Had a 1911 as issued when first in the Navy. Since 1967 I always had at least one .38 Spl. Never felt that under gunned especially after the Super-Vel ammo came out.
Now have at least 7 or 8. They seem to multiply somehow....

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Only difference Fool/Mule-ears

The only 38 Specials I have are 38/44s and the only 38 Special cases I load are 38/44 loads. I really like the old 38/44, i.e. a 158g @ 1100-1150 fps.

Started my LEO career carrying a M28-2 loaded with Magnums. When I got off probation I qualified with a Government Model and carried one model or another of Colt 45 ACP from them until well after retirement.

Dave

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RSVN '69-'71
PCSD (Ret)

In my younger days (I'm just a few years behind you shouldazagged) I've had guns stacked high in the corner, couldn't even remember all that I had. Some I sold or traded without ever even having shot, carried, or had outta the box. Sad. Wasteful.

Now, I have what shoulda has, plus a 38 snubbie for Ms. Gunslinger. And I have never felt better protected.

I'm with you shouldazagged, everything I need and nuttin' I don't

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"Sacramento" Bruce Conklin

bmc, that is a very pretty Official Police (nice M10, too).

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"Sacramento" Bruce Conklin

My dad never shot or taught me to shoot. He just didn't like guns. I learned to shoot from LEO friends in my early 20s back in the early 1980s. At the time most of the LEOs I knew were switching from revolvers-.38s and .357s--to semi autos. I learned to shoot on S&W .38s--Colts were too expensive. We called the 686 a "poor man's Python"

The thing is, after all these years I've kept my .38/.357 wheelguns, usually shooting +Ps, and an older 1911 clone. I've had hi-cap 9mms but seem to have no problem trading those off. Lately I've "accumulated" a couple of M10-8s instead of the poly wonders.

The .38 is the Rodney Dangerfield of cartridges..... I bet the majority of .357 magnum guns out there are loaded with 5-8 .38 specials... maybe +P or +P+ but still .38s.

I will admit that most of the time my 3inch 66 is stoked with +P .38s. I want to know I've got a fast 2nd shot!

Heck ..... what's the line from Magnum Force where we learn Dirty Harry is really carrying down loaded .44 magnums....... LOL... .44 Specials ...... for better control...............

Edit: does anyone make a 38/44 hollow point load these days.... ????

I've always heard more people have been killed with .22's than any other round, most likely because more of those rounds shot than any other. Don't know if there's any stats to back this one up either. May be just another urban legend!

I love 38s (used to look down on them. A 38 snub if you will ). They have a place in SD firearms I just dont think that place is front and center.

Being in police service for 75 years doesnt mean much to me. Most cops arnt gun guys. The gun is just part of the uniform. They unholster them for qualifications oncr or twice a year and thats it. It could just as easily be a BB gun. Plus the fact that a lot of the time it was "politics" that mandated what was carried and not real world results. Like someone else mentioned about departments being afraid to issue 357 magnums. It could have been any caliber but it ended up being a 38.

My personal belief is that the 38 is the 380 of the revolver world. No one would carry a 380 if it was the size of a 5906. So why carry a 35oz 4 in barrel 38? They shine as light, short barrel carry guns. If im going to carry something over 3 in barrel or that has a weight of a 1911 I might as well carry a 357 and get tge most use out of it. I find the 3 inch barrel mark to be the cutoff for both the 38/357. A 38 up to 3 inches and 357 starting from....

If im carrying a 357 it will be loaded with 357. No sense in downloading.

Now this is strictly from a practical carry point of view. If you buy to collect thats a different story
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2

I grew up in the late 60s and 70s and always saw the law carry 357mag pistols.Now I really like the 38 and 357 mag rounds.I reload and cast for them.to me they are the best. I carry a 38spl daily.

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God save the SOUTH

Earlier in this thread, I posted a short note regarding an agency I worked for that issued the .38 spl. The other two agencies I worked for allowed the officers to choose their own sidearms (within certain parameters). In both agencies, the number of officers that chose the .38 spl. for themselves was zero. I have to agree with the late Elmer Keith's observation on the .38 spl. and it's long run in law enforcement. "Because of the round's excellent inherent accuracy, low recoil, and the most excellent "K-frame" revolvers it is usually issued in. The 38 special will always be the favorite of the police bureaucrats and all the others who have never had to actually use the weapon in the line of duty". Amen.

Well, there are lots of ways of looking at this. Would I choose to carry a full size .38 as my every day concealment gun? No. Would I choose a full size .38 for my wife as a home defense gun? Yes. That is the most she could conceivably handle. Would I choose a J frame .38 as a concealment gun over a .380? Absolutely! I think modern .38 special ammo is on the lower end of acceptable self defense ammunition, but, to me at least, it is suitable in many situations. I carried an M60 with Hydra Shoks as a backup and when I couldn't conceal my 1911 in the '80s, and felt that it was the best option for the circumstances. As always, ymmv.

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Peter
S&WCA #2620

I just want to say what a great thread this is. I carried a 10/15/19/66 (with 38s) nearly all of my LE life until mandated to switch to a bottom feeder 9. Today, as a retired geezer, I sent myself a memo allowing the carry of 38s..

It's encouraging to know there's still shooters who are more focused on things like marksmanship than what brand of laser is best ...

Thanks for the memories.


Sgt Lumpy

Sgt. Lumpy, I like your "handle" . I had a sergeant fifteen years ago that had "Lumpy" as his nickname.
Unlike you, I am not retired yet and do not have permission on my badge to carry any kind of revolver anymore, so I did, in my opinion, the next best thing.. got myself a CCH permit and now carry my old Model 10 when I feel the urge. Still shoot it better than the combat Tupperware....

Buffalo Bore "Heavy" 38 Special loads, I think, are what you may want. Considering ordering some for both of my M10 4" revolvers....

Men in the Eastern US must have been smaller and easier to kill in the "good old days" (pre 1930)*

Civilians carried Colt .25s in their vest pockets, or Colt 1903 .32apc. autos in their overcoats....... or maybe a revolver in .38 S&W.

Police carried 4 inch .32 Colt or S&W revolvers or,......

................... the S&W M&P in S&Ws .38Special!

In 1930.... we grew in stature and hid behind cars..... so the police needed the new and improved .38....... the .38/44 Heavy Duty.... chambered for the ".38 Super Police" round.

But that was still not enough....... 1935 S&W gave us the .357magnum..... to hunt big game and the FBI to hunt really, really bad guys........

and then S&W rested!




Until 1955 and the .44 magnum to hunt dangerous game!**

and in 1964 ..... we finally got the "ideal police round"*** ....... the .41magnum!!!!!!!




Footnotes:

* West of the Mississippi true law men needed a .44, .45 long Colt or .45acp!!!

** It wasn't until 1971 that we first saw Dirty Harry hunt really really dangerous game with his .44magnum

*** SCS&W p.220

I hold a different view than a previous poster above, of the .38 Special and the proper revolver in which to house it. I view the currently super popular .38 Special snubs as nothing more than a side show for the cartridge. In my view the .38 Special's proper and best application is still in the full-sized, six-shot, steel-framed revolver. Such revolvers may not be as easy to conceal, may not be as feathery light in weight, but they're distinctly easier to shoot. Their ergonomics offer an advantage. They offer more performance from the cartridge. They handle good full-power .38 Special loadings with less perceived recoil and they offer more durability when such loads are used with frequency.

As a hiking companion the full-sized .38 Special revolver offers the opportunity for surer hits on targets at distance. As a plinker it offers a revolver that is more gratifying to shoot over a long afternoon. For home defense it can gen up a little more punch and is more controllable.

The .38 Special is a better cartridge than something only fit for tiny snubs though a generation has completely forgotten that fact.

I too, only use .357 Magnum ammunition in my .357 Magnum revolvers. The rest of that story is that I don't select a .357 Magnum very often for anything but range use. I deliberately choose the .38 Special because I like the revolvers, trust the cartridge, and actually don't believe that the .357 offers as much of a performance advantage over the .38 Special as is popularly believed. I have used both in the field and seen both used in the field by others.

If I get the notion that I want more horsepower than is offered with my favorite .38 Special revolvers and loads then I'll reach right past the .357 Magnums for something in the .44/.45 caliber range. The .357 Magnum is a great all-around cartridge but big-bore is where it's at if one requires more meaningful "stomp" out of his handgun.

As it is, the .38 Special is a pretty well-balanced cartridge for flinging bullets of .358 diameter. It ought to be more popular with this current generation than it is.

I almost didn't buy a Ruger Speed Six 2.75" .38, because it wasn't .357.
Then, I came to my senses and it followed me home.
I remembered that the FBI load is a damned good defensive load.
I remembered that Buffalo Bore loads ammo for it that really doesn't give up anything to any defensive pistol round.
I also remembered that Jim Cirillo put .38 wadcutters to very good use.
Plus, I remembered how accurate .38 is and how well I shoot it.
I also remembered that only hits count.

That says it very well!

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Oh well, what the hell.

So many people have been convinced by gun mags that only rounds that blow a softball sized hole in a man are good for self defense.
Jim Cirillo and company put a bunch of bad ********es in their graves with .38 wadcutters.
The media have also convinced most people that the bad guys all have full auto AKs and burpguns, and that the cops are woefully outgunned without 15+ round combat Tupperware.

Did I mention that I'm looking at a 10-6? It ain't pretty on the outside, but it's got a sweet trigger.
Plus, it's $200 out the door.

I'm issued a Sig 226 in 40sw for duty. Everyone in the county that I work is issued one as well, regardless of agency. However, inside a holster attached to my vest strap, is a bobbed M37 loaded with Remington 125 grain +P's.

When I'm off-duty, I carry a 649 no dash loaded with the Remmies too. When the weather gets cooler, I get out the M19 2 1/2" loaded, again, with the Remmies.

Semi autos are fine, and I love my Sigs, but the revolvers are home to me. They are my "1911". And specifically, the 38 special is my chosen cartridge for them. Plenty of power, great accuracy, tons of options for bullet weight. You don't stay in the game this long without being really good at what you do...

My post #65 in this thread was in jest...... after reading this thread and the threads about the "wimpy" 9mm cartridge, and "School me about the .380"

For the past 100 we seem to be trying for bigger, faster, bader .... ammo.......for hand guns. My handguns I'm sorry to say don't work like they do in the movies

Shot placement is King..... ..38/44, .357 and .38 super... were adopted or developed to shoot through car doors and windshields.

I don't shoot through a lot of car doors or windshields and I don't load up round nose lead or FMJ rounds except at the range.

My self defense guns are all loaded with modern hollow point .38,9mm or .45..I don't believe one should rely on some magic bullet to give a one shot stop 100% of the time.

In the years that I had to qualify I shot scores of 95% and up ...100% with fist size center of mass grouping was the norm. My goal is to get 2-3 well placed shots on target as quickly as possible...............I can do that better and faster with one of the three rounds listed than I can with a .357 magnum from a 2-4 inch 20-32 oz gun.

My goal is to continue my record of the past 35 years of having a concealed carry permit .... for the next 30...... of not shooting anybody!

I love my L Frames, and like my N frames......... but I'm generally carrying a 3913 or 3" 66 or 65.

"I don't always carry a revolver, but when I do.......... it's loaded with +P .38 special hollow points" LOL See post #56

Lot of folks hear "38 Special" and think of a musical group....

Couple of years ago, a friend had a Victory in 38 S&W. We made some fun plinking loads for it, but in researching it, we discovered the old Brit 38-200 (or 380-200), which replaced the .455 in that Army's Webley. The Brit rational, I read, was that a slow, heavy bullet was just as effective in .38 as it was in .455 (insert comment on British military intelligence here).

Anyway, we found some commercial cast 200 gr. lead bullets, and ordered some .360" for him, plus some .358" for 38 Special.

For better or worse, our standard test of self-defense loads are a bunch of old stumps. The outside is still hard, and the insides are soft....just like people, we sez.....

Anyway, the 200 gr. bullets, especially in the higher velocity 38 Special perform pretty spectacularly. I'd hate to be in front of them.

And, echoing above, Lee wadcutters in a fairly hard mix, also do well.

My first handgun of my very own was a Webley in .455, firing .45acp in full moon clips. Uncle Sam issued me a S&W 38 and I fell in love with it. Started career with a 581 (may not be right) SS S&W with fixed sights and tiny butt. We were required to carry .38 as the decision makers were stupid. I carried mag anyway and a stripper clip of .38 for inspections. After 9 years of service I traded to the 4506 I still have. My most carried conceal is a .38 and I have never felt under armed. As has been said so many times, "shot placement is everything." Spray and pray in any caliber is for amateurs.

When training for my first police job in the late 70s I bought a pre-war 6" M&P and each payday bought a bag of .38 Spl wadcutter reloads, with which I practiced...practiced...practiced. I saved up and bought a box of Norma hollow points to carry, since the only thing the department issued was one shirt badge and one hat badge. I was considered very progressive due to my choice of ammo by everyone but the chief, who carried a M39 loaded with ball ammo (which was pretty much standard for the 9mm at that time).

I later "graduated" to a M-28 and a larger department, which authorized either a .38 or .357 revolver for carry, but required use of issued .38 +P ammo, which changed every year (based on low bid) from Speer 125 gr JSP to S&W 158 gr. JRN (the core overpenetrated wonderfully, while the jacket sloughed off on down vests) to finally a very decent Federal 125 gr. JHP. which was visually indistinguishable from the Treasury 110 gr +P+ loads a friend at DEA passed along to me and accounted for on the books as "surplus - provided to local LE for training purposes".

Ammo has evolved to a much higher level since then. Expanding bullets tailored for expansion at .38 Spl velocities have improved the round's performance and when I bought a 642 a few years ago I had an embarrassment of riches in the area of load selection.

My wife and son each have a 4" .38 special as their house gun and if I didn't consider it a serious cartridge I would have given them something else.

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I need ammo, not a ride.

Good reading here. I went through my first LE academy with a 4" Model 27. I was using magnum ammo. It was a regional academy for small departments, so all variety of sidearms showed. We had two auto-shooters, a .45 ACP 1911 guy and a 9 mm Model 39 guy. Most of the rest were Model 19/66 shooters, but had one or two with good old .38 spl. All of the revolvers were S&W, not a single Colt in the bunch.

I read that it takes on the average 2.4 shots to stop an attacker with a .38 so you might as will shoot two and a half times to make sure.

You are assuming it was a success

I shoot plenty of .38 and .357. I could keep .357s in my gun, IF I WANTED TO, but I don't because I think the .38 +P is plenty adequate for very close encounters. People in this clime don't wear parkas. Someone already mentioned that today's bullets are not your father's bullets. Like I said before, I don't want to fire a .357 in the house. I didn't expect people on this forum to get macho and deride the balance between power and control.

What were the choices many years ago? You either had a .38 or a gun that was too big/powerful for the average policeman (there weren't very many police women) to qualify with. It would seem that the answer would be just to get a bigger gun. But they've been fighting over the last 30 years about what is big enough without being too big? Just because the .38 was eventually found to be inadequate doesn't mean it wasn't a success for many years.

Went to the range the other day with a new .357. First one since 1988. Fired some .38 and .38+P and finally loaded up 6 rounds of .357. A minute later I had said the "S" word 6 times. And my right hand was throbbing a bit. I'd forgotten just what a wallop the magnum made, even in a 3" barrel. There is power to spare. If I'd had more rounds I'd have shot more, but around here .38/.357 at a fair price is rare. $29 a box for local reloads is just stupid in my book. Thank god I don't have to shoot anymore.

Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth Jeff Cooper convinced me that the 1911 was the answer to everything, including the questions I didn't have the wit to ask. In those days .38s were routinely loaded with LRN ammo and he had a point...

I carried a LW Colt Commander .45 with hot SWC handloads until the management weenies objected. About the same time I got designated the firearms training officer, and so decided that if it was going to be a revolver for me I would try to get good at it. It was also a time in which Young Turks were slipping Super Vel and hot handloads into their .38 Specials, so things were looking up. By the mid-80s we were qualifying with .357/125s, so like Luke Skywalker, the Force was definitely with us.

I still like the "Lightning Bolt" .357 load, but a decent LSWCHP +P load in a 442 or 4" gun is sufficient IMHO. As a rule I can shoot a wheelgun better on a bad day than I can shoot Tupperware on a good day, and that matters more than high capacity to me. I am also greatly impressed with the fact that a S&W or Ruger revolver is one of the most reliable machines ever made. It's normal to own revolvers that have never, ever malfunctioned; whereas it's normal to own semiautos that only choke "now and then" for indeterminate reasons.

At any rate, I seem to have accumulated more .38 Specials than I had planned to.

Yes I do.

I was issued .38 Spl 158 grain RNL by my dept. we were allowed to carry personal weapons and I carried a mod 28, then a mod 13. Both with .357 mag ammo. But my scores were always better with .38 Spl LSWCHP+. The two shooting I was involved (another deputy pulled the trigger) in were settled by that .38 Spl P+ round. Now in retirement I carry a mod 10-5 3" or a 2" loaded with that round. So a .38 special is still a serious round for me.

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Wheel guns are real guns too.

Funny, I thought I wrote a partial reply here but I can't find it. Well, I'm using a phone so it's kind of too small a screen, I guess.
Let me cast my vote with the users of the .38 Special. While it is true that I collect them, that's not the point. I began collecting them AFTER I realized I had five or six already, buying them "just because", meaning because I like revolvers, I like snub nosed revolvers a lot (the collection began with a few of those), but just as importantly because they are simplicity to shoot "personified", they're accurate, modern, high quality defensive ammunition is available, and because even older style ammunition will do the job if I do mine.
I don't see what makes 9mm so much better but for round count and, in light of the average gunfight never requiring more than 2 or 3 rounds, I figure I'm good with 5, 6, or 7 (686+, always loaded at home and always with quality .38 Special ammunition).
Admittedly, my CS-45 has superior power with 7 rounds of .45 ACP but I can't drop it in my pocket like I can a 642 or 649. But I don't really think I have to have a .45 with me, although I love that gun and used to carry it frequently. I certainly cannot carry one of my full sized 9mms every day, anyway - they're huge! I can't hide one of those on my belt all day, every day. But a J frame, or a snub nosed K frame, easy to carry, easy to hide, and the .38 Special round is more than adequate for my personal self defense.
***GRJ***

It was, countless times. See a post above by a retired LEO who was forced to prove the point, He's still with us.

Failures to stop? Sure. Still happening with 9mm, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP. Even .357 Magnum occasionally. But there are also lots of cases on record of officers having to finish complicated shooting events with .38 Special backup guns, and doing so.

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Oh well, what the hell.

I knew a cop who killed a polar bear in the Brooklyn Zoo with a 4" Model 10 and 158 grain FMJ (NOT +P) ammo. One shot. Bear had mauled a kid who fell in the cage.

Two words. Jim Cirillo.
Two more. .38 Wadcutters.
Six more. Bad guys stopped with a quickness.

Officers have had failures to stop, even with 12 gauge 00 buck.

Two more words. Tim Sundles (I'd like to meet him and shake his hand)
Two more words. Buffalo Bore (see above)
158 grain LSWCHP that performs thusly:

S&W mod. 60, 2 inch- 1040 fps (379 ft. lbs.)
S&W mod. 66, 2.5 inch- 1059 fps (393 ft. lbs.)
Ruger SP101, 3 inch- 1143 fps (458 ft. lbs.)
S&W Mt. Gun, 4 inch- 1162 fps (474 ft. lbs.)

125 grain HP (looks like it's a Gold Dot) that performs thusly:

a. S&W mod 60, 2 inch- 1072 fps (319 ft. lbs.)
b. S&W mod 66, 2.5 inch- 1108 fps (341 ft. lbs.)
c. Ruger SP101, 3 inch- 1180 fps (386 ft. lbs.)
d. S&W Mt. Gun, 4 inch- 1258 fps (439 ft. lbs.)

158 grain hard-cast Keith that performs thusly:

1255 fps -- Ruger GP 100, 6 inch barrel, 357 mag.
1186 fps -- S&W Combat Masterpiece 6 inch barrel, 38 SPL (circa 1958)
1146 fps -- S&W Mt. Gun, 4 inch barrel, 357 mag.
1167 fps -- S&W Mod. 15, 4 inch barrel, 38 SPL (circa 1968)
1112 fps -- Ruger SP 101, 3 inch barrel, 38 SPL
1043 fps -- S&W Mod 66, 2.5 inch barrel, 357 mag.
989 fps -- S&W Mod 340PD, 1 & 7/8 inch barrel, 357 mag.
1027 fps -- S&W Mod 642 (pre dash), 1 & 7/8 inch barrel, 38 SPL

Tell me again, how .38 Special is an inferior manstopper?
Mr Sundles didn't get that memo.

.38 Spl and .44 Spl are two of my favorite rounds, and for the same reasons. They are easy to load, fantastically accurate, and easy to shoot well. Plus, they are excellent defensive rounds with the right bullet design.
Thing is, no handgun round is a very good stopper when the wrong bullet design is used.

For a good while, my EDC was a 3" Model 65 loaded with Remington LSWCHPs. It was about as close to the archetypical service revolver as I could get. I never lacked confidence in it despite only having 6 shots in a purportedly "marginal" caliber because I could place my shots exactly where I wanted them at speed, and this with a bullet that typically performed well in FBI testing and routinely penetrated at least 12" in 10% gelatin with expansion in more cases than not. I also recall a very respectable man once opining that "we typically run out of time before we run out of ammo" (loosely paraphrased from memory).

Maybe I'm in the minority by saying this, but if I made a living routinely going into dangerous situations as a condition of my job, I'd be more concerned with how accurately I can fire my sidearm under stress than the caliber or capacity of it. With tried, tested and true loadings from the old stalwart LSWCHP to modern ones like the Speer GDSBHP or Winchester PDX1, these days you can do a lot worse than having to carry a lowly .38 Special as a sidearm and I would not feel undergunned in the slightest if that just so happened to be a S&W M&P in its many variations or a Colt Police Positive.

Back in 1973 I had gone down to Metarie, La. to a police supply house to shop for some gear. We still supplied our own then and there wasn't much to be found in Hattiesburg. As I was getting out of my car a New Orleans officer pulled up. He got out with a nickel model 15 and started in the door. I asked him what he was going to do with the revolver. He told me he had shot a guy six times with it and the guy was still able to shoot back at him. He said the shop owner was holding a .357 for him and he was going to trade the mod. 15 on that. I told him I'd give him $5.00 more than what they offered. I waited in the parking lot and a couple of minutes later he came out and said they offered $75.00. I handed him four twenties and he handed me the 15. At the time I had been looking for one for my fiancée and none were to be found. I still have it. It's got holster wear and the nickel has flaked a little. It is butter smooth and very accurate. It wears a Tyler-T and a trigger shoe. My wife was killed 28 years ago and my son knows to never get rid of this one if something happens to me.

Back to the original post. In my almost 44 year career I have seen many people shot with .38 specials and a few .38 S&W CTG. Some died, some didn't, depending on shot placement. It's pretty much that way with any caliber. I carry what I can comfortably hit with. A head shot with a .22 is just as effective as a heart shot with a .44 magnum. I have several .38 specials that I carry, depending on what I'm doing, and I don't feel undergunned with any of them as long as I have good ammo. I like any good +P hollowpoint. I don't like round nose anything unless I'm target shooting.

I own a snub Model 19-3, four inch 15-2, Model 49, Model 642, and a three inch Model 13-3, and my favorite load for all of them is the Remington 158gr +P lead hollow point. Found some at Gander Mountain, of all places, the other day. ANY of these .38/.357's loaded with this round does NOT make me feel undergunned.

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MARK

I don't even like round nosed ammo for target shooting.
Wadctters and semi wadcutters make holes that are easier for my eyes to see.

Many years ago, I had a Rossi 68 .38 3".
I was in the woods shooting it with a variety of ammo.
A HUGE oak tree (blowdown) was my backstop.
The only round of 158 RNL I fired that day bounced off the trunk and hit me in the belt buckle.
Hurt like hell. Put a good scare into me. Did not penetrate, thank God.
I used the rest of the box of RNL at the indoor range, where I didn't have to worry about ricochets.
Or so I thought.
That same year, I was at the range and there were some gangsta-thug wannabes shooting on the lane on the far end of the range from me.
They had some sort of .45 caliber Tupperware SMG lookalike and were shooting it (sideways, of course) with some cheap .45 RNL.
Yeah, it jammed a bunch.
Yeah, they were cursing a bunch.
Yeah, their "groups" looked like 100 yard buckshot patterns.
Anyway, somehow, one of them managed to hit one of the concrete roof suppport pillars and his slug ricocheted and hit me in the right thigh.
Yeah, it hurt like a ***.
It broke the skin but didn't penetrate.
It felt like getting hit with a baseball.

I started in law enforcement in 1976. My first handgun was a 1911 type .45. Next was a 1917, then a .44 Special. Went back to the 1911, only this time I built a full size 1911, but based it on an aluminum frame. I also carried various .45 Colt, .41 Magnum, .44 Magnum, and .45 ACP revolvers.

I owned a few .357 revolvers, but bought them for target use. The only time I carried a .38 special was for an ankle carry back-up.

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

I have several .357's and like them very much. But for practice, I'll shoot .38 specials all day long. I carry either a .40 S&W or .45 ACP (dept. issue), but feel fully armed with a .38 special. Any handgun caliber is a tradeoff of usefulness/availability versus effectiveness.

Since it has been 10 posts without a photo, time for one now.


Model 67 (no dash) circa 1972

Bill Jordan said the 38 Special was the most powerful cartridge the average man could hope to achive any degree of mastery with, Charlie Askins was pretty deadly with one, as was Jim Cirillo.
Mine-Security Industries of America (Made in NJ) snub, Colt Official Police, Detective Special Old Model, Detective Special '72, S&W Combat Masterpiece made in 1953.

Both the .38 Special and 9mm have been the beneficiaries of a lot of experimentation and improvements over the last 50 years or so. You can't compare the .38 Special of today with what we were stuck with in the 1970's, especially in rounds for short-barreled revolvers.

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Loyalty Above All.. but Honor

The .38 spl round changed very little over the years but people's perception of the round changed as newer and more powerful rounds were developed and introduced to the market.

My first duty sidearm was a 4" Model 10 .38 special loaded with RNL rounds. I was dispatched to assasinate a porkypine up in a tree. I shot him 6 times with that .38. He finally fell out of the tree due to the additional weight.

I kept thinkin' " what if that porky had a .38 and was shootin' back at me?"
That was all the excuse I needed to get me to the LGS and trade for the Model 58 .41 M&P I had been dreaming about for months, which I carried the rest of my LEO days.

That said, not being in a LEO role these days and with the improvement in .38 ammo, I've got a Model 12 .38 a hangin' on my hip and I don't feel a bit undergunned.

Actually, I think bullet design, powders, etc., have substantially improved the .38 Special cartridge. The reports I see on the Speer Gold Dot 135gr. +P for short barrels are very positive, to cite just one.

Having said that, however, I need to add that I still carry the old FBI load that has been around for over forty years. Now Buffalo Bore has come up with a low-flash standard-pressure version of that one that clocks an honest 880 fps from a two-inch barrel and a +P that gives almost 1100 fps.

I think the venerable caliber has come a long way. But you're right that other more powerful have come to prominence. They've been seen as more glamorous and touted as being wonder rounds.

__________________
Oh well, what the hell.

I remember standing in front of the gun counter at Epp's Sporting Goods on Gratiot in Detroit in about 1973 and taking my first serious look at the S&W 38 snub nosed model 49 sitting in the case.
I thought, "Man, i've got to get one of those one day." With the shrouded hammer, it looked to me like the head of a Cobra snake getting ready to strike.
I finally did buy one and carried it as an off duty and a backup gun for over 32 years. I still have it, along with other 38 Special revolvers.
Coming out of the police academy in Detroit in 1977, I was issued a model 10-5, five inch nickel revolver which I immediately put away and started carrying a model 29-2 in my own leather.
To me, the 38 Special was still a good compromise for a off duty but I knew the "bigger the better", all things considered.
The 38 Special has one of the longest histories of any cartridge and is inherently accurate. With modern ammo it can still be a good choice for self defense.

If Harry Callahan had been using a Glock 17, his dialogue would have been a bit different:

Callahan: I know what you're thinkin', punk. You're thinkin', did he fire seventeen shots, or only sixteen? Now, to tell you the truth, I've forgotten myself in all this excitement. But bein' this is a 9 mm, the most common handgun in the world, and it'll perforate your head, you've got to ask yourself a question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?!
Yea,right

Best,
Rick