130 grn Wincherster Hardball was designed by the Army when they started shooting light weight K frames.
They are quite mild. I had a bunch when I was shooting for the NG. They were accurage enough and you'll only notice the inpact change at 25 yards and further. At 50 yards you can really see the difference.
Noooooooo ... the 130 gr. was designed by the U.S. Air Force in the 1950s. At the time, the USAF had a .38 snubnose revolver with an aluminum cylinder and barrel.
Up to the early 1950s, the standard .38 Special military load had been a 158 gr. (+ - a few grains) full metal jacketed bullet.
This was too powerful for the light, all-aluminum .38 snubby, so the USAF adopted a lower-powered load: 130 gr. FMJ at about 725 to 750 fps. The all-aluminum .38 snubby proved to be a fiasco, so it was abandoned. But the weaker load was retained for the Air Force's all-steel S&W Model 15 .38 revolvers.
I carried that weak, 130 gr. load in the Air Force for four years, as a Security Policeman. The wadcutters we qualified with had more oomph.
I knew a sergeant who fired at a fleeing vehicle at Clark Air Force Base, Philippines, with the 130 gr. load. He hit the car four times. He emphasized that all the 130 gr. FMJ bullets bounced off the trunk and rear window.
Not a good thing to tell young troops under his charge; we all wondered how our .38s would fare against an aggressor if we had to use them.
In the mid 1970s, Speer made a 150 gr. FMJ +P load. It's the load that the military should have adopted in the first place for its Model 10 and 15 .38 Specials.
I carried them in my Model 15 in Panama when things were hot 1977-78, never telling anyone. Thankfully, I never had to use that (civilian) load or USAF would have hung the rigging on me. Gave me greater confidence with it, though.
The 130 gr. FMJ was an Air Force invention. The USAF adopted the .38 Special as its primary sidearm in 1962, giving up the 1911 .45 ACP.
It's said that Gen. Curtis LeMay, a longtime pistol shooter, decided to abandon the .45 in his USAF because scores were so low and the 1911s were getting worn (at the time, the last military 1911s had been made in World War II).
LeMay wanted his cops to be accurate shooters, so he had the Smith & Wesson Combat Masterpiece .38 Special (later named the Model 15 by S&W) adopted as the official USAF sidearm. I very much liked mine; it was a wonderful sidearm -- hampered only by the weak ammo we were forced to carry.
In the early 1980s, the Air Force finally recognized this failing and adopted a 130 gr. FMJ load with a deeper-seated bullet that gave it much higher velocity. I think it was around 950 to 1,000 fps.
God knows why the factories continue to make the 130 FMJ load. The US military declared the .38 Special obsolete about 1992; the M9 Beretta replaced it.
The .38 may see limited use in the U.S. military, but I doubt it. All those beautiful USAF Model 15s were destroyed by crushing, so I was told a few years ago. Makes me sick!
I own an S&W Model 15, civilian model, made in 1977. Wonderful revolver. Just as good as I recall the one I once carried.
The .45 has more stopping power, but the .38 ensured a far better chance of hitting the bad guy -- and only hits count.
