Know what you put in your 38 snub gun!

At snubby velocities, I put my faith in flatnosed solid lead.

148 WC or 158 SWC, just depends on which hits closer to the sights. That bullet is getting a whopping 2” of barrel to get propelled and rotating… might as well pick a projectile that can go as deep and straight as one can go with that much of a handicap.
 
quote:
",,,,we have to go back to the original load Keith developed. It was centered around a hard-cast lead semi-wadcutter bullet..."

of course, it was a 44 mag, not 38 spec, but SWC is what is in my J Frame.

www.handgunsmag.com

Keith's Classic - Handguns

Few .44 Magnum loads can improve on Elmer's original.
www.handgunsmag.com www.handgunsmag.com
 
I tend to think with J frames it's a lot more important to have a load that shoots to your nonadjustable sights that you can get multiple hits with easily and confidently. Ballistic capability takes a 'slight' backseat here.

That said I'm also very very rarely only carrying a j frame so my opinions are a little skewed.
 
Every man assumes that his moment of truth will involve a running gun fight...moving and taking cover, executing tactical reloads, and prevailing against multiple armed attackers, all firing at him...in which case he is probably dead. It's far more likely that the defender will be backpedaling while fending off an edged or blunt weapon in the dark, clawing frantically for his sidearm and praying that he can get to it before he's gutted or brained. In that scenario, accuracy and POA/POI won't mean a thing.
 
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John Travis said:
Every man assumes that his moment of truth will involve a running gun fight...moving and taking cover, executing tactical reloads, and prevailing against multiple armed attackers, all firing at him...in which case he is probably dead. It's far more likely that the defender will be backpedaling while fending off an edged or blunt weapon in the dark, clawing frantically for his sidearm and praying that he can get to it before he's gutted or brained. In that scenario, accuracy and POA/POI won't mean a thing.
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Unless you come across a rabid fox in which case those sights better be. Regulated to the point of aim!
 
I am shooting RMR wad-cutters out of 60. 640 and 642. They are plated bullets.
 
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keepcalmandcarryon said:
It does seem worse than previous years for sure
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I was being facetious. In all my years of country livin' I've yet to encounter a visibly rabid wild animal.

Note that in the later stages, distemper looks a lot like rabies. I suspect that's probably what you've been seeing.
 
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@John Travis, I am asking this respectfully (you've forgotten more about 1911s than I will ever know): what is the basis for your belief that the "far more likely" scenario involves nighttime close-range fighting with a contact weapon?

An entangled, contact-distance shoot is as fanciful a scenario as a running gunfight. There is obviously not a whole lot of data on civilian defensive shootings, but what is there emphasizes marksmanship at reasonable distances by orders of magnitude over a backpedaling edged-weapon attack.

Tom Givens has been tracking student shootings for decades. His data set is dozens of documented civilian defensive shootings (last I heard from folks at the Rangemaster conference, the number was near 80). Most were in response to aggravated assaults or armed robberies. Contact shooting and distances above 7 yards were both extreme outliers (fewer than a handful of examples of each, though 10+ yard distances were more common than entangled gunfights). The overwhelming majority of student shootings were
- in public places (convenience stores and parking lots),
- at distances around or just over a car's length,
- involved one to three shots, and
- involved a draw to two-handed, sighted fire.

Anecdotally, nearly every shooting I was called to (civilian reported or OIS) or have worked on post-LE (with DA's offices or on civil suits) comports with Givens' data: parking lot, convenience store, workplace, or home; 3 to 10 yards; 1 to 3 rounds. I can only recall one "entangled" shooting from one of my old jobs, and that still doesn't really fit the mold. The arresting deputy NDed into his own leg wrestling the suspect (he disabled the retention hood on his holster, and he was trying to reholster while fighting), prompting my friend (his trainee, who was on the other side of the perp) to brain the suspect in response.

If the 90%+ odds are I will have to make a 3-to-10 yard shot fast (and this tracks with the distances I saw back in LE, for the times I did have to draw), then there's a 90%+ chance that accuracy and POA/POI will be relevant. My J frames can be as much as 3" off POA with the wrong bullet at 10 yards. Assuming no lucky breaks, that's enough to make a good hit bad, or a bad hit a miss.
 
cubrock said:
At short range, a lead wadcutter is a bullet to be reckoned with. Seat a hollow based wadcutter backwards and you will be amazed at the expansion.
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Flip that 148 HBWC around.....oh yeah did that a lot. And like you said expansion ..most definitely
Got some old Remington 95gr JHP rounds ( I think 95gr maybe lighter) they do some damage

-Snoopz
 
JRV said:
I am asking this respectfully (you've forgotten more about 1911s than I will ever know): what is the basis for your belief that the "far more likely" scenario involves nighttime close-range fighting with a contact weapon?
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Mostly from a brother in-law and a nephew with a combined 35 years with the WSPD, and a cousin who had 40 years experience as a criminal defense attorney in Wise, Va, and Harlan, Ky. These two counties took up the majority of his time. Stories of "Some fool brought a knife/baseball bat to a gunfight" kind of things.

Only about 30% of shootings involve a gun on both sides, according to their experiences.

Most citizen shootings occur in low or no light inside of 10 feet, and most often at 3-5 feet. That may or may not involve a contact weapon, but I'd estimate that there are more than are made public.
 
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John Travis said:
Every man assumes that his moment of truth will involve a running gun fight...moving and taking cover, executing tactical reloads, and prevailing against multiple armed attackers, all firing at him...in which case he is probably dead. It's far more likely that the defender will be backpedaling while fending off an edged or blunt weapon in the dark, clawing frantically for his sidearm and praying that he can get to it before he's gutted or brained. In that scenario, accuracy and POA/POI won't mean a thing.
Click to expand...

On my gosh.....a voice crying common sense in the wilderness.

Thank you. This is why I abandoned the ipsc (yep, I'm older) gadgetry and gamesmanship for basic skills practice and situational awareness.

And if your preferred carry won't hit where you aim it....please also consider fixing it or fixing you or both.
 
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Sharps40 said:
This is why I abandoned the ipsc (yep, I'm older) gadgetry and gamesmanship for basic skills practice and situational awareness
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In my way of thinking, a snub-nosed revolver is something that you drop into a pocket to walk the dog or make a quick trip to the 7-11 at night. It's a belly gun. A "GTF off me" tool that isn't normally used at much more than arm's length. In that role, they shine. For pretty much anything else, you're better off carrying a full sized pistol or revolver.

As far as the "games" go...A man that I knew who was personal friends with Charles Askins took him to one of the action matches in Arizona shortly before he died. Askins had never seen one, and he was curious.

After it was over, he asked the good Colonel what he thought.

His answer...verbatim:

Looks like a lotta fun. Those boys are shooters, for sure...but if those had been real gunfights, there ain't a damn one of'em would still be alive.
 
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I think of my 38 snubbies the same way I think of my Ruger LC2, it is my personal space gun. Remember the 6' distance that they wanted us to keep between people during COVID, that is the way I think about those guns. My personal space.
 
John Travis said:
I was being facetious. In all my years of country livin' I've yet to encounter a visibly rabid wild animal.

Note that in the later stages, distemper looks a lot like rabies. I suspect that's probably what you've been seeing.
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Well, it does happen. It’s been about 20 years but a friend who worked with me killed one in my parents yard with his .22 pistol when it ran out of the beans and attacked one of our labs. My dad beat it off the dog with a stick and the friend shot it. According to animal control which had it tested it did have rabies. I was away at football camp for all this fun. The lab was fine and kept chasing cottonmouths in the ditch and catching bullfrogs for a few more years.
This is in rural Pender county about ten miles from where the gentleman that fought the rabid bobcat who attacked his wife that made national news.
Granted it’s not an everyday thing but it’s enough to think at least having a stout walking stick is a good idea.
 
John Travis said:
Every man assumes that his moment of truth will involve a running gun fight...moving and taking cover, executing tactical reloads, and prevailing against multiple armed attackers, all firing at him...in which case he is probably dead. It's far more likely that the defender will be backpedaling while fending off an edged or blunt weapon in the dark, clawing frantically for his sidearm and praying that he can get to it before he's gutted or brained. In that scenario, accuracy and POA/POI won't mean a thing.
Click to expand...
In that case, I'll take something with more than double the capacity at a similar size and apparently similar ballistics.

beretta.jpg

cz83.jpg
 
Sharps40 said:
On my gosh.....a voice crying common sense in the wilderness.

Thank you. This is why I abandoned the ipsc (yep, I'm older) gadgetry and gamesmanship for basic skills practice and situational awareness.

And if your preferred carry won't hit where you aim it....please also consider fixing it or fixing you or both.
Click to expand...

Why abandon it?

Why not do both? Rounds downrange in competition AND practicing with one's concealed carry piece. It is also quite possible to be a competition shooter and have situational awareness.

In my humble opinion, there is little one can substitute for rounds downrange. Competition keeps the skill set sharp, incorporates movement, even shooting with the weak hand like the match I shot Sunday before last.

One of the best things about outlaw matches (they have some wonderful ones at The Range in Oxford) is that they'll let you shoot your carry gun in a match. It might be beneficial to bring out the nightstand pistol at times too.

No disrespect meant, but I think it is not good to think about it in terms of abandoning one thing for another. Rather, it is beneficial to do both.
 
Not surprised we ended up on a tangent, but the "real gunfighting men don't take the shooting sports seriously" attitude is all but gone from training.

Matt Pranka, Mike Pannone, Frank Proctor, Matthew Little, Steve Fisher, Hilton Yam, JJ Racaza, Bob Vogel... just naming high-profile trainers off the top of my head that are SOF, SWAT, or both... all are huge advocates of competition shooting, and some are highly-decorated competitive shooters themselves (the last two are probably more known for their competition shooting, despite long LE careers).

Skill is skill is skill. It’s all a competition, the only thing that’s different is the stakes.
 
John Travis said:
In my way of thinking, a snub-nosed revolver is something that you drop into a pocket to walk the dog or make a quick trip to the 7-11 at night. It's a belly gun. A "GTF off me" tool that isn't normally used at much more than arm's length. In that role, they shine. For pretty much anything else, you're better off carrying a full sized pistol or revolver.

As far as the "games" go...A man that I knew who was personal friends with Charles Askins took him to one of the action matches in Arizona shortly before he died. Askins had never seen one, and he was curious.

After it was over, he asked the good Colonel what he thought.

His answer...verbatim:

Looks like a lotta fun. Those boys are shooters, for sure...but if those had been real gunfights, there ain't a damn one of'em would still be alive.
Click to expand...

Shooting a match is different than a gun fight. It does not mean that shooting matches doesn't translate. If I'm shooting a match, I might not use cover or concealment because I'm playing a game. I'm going for a score, not survival.

There's a reason there's a lot of overlap between high level competition shooters and the military. Max Michel and some of those guys used to (maybe still do) some training for the special forces guys.

If'n I'm trying not to get extra holes in me and win a gun fight (God forbid I pray that never happens) then I would not conduct myself the same way I would at some outlaw pistol match.
 
Studentofthegun said:
If'n I'm trying not to get extra holes in me and win a gun fight (God forbid I pray that never happens) then I would not conduct myself the same way I would at some outlaw pistol match.
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A wise man once said that you won't rise to the occasion. You'll default to your training.

And, every time you step up to the line with your hands raised, waiting for the "Shooter ready" command...whether you realize it or not...you're training.

Funny thing, stress.
 
John Travis said:
A wise man once said that you won't rise to the occasion. You'll default to your training.

And, every time you step up to the line with your hands raised, waiting for the "Shooter ready" command...whether you realize it or not...you're training.

Funny thing, stress.
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As someone who has shot practical competition shooting for almost two decades and drawn a pistol under stress more times than I cared for, the belief that competition makes “training scars” is a myth pushed by tough guy trainers who didn’t like getting their pants blown off by bankers and IT guys at the local club match.

The assumption that anyone will wait for an audible timer for the draw is laughable. Go time is go time.

You know what I would expect from a practiced competition shooter under stress? They will get a gun out faster than the next guy, with safer gun handling, and with the sights indexed where they’re looking. They will be unconsciously competent.

Again, the trend with SOF and SWAT trainers has been embracing competition, not making up excuses to avoid the challenge.
 
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We had a rash of sick foxes and racoons several years ago. One fellow was bitten in his driveway by a fox that proved to be rabid. Distemper and rabies are evidently hard to tell apart without testing. We had a sick racoon hanging around in our yard several years ago that the police came and shot. I asked if they were going to test for rabies, and they said they only test if a person is bitten. This winter, the police chased a sick racoon over about half the island before blasting it with a 12 gauge slug about 20 feet from my door. I have also watched a sick fox stagger around in the road by my home in the daytime before eventually wandering off. I had a sick racoon hang around the house this winter. It finally wandered off. I would be willing to bet that most of the sick animals had distemper, but one certainly had rabies.

I would deal with those sick animals myself, but the police on the beach are real touchy about people shooting on the island, and there are lots of recent migrants who are scared nearly to death by the sound of gunfire and who dearly love to report things to the town police. Shooting bows and arrows and even slingshots is forbidden here. I got myself a nice spear that is long and sharp in addition to my J-frame.
 
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John Travis said:
A wise man once said that you won't rise to the occasion. You'll default to your training.

And, every time you step up to the line with your hands raised, waiting for the "Shooter ready" command...whether you realize it or not...you're training.

Funny thing, stress.
Click to expand...

So actually going out there and shooting is doing irreparable harm to my ability to prevail in a gun fight.

Interesting take.

I was also unaware that competition shooters were all so one dimensional. We never practice with our carry gun. We only draw with our hands up.

This has been very educational.

It seems to me that the only legitimate way to practice for a gun fight is to get into some gun fights. Anything short of that is just “gaming”.
 
John Travis said:
It's far more likely that the defender will be backpedaling while fending off an edged or blunt weapon in the dark…
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Glad this was brought up….

One “drill” (if you wanna call it that) I run at the range is shooting, while moving backwards.

Usually start about 1’ (yes..a foot) from the target, start backpedling, draw and fire, while moving rearward.

No two-handed hold or being locked into any sort of stance. Left hand/arm free to fight off club/knife/tire iron/fist/etc. Not using the sights, at all. As soon as the weapon is out, at gut level and muzzle is pointed toward the target, the firing starts.

Goal:

Empty all 5 shots from my J (38/357) or all 7 shots from my G43 in the shortest distance possible, with as many hits as possible landing on or close to the midline torso of the target, anywhere between the collarbones and cod sack.

The main disadvantage to this run is you are shooting at a stationary target. Reality is if you are shooting at an attacker, unless they’ve looked back at Sodom/Gommorah and turned into a pillar of salt or have extraordinary discipline, they ain’t gonna be standing still.
 
JRV said:
The assumption that anyone will wait for an audible timer for the draw is laughable.
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Back in the early 80s, I picked up an LEO publication at a gun show for an article on the .41 Magnum and the Model 58.

There was another article that I found fascinating. Wish I'd kept the magazine, but like so many things, it got lost.

An Illinois state trooper pulled a stop that wound up in a parking lot. As soon as the trooper exited his vehicle, the subject hit the ground firing. Trooper took cover behind his vehicle and returned fire. According to the witnesses, he fired his revolver dry...stood up and dumped his empty brass into his right hand...made a quarter turn to the right...and was standing there looking at the ground while his assailant calmly walked up to within 10 feet and killed him.

Investigators were puzzled until one of them realized that he was looking for the bucket that he'd dropped his brass into on the practice range hundreds of times.



Don't think it can't happen. It may only take a half second to remember and correct, but a half second is a long time in a fight for life.

I was witness to one such event on a morning patrol near a place we called Dogpatch. You probably never heard of it. We came under fire, and everybody was on the ground firing back. One Marine's rifle malfunctioned...and he raised his hand. Anyone who's done their time with Uncle Sugar will understand why. As it turned out, he'd simply emptied his magazine.

Funny thing, stress.

Studentofthegun said:
It seems to me that the only legitimate way to practice for a gun fight is to get into some gun fights. Anything short of that is just “gaming”.
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I never said that. My point was and is to be careful of the things that you get into the habit of doing. They have a way of popping up unexpectedly.

Auditory exclusion is real. Tunnel vision is real. Time and space distortion is real. Forgetting to do the right thing can happen to anybody at any time.
 
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Two examples of poor individual training, one a fabrication based on pure hearsay, does not an argument against competition make.

One of your examples is a pure fiction based on an oft-repeated and debunked rumor about the Newhall incident. I don’t blame you—you aren’t the source and that one has always gotten around… and “gun and cop magazines in the 80s” were not exactly known for being bastions of journalistic or editorial prowess. They still aren’t, but they’re a little better now that information is freely searchable on the internet.

Your other points are based on some Marine panicking at a malfunction and a hearsay Charles Askins quote. Askins shot competition quite successfully himself and used that experience to reform Border Patrol pistol training, so it’s pretty dubious that he didn’t appreciate competition—its more likely his comment was that the folks competing weren’t all “mankillers” like him.

Neither point is an indictment of competition. One is an indictment of poor basic training and a probable argument for higher AFQT/ASVAB scores.

You keep saying “funny thing, stress,” as a self-assured way of making your point. Unrelated individual examples and unfounded myths are not the basis for a belief.

Do you think that logic applies anywhere outside of shooting? Do you think the military IMT drill brainwashes soldiers into leapfrogging positions blindly? Do you think combatives train cops and soldiers to short strike or release holds?

Maybe another data point will help—I did not reflexively release people during arrests when they tapped or yelled “time out!”

The human brain does not lose the ability to discern reality because of training or sports.
 
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