Remington 38 HBWC?

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RAMiller

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Greetings all,

I wanted to ask if anyone out there knows of a source for 148 gr Remington HBCW bullets? Midway has them on their site, and has for some time, but says they are not in regular production.

Does anyone know if someone out there has some in stock???

Thanks
 
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These bullets, much like the ammo they're intended for, probably gets produced once a year - and possibly much less than that.
Too many other, more profitable items, take the forefront in production.
 
.38 Wadcutter, a Bit Of History

Going back to the late 60s or early 70s, it finally began to dawn on police to train with what they shoot on the street. Prior to that, the .38 wadcutter was the universal training round and police departments collectively went through them by the billions.

Then came semi-autos as well as a decline in traditional gallery type target shooting. Wadcutters are like 35mm film and house phones; I never thought I'd see a day without them but all three are becoming history.
 
I recently started a thread about the unavailability of the Remington swaged lead .455 diameter bullet. Remington e-mailed me that they would no longer offer it as a component bullet. Perhaps they are getting out of the lead bullet market entirely. Hornady and Speer still offer a wide range of swaged lead bullets, including .38 HBWC's. I've used them all with good results, but will miss those unique .455 bullets.
 
If I remember correctly these bullets were sold in wooden crates of 2000.

During my competition shooting years and member of the NYPD Stake Out Unit Jimmy Cirillo was the guy that placed the order for as many crates as I wanted and they would be drop shipped to the curb in front of his house.

Most of the time there would be about 100 crates left in front of his house where I would go to get mine which amounted to about 5 crates once a year.

I'd also get most of my powder and primers through bulk buys with JC as the orderer.

The Remington 148gr HBWC were the best available at the time and the whole pistol team used them.
 
 
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If you do score, get as much as you can.
I am down to my last case.

Good luck.

32zny1s.jpg
 
Years ago the HBWC reversed was the preferred home defense load for ever reloader I knew. Great expansion wouldn't go through walls and very accurate to 20-30 ft.
 
Back in the '80's and '90's when I was shooting on a P.P.C. league that Remington bullet was all I shot. Ran 10's of thousands of them through my progressive with WW 231. My local gun shop used to sell 250 of them in plastic baggies that had a Remington label on it. When the shop was going out of business about 2005, I stopped in and bought the five baggies they had left on the shelf, along with a lot of other reloading stuff at a huge discount. The owner saw me and called me into the store room. He said he noticed I had shot a lot of those Remingtons over the years. He hated them because the plastic bags were always splitting and he couldn't sell them once 6-10 had slipped out. He showed me two five gallon bullets overflowing with busted bags of the Remington bullets and asked if I was interested in them. He made me a price of $50.00 for both buckets and I happily paid and toted them away. It was all I could do to lift them buckets and I figure there had to be at least 10,000 plus bullets in the two of them.

Sadly, they have all been shot down range now. I have tried numerous other wad cutters and nothing has been as accurate at 50 yards as the old black Remingtons.
 
While no help here finding remington hbwc's, hbwc's are easy enough to cast or make. I've either cast or swaged my own hbwc's for decades. Any bullet that is cast with a soft allow (around 7bhn/8bhn) and the lubes will make an excellent hbwc. I like to turn rn bullets into hbwc's. They can either be swaged so the bases are flat/square like traditional store bought hbwc's or the can be swaged so they have a bevel base. The bevel based hbwc's are extremely accurate.
Some 95gr hbwc's with a bb swaged from rn bullets for the 32cal.


Used to do the same thing with the h&g #50 wc's that had the bb. Would use a 10-cavity mold and make a pile of them. Traditional lube them (only 2 of the 3 grease grooves) and shoot them that way. When I wanted some hbwc's I take the cast/lubed h&g bb #50's and run them thru a swaging press. Never did find a factory made hbwc that could outperform those home swaged hbwc's made from those h&g 148gr wc's.

Anymore 1 just cast all my hbwc's. Cast has an advantage over the factory swaged hbwc's because I can use any alloy. Extreme accuracy with a wider range of loads/velocities. A win/win in any book.


They say luck is when opportunity meets preparation. Relying on others is dumb luck/luck of the draw. If you are passing along your reloading skills/knowledge/equipment to the next generation, you might want to look into making hb bullets. Not only have I enjoys making/shooting my own hb bullets for for 25+ years. My children and their children will enjoy a life time of hb bullets. It can be said that it the industry/firearms/calibers that's changing. I say good, let it change!!! A reloader's knowledge of hb bullets is just another tool in the box. A different caliber is just that, a different caliber, big deal. A bullet designed in the 1800's and was listed for sale in the lyman 1900 mold catalog, the 150gr 35870 hb bullet designed for the 38 long colt. 116 years later in the latest/greatest wonder round, the 9mm @ the 50yd line doing 10-shot test groups.


Really nothing to do with remington hbwc's. But this post has everything to do with the wealth of knowledge of the people that have used them. That knowledge is hard to come by and can easily be transferred to other calibers. Just something to think about.
 
I used a lot of Remington wadcutters too but tired of their dirty lube. I would put them in a small cardboard box and shake the bejesus out of them to dislodge as much excess dry lube as possible. I eventually tried others and Precision Delta's HBWC with their match lube is as accurate as Remington's without the mess.

Ed
 
I've used the Remington, Hornady, Speer, Precision Delta and Zero versions of this bullet and can't tell any difference. I agree with the above post about how dirty the Remington lube was.
 
Factory Wadcutters

I think we may be down to Fiocchi and Sellier & Bellot for
new production. Correct me if I am wrong, but WW dropped 38 Super Match. Gun shows have NOS on occasion along w/ Rem. One comment on how dirty the Rem 148 HBWCs is true. But that's graphite! And lubes well. Precision Delta's plain no-lube bullets doped here at home with hexagonal boron nitride is a super sweet deal. Save$. My 4 M52s and the Hammerli 240 gobble 'em up and spit them out. Meister Bullet has a nice lube on their DEWCs but i have to have hollow base.
 
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For target loads....

federali said:
Going back to the late 60s or early 70s, it finally began to dawn on police to train with what they shoot on the street. Prior to that, the .38 wadcutter was the universal training round and police departments collectively went through them by the billions.

Then came semi-autos as well as a decline in traditional gallery type target shooting. Wadcutters are like 35mm film and house phones; I never thought I'd see a day without them but all three are becoming history.
Click to expand...

For target loads, HBWC still reign supreme. And, a lot of us can't afford to practice with what we carry, so we make a reasonable facsimile of a similar weight bullet with similar velocity. I do shoot some high dollar rounds just to make sure I'm doing it right.:)

I see Hornady HBWCs, I've bought a lot of Speer over the years but it's hard to find anything 'Speer' nowadays. There are several small type companies that supply swaged bullets.

I've never seen a Remington HBWC, but it may be a regional thing.
 
Midway USA was selling them in 2000 bullet batches. Not always in stock. They are wonderful. But I'd go to precision delta and deal there
 
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