Metal Penetrating

My friend’s dad was old school. If you had given him a dictionary he most likely would have used it to beat a confession out of a suspect or two. When I was in high school people drove VW Bugs, Ford Pintos, and Chevy Vegas. I am fairly certain those engine blocks weren’t bullet resistant, for very long. He had a Ithaca Roadblocker 10 gauge for serious social situations.

I found the cartridges.
 

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ColbyBruce said:
My friend’s dad was old school. If you had given him a dictionary he most likely would have used it to beat a confession out of a suspect or two. When I was in high school people drove VW Bugs, Ford Pintos, and Chevy Vegas. I am fairly certain those engine blocks weren’t bullet resistant, for very long. He had a Ithaca Roadblocker 10 gauge for serious social situations.

I found the cartridges.
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This thread had me thinking about the Roadblocker. Almost bought one from CheaperThanDirt back in the mid 90s. Wish I had.
 
DWalt said:
Shooting through the engine block is complete nonsense. A hit on 90% of an engine’s area with a handgun would do little to stop it immediately. The purpose is to penetrate into the passenger compartment.
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Back in the day there was always some buzz about shooting engine blocks. Most of this was cop scuttlebutt and had little basis in fact. Most of the reality revolved around the 12 gauge shotgun with slugs being able to penetrate through a car door and still do damage. In the real world most all police shotguns were loaded with buck shot and revolvers were loaded with semi-jacketed bullets or hollowpoints so none of this meant anything when the chips were down.
 
Retired W4 said:
While we're at it, any body use this stuff back in the day?

200 gr. Super Police. Yikes!
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"Yikes"???? Have you ever shot any?

The first .38 Special Super Police ammunition I had was in 1960 or so. Later I did find a box of the Winchester load as pictured which gave me enough to chronograph. The average velocity obtained from a 5" M&P when I shot some of these overr my chronograph was 525 FPS, hardly "super" in any way! I don't recall what the published velocity for this load was, but it was significantly higher than the 525 FPS! LMAO.

The original "Super Police" load was the same bullet weight loaded in the original .38 S&W, which apparently was the inspiration for the British .38-200 load during WWII.

The .38 Special Super Police load can be easily duplicated with the 195gr. version of the Lyman 358430 bullet. This mold came in two weights, 150gr. and 195gr. Night Owl Molds has a 197gr. mold close to the Lyman 358430.
 
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BE Mike said:
Back in the day there was always some buzz about shooting engine blocks.
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Absolute BS!!! For years I have loaded .357 equivalent to the original Winchester load. This is a 158 cast SWC, Win SPM, 15.3gr. 2400. I use the Lyman 358156 which is a close approximation of the original Phil Sharpe bullet used by Winchester in a slightly modified form. This chronographs 1525 FPS from a 8 3/8" model 27. Information on the original Win factory load came from Phil Sharpe's book "Complete Guide to Handloading", The chapter on developing of the .357 Magnum cartridge.

More than once I have come across an auto engine laying out in the Utah desert and have shot the engine block. So far I have never been able to damage any portion of any of these no matter where on the block I have placed the shot! I once found an old cast iron bathtub and shot at it too, same result as the engine blocks, no damage! In each case the engine shots were fired at less than 5 feet, the bathtub about 15 feet.
 
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Alk8944 said:
"Yikes"???? Have you ever shot any?

The first .38 Special Super Police ammunition I had was in 1960 or so. Later I did find a box of the Winchester load as pictured which gave me enough to chronograph. The average velocity obtained from a 5" M&P when I shot some of these overr my chronograph was 525 FPS, hardly "super" in any way! I don't recall what the published velocity for this load was, but it was significantly higher than the 525 FPS! LMAO.

The original "Super Police" load was the same bullet weight loaded in the original .38 S&W, which apparently was the inspiration for the British .38-200 load during WWII.

The .38 Special Super Police load can be easily duplicated with the 195gr. version of the Lyman 358430 bullet. This mold came in two weights, 150gr. and 195gr. Night Owl Molds has a 197gr. mold close to the Lyman 358430.
Click to expand...

When you get velocities in that range, I'd be very concerned about a bullet sticking in the barrel. I would also be very careful of my backstop or berm. Bullets that slow hitting a hard object may come right back to you.
 
Alk8944 said:
"Yikes"???? Have you ever shot any?

The first .38 Special Super Police ammunition I had was in 1960 or so. Later I did find a box of the Winchester load as pictured which gave me enough to chronograph. The average velocity obtained from a 5" M&P when I shot some of these overr my chronograph was 525 FPS, hardly "super" in any way! I don't recall what the published velocity for this load was, but it was significantly higher than the 525 FPS! LMAO.

The original "Super Police" load was the same bullet weight loaded in the original .38 S&W, which apparently was the inspiration for the British .38-200 load during WWII.

The .38 Special Super Police load can be easily duplicated with the 195gr. version of the Lyman 358430 bullet. This mold came in two weights, 150gr. and 195gr. Night Owl Molds has a 197gr. mold close to the Lyman 358430.
Click to expand...

Velocities slightly above a squib round.:rolleyes:

I like stuff like this more for it's curio/collector value. Days gone by.
 
Alk8944 said:
"Yikes"???? Have you ever shot any?

The first .38 Special Super Police ammunition I had was in 1960 or so. Later I did find a box of the Winchester load as pictured which gave me enough to chronograph. The average velocity obtained from a 5" M&P when I shot some of these overr my chronograph was 525 FPS, hardly "super" in any way! I don't recall what the published velocity for this load was, but it was significantly higher than the 525 FPS! LMAO.

The original "Super Police" load was the same bullet weight loaded in the original .38 S&W, which apparently was the inspiration for the British .38-200 load during WWII.

The .38 Special Super Police load can be easily duplicated with the 195gr. version of the Lyman 358430 bullet. This mold came in two weights, 150gr. and 195gr. Night Owl Molds has a 197gr. mold close to the Lyman 358430.
Click to expand...

I'd have to look through some old GUN DIGESTs to be sure, but I think published velocity was around 730 fps, pretty puny considering most "real" guns probably wouldn't achieve such a velocity.
 
There's been a lot of nostalgic recollections about the R-P and WW 'metal piercing' .38 and .357 rounds.
I believe their biggest selling point was how they looked in the 6 and 12 round belt-mounted cartridge slides on the Sam Browne belts of old.... - all shiny and pointy!

An older officer I worked with many years ago who was there long before our city exploded in population told of walking into a well-known long-time pawn shop on his downtown 'walking beat'.
A standard practice once young officers were considered no longer quite 'wet behind the ears' was to go there to equip their issued duty revolver (his was a surplused S&W 'Victory model' .38) with two (2) things - a set of aftermarket imitation Pearl or Ivory grips and 6 to 12 rounds of the .38 Spl. 'Super Police' ammo.
Issue ammo was, of course the 158 gr. RNL, and the 200 gr. 'Super Police' HAD to be 'more powerful', right? ;)
There was no wealth of knowledge then on any of this - just some well accepted assumptions.....
 
April fools month

I picked up this box at Wally World this week. Thought I'd have some fun with them...

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Seriously though, I bought this box a few years ago as a collector. I had never seen one and liked it.

Just designed for car bodies.
 

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ColbyBruce said:
Years ago a friend of mine gave me a box of cartridges like these below. His dad was a high-ranking GSP officer and said these were used to shoot up engine blocks in fleeing vehicles. He called them “Arcane” loads.
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Actually, at one time, there was an "Arcane" ammo brand , I believe it was French. I saw a few-very few- boxes over here. They were famous for very high performance 9 mm ammunition that featured a light, monolithic bullet at something around/over 2000 f/s from a BHP. They would pierce the body armor of the day and zipped through car bodies well. That and similar loads were very popular with the European counter terrorist folks during the 1980s.

Engine blocks......no, that's urban legend.

BTW, I've lost my old catalogs, but IIRC, the claimed Super Police velocity was 703 f/s. That's exactly what a mid '60s Lyman manual got in their factory ammo test for that load from Western in a 6 inch barrel. I later figured out that was to make the POI the same as the standard 158gr LRN. There was room in the pressure envelop for much higher velocity. But you also get a much higher POI.
 
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sjbrdn said:
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Seriously though, I bought this box a few years ago as a collector. I had never seen one and liked it.

.[/QUOTE
One of my mentors and I played with some of those in the 60s. I had a 6 in. Python and he had a 8 3/8 in. barrel S&W. They wouldn't penetrate any more than a hard 158 gr. SWC. Either load would shoot through a car tire wheel.
I only know of only 2 other experiences shooting other vehicle parts. My mentor accidently knocked a hole in his Red Belly Ford engine with his S&W and I knocked a hole in a DeSota transmission case with my Python with a hard cast 158 gr. SWC, 15 gr. 2400 in a .357 case. Larry
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sjbrdn said:
I picked up this box at Wally World this week. Thought I'd have some fun with them...

attachment.php


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Seriously though, I bought this box a few years ago as a collector. I had never seen one and liked it.

Just designed for car bodies.
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I'll be putting some out at the next ATL Expo show (May 6).
 
According to the 1975 Gun Digest: .38 Special Super Police 200 grain had a muzzle velocity of 730 fps, the .357 Magnum Metal Piercing 158 grain had a muzzle velocity of 1410 fps.
 
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Arcane

Alk8944 said:
Arcane means secret or mysterious, like Masonic rituals or some church rituals. Hardly applies to ammunition. He needed a dictionary!:D
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I still remember reading about those in the NRA magazine years ago.
IIRC they are French-made, and the bullets were solid copper.
 
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