OT; .38 wadcutter effectiveness??

[Poohgyrr]

Hi all,

A buddy is recovering from some injuries and looking for less recoil in his S&W .38 Airweight until he is back to normal. His current owies hurt his accuracy and followup shots & he's not happy about that.

The Federal 125 Nyclad is doing OK, but we noticed that standard wadcutters are more accurate and allow quicker & more accurate followup shots. It has been a while since I saw anything about using wadcutters for defense. Anyone have any info to share?

Thanks.

[Lefty Dude]

Many years ago there was a Company in the East making a self-defense 38 wad-cutter called Hydra-Shok.
This is a 38 wad cutter type 146 gr. W/ a hollow point flush with the case mouth. These were made and tested for short range use. They are not standard target wad cutters.

Hydra-Shok Corporation
Watkins Glen, New York
I believe the owner died sometime in the 1980's and the Family desolved the Corporation.

I have two boxes (100) of these special Defense loads.

A Friend of mine here in Arizona, an Attorney help set up the Corporation in the late 1950's.
He gave them to me this past Year.

[Arminius]

I think a WC style bullet would be extremely efficient for short range defensive use.

You can´t top the frontal area.

For maximum effect it should be ( handloaded and ) driven faster, eventually from harder cast Lead, perhaps a BB for easier reloading and no hollow base to not weaken the bullet in the middle.

Loaded to .38 Spl + P , with Unique, or N 340 or Blue Dot or the like, I would use it for concealed carry as a backup.

Just my .02, please correct me, Hermann

[Cliff]

I had a friend who retired from NYPD and at one time worked on their stake out squad, setting up in stores which were targets for hold ups. He commented one of their favorite loads used was the 148 grain HB wadcutters in their six inch revolvers. These were common match loads. It seems the round nose bullets would sometimes fail to pentatrate on the head shots. Most times all they had was the top half of the felons head to shoot at, the wad cutter would not glance or slide off the skull. Also I believe Jim Cirillo tried to come up with a better bullet that wouldn't glance off of the hard skull. I may not be 100 percent accurate on this, it is a while since he passed over, but he was a master class shooter. The full frontal flat is impressive on small game as well.

[Blaine]

Anything I ever read on wadcutters related excellent self defense. I would not expect them to penetrate very far, though...

[336A]

Pooghyrr, here is some info on Wad Cutter bullets for you, hope this helps.

http://www.brassfetcher.com/Buffalo%20B ... utter.html

http://www.brassfetcher.com/38wadcutter.html

http://www.brassfetcher.com/38SpecialVa ... rInch.html

[Ray Newman]

Back in the 1980's, I read an article 'bout loading .38 hollow based WC backwards. From shooting into geletin blocks, the wound channel was impressive, with some expanding to around .70 calibre.

'Dunno' how well a reversed hollow based WC would work against heavy clothing though....

[Rusty]

Everything is a trade off, but if I were restricted tot he used of a .38 again a 148 grain HBWC turned so the hollow base was looking forward is exactly what I'd use.

Our Dept. armorer used to load them for us back in the 70's. They were very impressive out of a snub nose.

[fatoldfool]

I still carry hydrashoks occasionally when I carry a snubbie (yep, got some left from the 80's). I also used to load the hollowbase WC backwards. I don't know about penetration but they sure expend all their energy in the target. try them versus a jacketed load on a gallon water or a 5 gallon jug of water and say WoWEE.....

[Charles]

As others have said, before the days of Lee Jurris, it was fairly common to load the HBWC backwards in 38 Special loads. I did it , but used cast wad cutter bullets and stepped up the velocity to 850 fps or so. IIRC it was 5/Unique

I have shot lots of small game with regular 38 Special WC match loads and it does just fine on bunnies and the like. But, at that velocity penetration is very limited.

I would feel very creepy about using traditional WC match loads for self defense, if anything better was available. I just would not trust them to reach important stuff in the body. Now step them up to mid-range speed and that is something else.

[336A]

For those doubting the ability of Wad Cutter bullets to penetrate look at the links I provided in my previous post. I asure you they will penetrate very deeply.

[Charles]

I followed those links to the test and found one involved cast WC scooting along at 900 (more or less) fps and gave 20 to 24 inches of penetration. Another test as a factory match WC at a hair less than 600 fps that gave 16 inches of penetration.

These test were in naked ballistic medium, with no clothes, bones or the like. I would still feel creepy with factory slo-mo match wadcutters.

The post about the match wadcutter makes sense and they will turn on bone or even large muscle. They create a zig zag wound channel that would often be fatal. A good 22 LR does the same them. They are a trama surgeon's nighmare. They are also often the weapon of choice for murder. However, they are not much as a fight stopper and I would suspect that the factory match WC would have a similiar record over a number of shootings.

a cast WC cutter scooting along at 900 fps would be as good or better fight stopper at the much loved Keith SWC at the same speed.

Now all of this is mostly opinion, theory and/or hot air as I have never shot anybody, hope to never shoot anybody and in general find the whole idea sorta repulsive.

[Tycer]

If he'll practice with them and carry them, they will do the job. Would I feel undergunned? Well, yeah. I feel undergunned with any handgun. Gimme a rifle or shotgun please.

[wilko]

It is the only factory load i care to shoot in my 642... acceptable recoil and great accuracy!

[firefuzz]

Back in the day it was common for most of law dawgs in my area to carry a Mod 36 or 60 Smith for a backup and our favorite load for these guns included a Star 148gr HBWC loaded to about 900fps. These rounds were extremely effective on soft target in the down and dirty ranges backup guns were used at, but they generally started to tumble between 10 and 15 yards.

Rob

[wm]

It should work just find, in particular the reversed hollow base wadcutter @ 800 fps or more.

The only advantage the semi wadcutters bullets have over the wad cutter is they are quicker and easier to align & reload into a cylinder.

Wm

[Poohgyrr]

Great thanks guys I appreciate all the quick responses. And 336A, those links are good, pictures tell the story. I've heard a good hardcast at about 900 fps does the job, and the HBWC loaded backwards seems to have done fine for a lot of guys.

I have an old case of good factory wadcutters from a retired Marshal. I bet we can run those alongside some other loads and see what my buddy thinks. Should be fun; you know, I'm going to have my wife do that too.

Again, we appreciate it guys.