Duplicated 38 Spl 158 gr Police Service load

[38SPL HV]

I'm a "retro guy," really liking the heyday of 38 Spl and police revolvers. To this end, I was able to duplicate the old 38 Spl 158 gr LRN load, referred to as the "Police Service" load. Like it or not, it was the old standby of many police departments for decades. I'm not espousing its effectiveness. I'm merely respecting its place in our history of police cartridges.

I chronographed a load of 4.0 grs HP38 and Hornady 158 gr LRN using R-P cases and CCI-500 primers in a 4 inch S&W Mod 10 - it measured avg (10 shot string) of 773 fps. This load is consistent with velocity data I've seen with Remington's 158 gr LRN (R38S5) - which was the standard "street load" for many police departments 40+ years ago.

I guess some get very nostalgic as they age, like yours truly.

 

[Capt. F.]

Duplicated Police load

I concur, except I've waxed nostalgic all my life, hunting with a Model 71 Wnchester .348, an '86 45-70 carbine and collection of numerous shooting irons Elmer, my hero would have owned.
Come to think of it maybe I was born in the wrong century.

 

[38SPL HV]

Big bodied deer up there in Maine. That 348 is some potent medicine. I got by on CT Whitetail with the ole 30-30 and 170s!

 

[Homie]

Glad you've got a chronograph now. Your "standard" load sounds close!

 

[ArchAngelCD]

That load sounds just like my favorite .38 Special load. I load a 158gr LSWC over 4.0gr W231 all the time. Wouldn't want to be without it!

 

[Capt. F.]

Big bodied deer up there in Maine. That 348 is some potent medicine. I got by on CT Whitetail with the ole 30-30 and 170s!

Story behind my .348. My grandfather had one for years. As a kid I was mesmerized by it hanging in the gun rack in the living room.
Then one year it was missing from it place in the rack. My grandfather had swapped it for the cutting rights on a wood lot.
After he died my grandmother found a box of Winchester .348 250 grain Silvertips. Vowed one day I'd have one to display with that box. Ten years later I found a delux complete with the peep sight that had been on my grandfathers. Still have it and the box of shells. And yes- it's a sure fire killer on whitetails. There's one on my wall that dressed at 185 that can attest to that.

 

[buckshotshorty]

I must admit you've got me beat; you really are a retro guy. I carry a much more modern arm...revolver loaded with FBI load of 158 gr. LSWCHP +p

 

[Biggfoot44]

Ok, I'll go you one better. Instead of reverse engeneering to catalogue data for older loads, I matched actual ammo with handloads in the same gun.

Wasn't R-P , but the Federal brand of 158 RNL was a standard item at the gun counter of the local dept store in the '80s . The Federal version was by all accounts similar to W-W , R-P, etc , within overlapping lot to lot variations.

From 4in Victory gave right at 750fps. 3.5gr 231, CCI std primers matched it.

I didn't actually use a lot of that. 3.2gr gave about 50fps less, single digit extreme spreads, sub 1inch @ 25yds, used that one a lot.

Next step up for upper end of std pressure was 4.5gr Unique.

 

[Alk8944]

Ok, I'll go you one better. Instead of reverse engeneering to catalogue data for older loads, I matched actual ammo with handloads in the same gun.

Wasn't R-P , but the Federal brand of 158 RNL was a standard item at the gun counter of the local dept store in the '80s . The Federal version was by all accounts similar to W-W , R-P, etc , within overlapping lot to lot variations.

From 4in Victory gave right at 750fps. 3.5gr 231, CCI std primers matched it.

I didn't actually use a lot of that. 3.2gr gave about 50fps less, single digit extreme spreads, sub 1inch @ 25yds, used that one a lot.

Next step up for upper end of std pressure was 4.5gr Unique.

Bigfoot,

You are being unfair to the OP, as well as demonstrating your lack of understanding of older .38 Special ammunition.

OP's remark about about an average of 773 FPS for the 158 LRN that was the basically the standard police service cartridge from ca. 1899 to the 1980s. If he had been trying to "reverse engineer" based on published data he would have been trying for 855 FPS, which is what was the published velocity until at least 1980!

I have chronographed quite a bit of older .38 Spl, in several different barrel lengths, over the years. Both Winchester and Remington that dated to at least the 1970s, and probably the early 1960s. Velocities ranged from 671 FPS (Remington in 2 1/8" 640-1) to 805 FPS (Winchester in 5" M&P).

To demonstrate the difference different guns can make the Remington chronographed from 712 FPS in a 7 1/2" Colt Officers Model Target, to 770 FPS from a 5" M&P from ca. 1948. And, no, that is not a typo, the 5" was significantly faster than the 7 1/2" revolver! Velocities with the same ammunition, same day, from these and three 4" & 6" revolvers fell between these figures.

So, as you can see, he is doing exactly what you said he should be doing, trying to match actual ammunition performance, whether he chronographed the older factory ammunition or was given that data. The best anyone can do, if they are trying to duplicate cartridge performance in a case like this, is to try to match an average if they don't have the original gun(s)! And, again, that is exactly what he did.

 

[DWalt]

Even with identical factory ammo, there can be very wide differences in average MV from different revolvers, even those having the same barrel length. Every revolver lives by its own MV rules. If you want to duplicate a factory load fired from your specific revolver, the first thing needed is to determine what the MV of that factory load is from your revolver. Factory and reloading manual MVs are nothing better than very rough estimates as they apply to your revolver.