38/44 Ammo Gun Show Find

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delta-419

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Found a couple of boxes of Vel ammo for my new (to me) Outdoorsman 38/44. One of the boxes is labeled "Police Only" and sports solid flatnose lead with partial jacket, the other is jacketed hollowpoints. Not sure why one box is labeled police only. I guess it was sold to PDs only?
 
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Boxes

ChristmasDayDinner020.jpg

Will get headstamp shots, if my camera can do it.
 
Nice photos. Super Vel ammo came out before the +P designation was developed. I believe it was originally marketed to police.

BTW, the $9.50 price in 1974, adjusted for inflation, is over $40 today.
 
I believe "Super Vel" is the name of the manufacturer. I believe they were Swedish. Back in the '70's they were the "hot loads". I used them in my Walther PP. They advertised 1,000 fps for their .380. They specialized in light weight high velocity rounds, hence "Super Vel". It looks like you have 110 gr rounds loaded really hot......maybe the equivalent of +P+
 
That Super Vel was the "hot stuff" once upon a time (~1970's).
A former girlfriend and I were shooting late one afternoon (about dusk), and her father had let her borrow his 2-inch Detective Special (wrong brand, I know), and some Super Vel .38 rounds.
She fired the first one and an incredible fireball and roar came out. She literally jumped straight back about two feet. Funny, but I probably would have done the same thing.
 
The first time I ever fired .357 Super Vel 110gr JHP was in my 6" M19. THe main thing that I remembered about it was that there was hardly any recoil. At least on the shooter's end, its bark was worse than its bite.
 
Super Vel was indeed the name of the company and it was not Swedish, it was from Shelbyville, Indiana. Started by a guy named Lee Jarius (spelling of his last name maybe wrong). He pioneered the first 38 Special JHPs loaded to higher than standard pressure. His ammunition was a response to the poor street performance of the traditional 158g RNL bullet used by most LEOs back in the 60s and early 70s. The 110g JHPs opened most of the time but were poor performers compared to todays more highly engineered JHP bullets.

Also, this is most definitely not 38/44 ammunition. The HD and the Outdoorsman were pretty much things of the past by this time. This was just the pre-cursor to the +P 38 Special loadings of the major ammo companies.

Dave
 
Echoing what Dave said this is not 38/44 ammo, but 1970's vintage ammo that was the precursor to our modern +P loads.

It was standard practice during the 1970's and 80's to mark ammo marketed towards law enforcement "Police Only" or "Law Enforcement Only." I still have a bunch of boxes of Winchester 38 +P ammo so marked.

I'm not sure how much you paid, but hanging onto that stuff wouldn't be a bad idea. It has a certain amount of collectibility, especially in LE circles as it invokes nostalgia to the guys that have just retired and are retiring now.
 
Dave T said:
Super Vel was indeed the name of the company and it was not Swedish, it was from Shelbyville, Indiana. Started by a guy named Lee Jarius (spelling of his last name maybe wrong). He pioneered the first 38 Special JHPs loaded to higher than standard pressure. His ammunition was a response to the poor street performance of the traditional 158g RNL bullet used by most LEOs back in the 60s and early 70s. The 110g JHPs opened most of the time but were poor performers compared to todays more highly engineered JHP bullets.

Also, this is most definitely not 38/44 ammunition. The HD and the Outdoorsman were pretty much things of the past by this time. This was just the pre-cursor to the +P 38 Special loadings of the major ammo companies.

Dave
Click to expand...

His name is Lee Juras. I believe he was also instrumental in development of the .357 Automag, both the gun and the cartridge.
 
I was shot with a 90 gr SuperVel in a 9mm in 1971 ( gun accident) . I will never forget the stuff. Broke my femur, still in there. Screwed my whole day up! It was the hottest stuff going at the time.

Tom
 
Believe the spelling of Super Vel's CEO was Jurras. Anyway, the "Police Only" labelling on some of their boxes was meaningless--saw them for sale on many gun store shelves back in the early/mid '70's, available to anyone. I still have a few boxes so labelled, used for decades to house my reloads.
 
The "police Only" markings were a marketing ploy, and it worked well. Yes Super Vel was the hot ammo of the day, and may be so today. Other than the fact it's old ammo and may have some collectors value, I see no reason it can not be safely shot in an N frame 38 special revolver, even an old one, such as a 38/44.
 
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Yahhh...'Super Vel' is interesting and a fun bit of History.

I have heard it said from people who were in LEO back then, that it ruined quite a few Guns, too, smaller Automatics particularly ( it was just too stout for some designs to handle well, or was what we would now regard as +P+ ).

Super Vel was what would have been called an 'Express' Cartridge in earlier decades - a lighter Bullet, propelled to higher FPS than standard...only it did so even some ways beyond that.

So, it is not the same as the 1930s and 1940s ".38-44" or ".38 Heavy Duty" which were generally 158 Grain Bullets, loaded to what would now be regarded as low to midling .357 Magnum Ballistics.
 
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I shot a few boxes of it back in the day. It certainly was hot in compared to the standard round nose police load. I cracked the focing cone of an old pre model 10 pencil barrel using it. It was also expensive, of course. In my mind, it did law enforcement a big favor for blazing the trail, forcing ammunition companies to develop new and better ammunition for law enforcement/self defense use. The competition for a better bullet continues to this day with new defense loads coming to market every year.
 
I met Lee Jurras, "back in the day" and he was a genuine pioneer in developing high performance ammunition. He actually created the market and when the "majors" saw how well he was doing, they entered the market and flat put him out of business.

The rest, as they say, is history...

Dale53
 
The old .38-44 loads usually had a headstamp if I recall that said .38-44 and had something like High Speed or something like that on it. I know they had a muzzle velocity of 1,200 fps which is way and above any +P .38 Special, so I doubt it would even trouble that Outdoorsman.
 
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