chrono when I do those tests.

I wouldn't want a bullet that light to expand any bigger. It would likely underpenetrate. My tests have shown me that Hornady's engineers clearly understand that and design their bullets accordingly.

Lobo,
I understand recoil is a subjective thing, but how would you rate the recoil of this load in your 442?
I shoot / carry the Remington 158 LSWHP +P, and have thought of moving to a lighter (weight) load to save my wrist some agony.

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Eric

They're not too bad. IMHO, the load you are using now is a good bit stiffer than the lighter Hornadys. I think your wrist would be happy with the swap

Mmmmm.... looks nice, hafta go shopping.

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Don't need no stinkin' sigline

Thanks for the pictures and report.

I would buy the Hornady CD ammo in a second if it came with a heavier bullet. I'm not a fan of light for caliber bullets. I consider a 110gr bullet in a .38 Special too light.

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Freedom is never free!!
SWCA #3437

Not in DPX! The bullet extends "fingers", not a full mushroom. There is much less frontal surface area, so the bullet doesn't "put on the brakes" nearly as hard, thus it can penetrate deeper.

FWIW, I consider, Hornady CD decent, but, IMO, DPX is peerless in that caliber.

For more info, see the Perma-Gel Test Results thread.

Is that bullet being shot out of a revolver?

The first post says Lobo used a S&W 442, so yes it was fired from a revolver.

I agree with you.

On the box I have, it lists the velocity as 1200+ fps. Is that anywhere close to right?

Mine did too so I emailed Hornady a while back to find out. The correct velocity is 1090 fps. The typo wasn't noticed until some of the first shipments had already left.

I just bought some Hornady CD ammo last week for my model 60 glad I did now great test good job

LOBO:
Thanks for posting that test.

I carry the std version of this in my LCR, and it's what's in the Model 28 on my bed-side table. I haven't been able to find any of the +P around here, just the std. 38.

Looking at the ballistic specs on the Hornady site, there really isn't much difference between the std 38 Critical Defense load and the +P. Standard is 1010 fps from a 4" vented test barrel and the +P is 1090 fps.

Thanks for posting that, quite good.

Do you know what the POI and accuracy is with that load out of a fixed sight 2" J frame at 15-25 yards?

No I don't, but at 10 yards poa/poi has been the same for me.