.38 spl 200 grain?

[Andy Taylor]

Yesterday I picked up a box of Remington .38 spl 200 grain LRN. Product #R38S9. I mainly bought it because it was cheap, by current standards for any .38 load and I figured if nothing else it would be good for putting holes in Pepsi cans or some such. That seems like an awfully heavy bullet for .38 spl.
Does anyone have any specs on these? What is the purpose behind that heavy bullet? Penatration?

 

[Andy Taylor]

Yesterday I picked up a box of Remington .38 spl 200 grain LRN. Product #R38S9. I mainly bought it because it was cheap, by current standards for any .38 load and I figured if nothing else it would be good for putting holes in Pepsi cans or some such. That seems like an awfully heavy bullet for .38 spl.
Does anyone have any specs on these? What is the purpose behind that heavy bullet? Penatration?

 

[flop-shank]

Beats me? Sounds like you have some cheap blasting ammo. If I wanted a super deep penetration defensive ammo in that caliber, I would use Buffalo Bore's 150 gr. wadcutter.

 

[Andy Taylor]

That is what I planned on using it for, it's just that with that heavy a projectile, I figured that there had to be a reason behind it.
I also picked up an old box of Winchester Western 148 grain wadcutters, and two boxes of MiWall 148 grain wadcutters at the same time. With tax it all came in at under $40, so I figure I did good.

 

[BUFF]

The 200 grain round nose lead load was sort of popular with law enforcement back from the 1920's to the 1960's. It was an attempt to improve the round's performance. The earlier .38 S&W round was also often loaded with 200 grain RNL bullets.

They are S.....L.....O.....W..... Old information lists the 200 grain Western brand at 703 fps while the 158 grain was 826 fps and the 148 grain wadcutter was 766 fps.

In the 1960's, the direction shifted to lighter, faster bullets and hollow and soft point construction to get expansion to aid stopping power.

 

[Erich]

Yep. You load these bullets up with a good dose of 2400, and you've got quite a drill. I have no use for the anemic factory loadings, though - and if you'll read what cops at the time had to say about how easily these slow-movers were deflected, I'm not alone in that.

 

[sw702]

in the late 80s I found a case of Western(W-W) 38special super police 200 gr Lubaloy in a old hardware store. On the box velocity was listed at 730fps and a wopping 238 ME. they shot very high in my 3 inch 36. made big dents on old car doors at the dump. fun

 

[Erich]

Using less than a max load of 2400 from an old manual (at +P pressures), I ran some hardcast 195-grain bullets through a number of my guns out of my 1 7/8" snubs at 845 fps with 2400 (5950' above sea level, 60% humidity, 74°F):

Model 36 1 7/8" barrel: M 844.2/ES 35.83/SD 12.72
Det. Spl. 2 1/8" barrel: M 871.2/ES 28.29/SD 13.49
Model 36-1 3" barrel: M 941.0/ES 32.50/SD 15.79
Model 15 4" barrel: M 973.2/ES 16.65/SD 6.32
Model 14-3 6" barrel: M 1030/ES 22.02/SD 9.53

I noted a couple of things of interest. The rounds all grouped at around 1" to 1.5" at 30 feet (the target guns showed much better potential than the belly guns). A great deal of 2400 did not burn and scattered all over the place. This was most evident with the snub Chiefs Special, but was somewhat evident at the bench with every gun except (for some reason) the Detective Special. When I went to retrieve my chronograph (ten feet out), I found that there were flakes of 2400 liberally sprinkled all over it - I've not seen this before.

As a comparison, here are some data for Blue Dot (max charge) using the same bullet (at the same range):

temp 37-50°F
Model 38-2 1 7/8" barrel: M 765.6/ES38.60/SD 14.89
Model 36-1 3" barrel: M 834.9/ES 83.14/SD 39.35

temp 43°F
Model 14-3 6" barrel: M 855.4/ES 90.39/SD 40.63

I feel like the 2400 rounds give me what I wanted - I would feel okay carrying this load in a .38 snub should I want the ability for real penetration (say, if I were carrying it on a hike up Bear Canyon), though there are certainly other rounds that would work much better. Still, it's always nice to have pinned down another aspect of the ever-versatile .38 Special. I'm not interested in the commercial loads with overly heavy bullets, but I think that a handloader can craft some specialized .38 rounds with them.

 

[BreakerDan]

You have what is called the Super Police load.
Cops said it bounced off windshields and car doors, but so did 158 "Police Service LRN". Penetration in my tests show 1/2 the penetration of a 185 gr 45 auto.

For purely self defense, no cars or barriers involved, it would be a good as any LRN.
The 200 grain bullet was an attempt to improve stopping power. The velocity from my 4" revolver is 625 fps. I personally like the round. It has its limitations and was not a good police load, but for general use it is fine.

 

[Groo01]

Groo here
Ha Erich
I missed your sage words.
Nice to find you again.

 

[38-44HD45]

Originally posted by Erich:
Yep. You load these bullets up with a good dose of 2400, and you've got quite a drill. I have no use for the anemic factory loadings, though - and if you'll read what cops at the time had to say about how easily these slow-movers were deflected, I'm not alone in that.

As usual, Brother Erich speaks the truth. This load turns the marginal .38 Special into a less-than-marginal .38 S&W.

 

[czakjm]

I used to load-up 200gr gas-check SWC for the 38 & 357...for the 38 I like 800X at normal or +P, and chrony's just under 900fps, and burns fairly
clean...used to carry a version of this load in a model 15 when I worked nights, and had to "hike" to my car...Jack

 

[skyfly757]

.38 Spl 200 gr soft lead round nose bullet

Hi Andy:
Can't give you any technical specs on this cartridge load, but I recognize it by the name "Man Stopper". In the mid-60's I was a young police officer on the Tampa, Fla. Police Dept. Our standard dept. firearm was the S&W K-38 Combat Masterpiece. The standard load was the .38 spl 200 gr. soft lead round nose "Man-Stopper" bullet. My memory is pretty good about this, the Dept. wanted a load for close to medium range, that had a lot of kinetic energy hence the 200 gr. load with soft lead, a bullet that would dissipate it's energy within the 'target', and little chance of fragmentation & collateral damage to other persons or property. Some of my fellow officers carried the Colt Python .357 Magnum & for inspection sake would carry the .38 spl cartridge in the cylinders, but when they got out to their police vehicles they would remove the .38's and load .357 Magnums. As an aside, I had just started a hunt for the ammunition you were referring to for Conceal Carry for the .38's I have. Could you let me know where you got yours? Thanks. John.

 

[kaaskop49]

I started a thread about this cartridge/load last fall, I believe. Posters then provided much info, perhaps you can locate this thread in AMMO. To my knowledge, this load has not been produced in decades. I've not seen a box of it since 1973; it interests me that you were able to locate it at a reasonable price.

I remember a magazine article from that era quoting 2" ballistics of this load at 572 fps. 600-something from 4". With today's modern loads, we don't have to worry if this load is/was effective. Still not something to be hit by.

P.S. OP, can you confirm that the nose of the Rem. 200 gr is similar in shape to the 158 gr? The Winch version of this load had a blunt-nose bullet. Thank you.

 

[jimmyj]

Hi:
Back in "The Day" the W-W 200 grain "Super Police" load was popular for 2" snub noses. (my day started in 1962)

 

[jvmm]

Lyman makes a mould for it.

I have found it very accurate with 3.5 gr bullseye.

I works well in all my 38 Revolvers aND AN 1866 Yellow boy copy

 

[pete950]

You can get these bullets already casted by Western Bullet Company or Matts bullets.com

 

[Harrison]

As I recall, between the world wars it was the British Army's standard revolver round. A 200gr RN in the 38 S&W. It saw a lot of use on the NW Frontier (Afghanistan and surrounding region). Supposedly it had the reputation of being a man stopper because the low velocity long bullet would quickly start tumbling once it entered the body. Once the Brits starting fighting a more civilized enemy, the Germans and Italians, they switched to a lighter FMJ bullet in the 38 S&W. This is what I have read on the use of 200gr 38 bullets.

 

[Nevada Ed]

As mentioned they were brought out to try to improve the 38 special in its performance. It was fair for SD but with its slow fps did not pass the car body or glass penetration test, so it had a slow death.
Back to the drawing boards...........

 

[bmcgilvray]

Shown in comparison to a 158 grain cast bullet.


I bought a gob of boxes of these 200 grain Remington component bullets on a close-out, probably 30 years ago now. They leaded badly but were pretty accurate for the first cylinder-full or so. Took a Texas whitetail buck with one, loaded to max with 2400 and giving about 930 fps from an 8 3/8-inch barrel on a Model 14. Worked great on a well-placed body hit at close range. The bullet didn't exit. The dead soft lead slug expanded pleasingly and still retained nearly all of its weight.

A few stray factory loads, obtained and shot off for effect, gave the impression that factory 200 grain .38 Special ammunition was pretty mild. Wished I'd chronographed them. Would love to stumble across a full box of factory 200 grain .38 Special ammunition for chronograph testing in different barrel lengths. Just for fun.