38 Special +P+ Again
- Thread starter Vettepartz
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That's why I keep a nickel Model 15 loaded with this stuff in my bedside drawer, along with a couple of speedloaders full. Mostly because I have decades of range shooting with K-frames with .38 Special loads. I'm sure I'm pushing 100,000 rounds at this point.
I'm no tactical shooter. Don't want to be. But if I need one I'm going with what I am intimately familiar with. Plus my wife may have to use it too. She has no experience with autos.
Short of a home invasion by multiple adversaries it'll do. If that happens I do have a shotgun handy.
SuperMan
Member
You shamed me into digging out some old logs until I actually found some data, amigo.I didn't find the 4" data, but I found this:
On 20 November 2005 it was 60°F at the Albuquerque City Range (5950'>sea level) when I shot the Federal .38 Special +P+ 147-gr Hydra-Shok load out of my 3" Model 65-5. My notes indicate the round did an average of 896 fps, with a spread of 25.4 fps and a completely respectable standard deviation of 8.67 fps.
Thank you...
...that said, if Federal says that what would be 950 fps from a 4" is +P+, they are on another planet... I'd take that Buffalo Bore ammo above in any .38 I'm staking my life on than the 147s...
Course these are the same people who have a 115 grain .38 Super +P with a listed velocity of 1130 fps...there are standard velocity 9mm going faster out of shorter barrels...
Bob
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Doug M.
Member
The old incentives for hotter and hotter loads in .38 special cases, mostly political and to some extent ballistic, no longer drive the train. Better performing bullets exist; we know a LOT more about aiming points/tactical anatomy, and it is possible to get far better training than was available in the 70s. Under most conditions, a good standard velocity SWC is a perfectly acceptable choice if one carries a .38.
