Bad Load? The .38 Special 158 gr. RNL

[m657]

I often use 158RN as they load into cylinder pretty good with the 8 hole moon clip in the 627 ICORE events.

I prefer the 130 conical flat nose but the real difference is moot for ICORE purposes.

Currently I can reload 50 38 special in a variety of cast bullets for less than I can find 22LR available.

The last few years I've even developed an appreciation for 147WC laods I had never used much.

 

[SMSgt]

The tales of what works and what fails in ammunition could easily be titled "Firearm Fables."

 

[smokey04]

Whoa boy, I am going to make some folks mad but,I have thick skin and an aluminium hat so, here goes.
First,there are a lot of posters in this thread that are trying very hard to educate people with good information. Well founded ,well thought out, and based in common sense and historical data.
Then, there are a lot here that refuse to listen because they know more than the people that know where of they speak.
You can throw all of the baseless opinion, bovine scat, and condensed apple pie into this discussion and it will amount to exactly what you put in to it.. a pile of garbage in, garbage out.
Folks that have taught force on force classes for LE departments, have been the "thin blue line"[or brown], that have packed their mandated .38 SPL. pieces for 10, 20 ,30 + years, would ,you think be in the know,HUH?
For those who think the .38 SPL. is the "cats meow" let me suggest you read a number of books and articles by people who have "seen the elephant".Two books listed below pretty much establish that it is not a .38 SPL. issue so much as a bullet shape and construction issue.Other books by well known handgunners, Elmer Keith, Skeeter Skelton,Bill Jordon & others, make passing observations, but Cirillo's research and applications of deadly force pretty much say it for me.
"Guns, Bullets, and Gunfights" by Jim Cirillo and"Jim Cirillo's Tales of the Stakeout Squad" by Paul Kirchner are a great place to start.
My military combat and LEO experiences lead me to feeling under gunned and inadequate without a .45 Auto tucked in my britches but there are times when that just won't work.When I find it desirable to carry a snubbie .38, I use 148 gr.target loads in the alloy framed guns and + P hollow points in guns that will stand the beating.
My mother lived about 7 miles out in the country for about 18 years toward the end of her life. She was not a big woman nor was she an accomplished pistol shot. My solution for her house defense weapon was a Ruger Security Six [.357 Mag.] loaded with handloads of "slightly warm" 148 gr. wadcutters loaded hollow base forward and in.38 SPL. cases too long to chamber in .38 Spl. revolvers.
Disclaimer: There is no intent here to talk down or belittle anyone, everyone is entitled to his opinion. However, when the final outcome is survival or..not, don't you think opinions provide little in "bullet proofing" and experience and research by those who have been there are a more reliable basis to plan for your survival?
The internet provides foxhole defilade for much mis-information, instant experts abound.The best advice I can offer is, listen to the poeple with experience ,not mall ninjas and wannabes. Nick

 

[LouisianaMan]

OK, somebody help me with this one. . .who in this thread is demanding the return to front-line LE duty of the .38 SPL with 158g LRN bullet? Fess up.

The mall ninjas are so well camouflaged that I can't spot 'em.

I spent 24 years on active duty, and would not even begin to claim that soldiers necessarily know more about weapons and ammo than everybody else. How many times have you heard soldiers say something about a ".60 caliber" when they were trying to talk about an M-60 MG? How many said that the Communists in Vietnam were really smart because they used 7.62 ammo, so they could use our ammo or our weapons?

OTOH, we all realize that some of those same people are experts in operating the M-60, maybe even successful or decorated in combat. Other people might be able to discuss every historical, industrial, and commercial aspect of the M-60, but have personally never seen one and are too weak and geeky to ever carry or use one. I'd want the former machinegunner who still thinks his gun was a .60 caliber with me in combat, the geek to write a book on the M-60. If either guy tried to speak about something he could not know anything about, I'd have problems with it.

I try to evaluate posts on their own merit, which may or may not be a matter of their direct personal experience. Nobody in his right mind rejects the value of experience, but if we limit any and all discussion on that basis, I guess the only people who can participate are those who have shot people with the .38 Spl/158g RNL bullet, for the purposes of this thread.

Since I personally haven't, I'm hereby shutting up. Everybody who has, please speak up. And God help us if one says it worked OK for him, and another says it didn't.

 

[Erich]

I've worked on a couple of DRT cases with the .38 Spl RNL . . . shot placement, shot placement, shot placement. (One was the only spinal cord hit I can recall seeing in a case.)

 

[shawn mccarver]

The standard 38 Special 158 grain LRN is better than nothing, but no matter how you slice it, it "stops" only 50% of the time with one shot to the chest. If it were the best, it would be used. Unfortunately, no one who has looked into the matter even a little uses this load. It is accurate, but not even the best for target shooting as the round ogive makes determination of whether it "broke the line" on the target difficult without a gauge. The wadcutter and semi-wadcutter are better paper punchers. Would I use it for defense? If that is all there was, yes. Given anything better, no. I am amused at the people who say, "I am carrying a 38 right now" or words to that effect, as if the "launcher" has anything to do with stopping power as opposed to the "missile." That is like saying you are carrying a .357. So what. Unless it is loaded with effective ammo, it makes no difference. A .357 loaded with 38 RNL is no better at stopping just because it is fired from a .357. Oh well, everyone has a right to an opinion, and ammo arguments always come down to shot placement. The best combo is shot placement plus an effective load.

 

[John P.]

Just like some of the previous posters said it is all about shot placement. I have seen one shot stops with .32 acp's and .38 special with 130 gr. FMJ loads. I have also seen minor non-incapacasitating injuries with .357 magnum, 9mm, and .40's. That being said my 637 and my SP101 are loaded with the Speer 135 gr. +P or the 158 gr. SWCHP +P loads.

 

[kamloops67]

i really like the 38 spl and use 158 gr lrn almost exclusively for CAS i can shoot it FAST and accurately. its my favorite load, this is what i know about it;
at my range we use 1/2 " plywood for target backers, these 2'x4' pieces of plywood are screwed onto a 2x4 with the aid of fender washers and 1 3/4 deck screws .
a 38 spl 158 gr lrn with 4 gr of 231 will flatten itself against the washer , but a 240gr.lrn/6.8 231 44mag(light) will almost push it out the other side .
i once had an extra copy of stephen king's hard cover novel "nightmares and dreamscapes" 158 gr lrn made it to about page 300 ? 357 mag made confetti out the other side , a 22 lr went about 150 pages further than the 38 . granted the 22 is faster. i have never taken game with a handgun so i cannot comment but would sure like to hear some first hand experience

 

[MMA10mm]

Here's the puzzling part: if "physical" instant stops only occur from (a) CNS hits or (b) massive & instantaneous blood loss, how did 100fps and an HP cavity turn a ball peen hammer (158 RNL) into a 9-pound sledgehammer (FBI Load)? Surely it wasn't an unexplained 50%+ increase in CNS and vena cava hits, right?

Nonetheless, everybody's eyes tell us that we can consider the RNL load dicey, the 158g SWC load better, and the FBI Load as pretty doggone reliable. Same when we look at .45 FMJ compared to .38 RNL or 9mm FMJ: experience indicates that there's something very significantly different about one versus the other two, that 9/100" difference in diameter doesn't seem adequate to explain. It especially muddies the water that the differences seem so unpredictable, as we've seen so many cases that deviate from the patterns we're trying to distinguish: failures with .45's, successes with .22's, etc. Fairbairn and Sykes saw the awesome destructive power and awe-inspiring reputation of the 7.63mm Mauser, but often saw it fail to have that effect.

Not only is every shooting unique because of a bazillion variables, but many loads seem to change drastically in effectiveness at various thresholds unique to that load or caliber.

I think we really agree on most things, right down the line. The one thing we may not (I'm not exactly sure of your position yet) is that there is (or isn't) much difference between the RNL & SWC-HP. That's why, in my post (probably didn't explain it well) I advocate for carrying a 10mm or 45. Orders of magnitude difference between ANY 38 load and those calibers vs. the difference between the 158 LRN & 158 SWC-HP. That said, if I know I'm walking into a killing situation, forget the handguns! I'll take my Benelli loaded with Buckshot. i get the impression you're trying to split things too fine. NO handgun load is a "great" stopper, not the 45 Long Colt or even the 50 A.E. (Well, maybe the 460 S&W and 500 S&W.) Just as our 380s are trade-offs for convenience, a 10mm or 45 or 38 are trade-offs, because it's inconvenient to carry the Benelli everywhere you go... Trying to draw significant conclusions between the RNL and SWC-HP is liking describing the difference between the 308 and 30-06: They're there, but you have to look in the details.

 

[bmcgilvray]

I took a small whitetail buck here in Texas once with a .38 Special and a round nose lead bullet however it was a 200 grain bullet, handloaded to "enhanced" velocities, and flung out of a long-barreled .38 Special revolver. The buck took a few wobbly steps and collapsed. The 200 grain bullet got the top of his heart and ended up on the off hand side stuck in a rib. A large smear of lead about the size of a dime was present on one side of the bullet.

This is the revolver that was used. A Model 14-4 I've had since it was new.


This was the bullet used, loaded over the maximum listed charge of 2400 as published in the Lyman 46th manual.

 

[rwsmith]

This has turned into....

This has turned into a very interesting thread, more about SD ammo than LRNs. Lots of info and just plain arguing points. Things that I learned:

LRNs still have a place in shooting.

Nothing stops 100% of the time, We are really playing percentages with concealability, portability and shootability.

They have been studying 'stopping power' for over 100 years. Improvements have been made, but there is no perfect answer. Nothing stops 100% of the time, We are really playing percentages with concealability, portability and shootability. An 8" cannonball would pretty much be lethal with a COM hit, but carrying and aiming that sucker in a surprise SD situation would probably be a total fail.

 

[Nevada Ed]

Great looking revolver you got there.........that 8 3/4" looks like a 12" to me after shooting a year with my snub nose.

That thing come with a Harris bi-pod ??

I can see why deer drop dead in their tracks with that monster !

Sweet.

 

[Boge]

The answer to all of this has been with us since the Civil War. Elmer Keith wrote in "Sixguns" of CW veterans telling him that the round ball in a Colt Navy was a better manstopper than conicals. Elmer notes this himself in modern ctgs. in that RN bullets merely zipped through flesh and rarely caused much damage unless something vital was hit. His favorite example being the old Remington .45 Colt blackpowder load that would penetrate a bull from butthole to tongue but never expanded. We also know from primary historical sources that this was the case with the Moros even after the Military went back to the SAA in . 45 Colt. RN projectiles are hellacious penetrators and worthless for anything else. Jim Cirillo even wrote of this exact same issue as well.

Today, we have more knowledge (if we choose to use it) and know that tissue disruption is far better in stopping someone. Naturally, shot placement is important as well. The more damage a bullet does internally the greater chance of stopping the attacker. One not need be a Ph.D. from MIT to know that a .357 Mag. 125 gr. JHP does far more damage than the same bullet at .38 Spcl. velocities. Simple physics.

Speer, after dumping a boatload of money through R&D, came up with the .38 Spcl. 135 gr. +p originally for the NYPD that bridges the gap without losing anything other than 23 gr. in mass. I hear that NYPD has had hundreds of shootings with it and I have never heard of an out & out failure on a well placed shot. Someone from NYPD please correct me if wrong.

FWIW, I heard a rumor the other day that the FBI just dropped the Win. .40 S&W 180 gr. Win. load and went back to a 165 gr. load, possibly the gold Dot, due to problems.

 

[m657]

Clearly the 38 special 158 RNL terminal ballistics are less than other better choices in SD loads. Also the lack of sharply defined edges for 'breaking the line' are obvious.

In the ICORE steel target game, none of that matters.
Steel clangs/clacks/clatters/ and 'touching' the A/B/C zone cardboard markers are the indicators for scoring.

I've read numerous articles over the decades that provided ample demonstration of field-results from LEO & SD to convince far better choices abound in such circumstances. Certainly I'd want a better choice in a SD situation. Still, a ton of practice with such load has significant benefit.

One of the most accurate handguns I ever had was a 14-2 8 3/8" that made amazingly tiny groups with both 158 RN and 147 WC loads.

A buddy once took the head off a grouse at 75' with such a load, almost to his surprise, as that was his POA.

 

[Doc TH]

38 spcl RN

1) the .38 special was not used by the U.S. military during the Phillipine insurrection. The cartridge in question was the .38 long Colt. This has been discussed on this forum before.

2) The NYPD has published extensive, long term results of police-perp shootings. These can be accessed on the web. When they looked at factors associated with stopping the encounter, the caliber was not relevant. The single most significant factor was, unsurprisingly, shot placement.

 

[k53]

There realy is a diference between a bad load... and a bad SD load.Like any other tool, you need the right tool for the job. The 38 RNL is not a bad load at all.... but not great at SD. Just becouse it does not do all great, does not make it bad. CCi SV 22lr is a terrable SD load.... but its a great load in my target pistols. Afforadable, accurate, consistent... its a great round for its use. So ya... they are not the best thing for stopping a bag guy.. but franky we do much more with our firearms then SD. God willing we hope never to have to fire on anyone... but we will fire many hundreds of rounds down range at targets, and small game.

 

[336A]

I never tried the LRN ammo until a few months ago. I had purchased quite some time before that, as in about a year or two. Much to my delight the Magtech ammo performed flawlessly in my M10. I had some reservations about using it as I remember hearing something about bad primers with this ammo not to long ago. The ammo shot very well for me and was much cleaner than I expected, I think it would be a good field load for squirrel and grouse.

I have also taken to using the Lyman #358665 RNFP with some W231 it shots about the same as does the magtech although the bullet is slightly heavier. While it is true that the LRN has been surpassed as a SD it is accurate and I'd certainly use it if it were all I had.

 

[LouisianaMan]

I think we really agree on most things, right down the line. The one thing we may not (I'm not exactly sure of your position yet) is that there is (or isn't) much difference between the RNL & SWC-HP. That's why, in my post (probably didn't explain it well) I advocate for carrying a 10mm or 45. Orders of magnitude difference between ANY 38 load and those calibers vs. the difference between the 158 LRN & 158 SWC-HP. That said, if I know I'm walking into a killing situation, forget the handguns! I'll take my Benelli loaded with Buckshot. i get the impression you're trying to split things too fine. NO handgun load is a "great" stopper, not the 45 Long Colt or even the 50 A.E. (Well, maybe the 460 S&W and 500 S&W.) Just as our 380s are trade-offs for convenience, a 10mm or 45 or 38 are trade-offs, because it's inconvenient to carry the Benelli everywhere you go... Trying to draw significant conclusions between the RNL and SWC-HP is liking describing the difference between the 308 and 30-06: They're there, but you have to look in the details.

Hello MMA10 and others,
Just clarifying my opinion on comparing the "FBI Load" with the .38 SPL 158g LRN. My understanding was/is that the former was a major improvement on the RNL, that users considered that the change had turned a bad proposition into a good one, night into day. Maybe not as good as a 10mm or .45, but closer akin to them in effectiveness than to the .38 RNL it replaced. If I had to designate every load as simply GOOD or NOT GOOD, I have long thought the RNL would be "NOT GOOD" and the FBI Load would be "GOOD." Thoughts?

 

[bmcgilvray]

"If I had to designate every load as simply GOOD or NOT GOOD, I have long thought the RNL would be "NOT GOOD" and the FBI Load would be "GOOD." Thoughts?"

That effectively sums it up for me. I'm enthusiastic to load with +P 158 grain lead SWCs for serious social purposes. I'd certainly use 158 grain LRN if nothing else was available and wouldn't feel particularly ill-armed but it wouldn't be a first choice.

 

[Erich]

Hi Bryan,

I ran across a couple of boxes of factory Federal .38 +P LSWC (not HPs) when I was digging around in the ammo stores today, and I thought of you and this thread - as well as the general appreciation you have brought to the humble-yet-effective .38 Special over the years. I saw those boxes and thought, "A person could use these for defensive use with absolutely no worries." Funny how we always chase that dragon of the last 5% of performance, when gun/ammo combos that are perfectly fine languish unloved on the shelves.

That said, I agree that the bullet shape of the LSWC is clearly preferable to that of the RNL. And I agree that I wouldn't sweat too badly if all I had was the RNL.

Shot-placement and adequate penetration are what's needed . . . the tiny dancing angels are good for discussion with friends, but are probably not too important in the real world.