Federal Classic 38 Special Lead Round Nose Review

Issue #93 • May/June, 2005

One of our greatest mod gun experts, Lt. Col. Jeff Cooper, USMC, Ret., one time made the observation that the bullet is more of import than the gun. The gun, he explained, is merely the launcher. It is the bullet that actually does the job.

This is truthful for an armed citizen'due south home defense gun, as surely as it is for the battle weapon of i of Col. Cooper'due south brother Marines. Ditto for the constabulary officer's ammunition. And ditto once more for the bullet a rural American citizen uses to harvest game for the family table.

Modern armament testing. Paul Nowak of Winchester (left, with Springfield Armory pistol) fires over a chronograph (on tripod) which measures the bullet's velocity, and into the block of ballistic gelatin gear up on steel holder at correct.

The armed services is jump past the codes of international warfare, going back to the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Accords, all of which predated napalm, chemical warfare, and the concept of thermonuclear war. Interestingly, the Guess Abet General'southward part has already determined that these restrictions apply to declared wars between recognized nation-states, non things similar the electric current "war on terrorism," but that's another story.

The Geneva Conventions and Hague Accords require that the bullets used non be designed to expand. Substantially, they call for full metallic jacket projectiles that just punch neat, make clean holes through the bodies of enemy soldiers. Ironically, in the proper noun of human decency, virtually every state in the matrimony forbids the use of such armament confronting deer, bear, or other big game. The reason is that it tends to outcome in boring death and is not humane.

In warfare, the bullet that wounds an enemy soldier becomes a greater "force multiplier" than the one that kills him. A dead soldier means one less enemy. A wounded soldier means at least three less of the enemy: one down, and ii more than to bear him off the field of battle.

I am sure that this makes good sense to the generals behind the lines, and the bean counters behind them. Nonetheless, the soldier who is bad jiff distance away from an Al-Qaeda fanatic with an AK47 doesn't just want his opposite number wounded, he wants him instantly out of the fight at the moment the bullet hits him.

Bullet has lodged in the translucent gelatin, leaving a "wound path" clearly visible backside it. Note that damage is greatest early in the path, earlier resistance has slowed the bullet and reduced its energy.

At this signal, both the semantics and the ethics of the matter start to get complicated. No fellow fighting for his country wants, when he thinks near it, to stop the life of some other beau fighting for his country. However, that young man desperately wants the other young man not to kill him or ane of his comrades. Therefore, the job of the bullet he launches is instant incapacitation.

This may cause death. When you get into it deep enough, you realize that the righteous combatant does non shoot to impale, he shoots to stop. A mortal wound is not plenty. Many an American soldier who was mortally wounded went on to kill so many of the enemy before he ran out of blood and died that the majority of those on the sacred list who won the Congressional Medal of Honor won it posthumously. Every combat soldier who fought in heavy battle can tell yous stories of enemy soldiers who, wounded unto death, still took one or more Americans with them. These men had been killed, but not stopped.

In the large picture, the firearm is a tool. We man sapiens are the tool-bearing mammal. Nosotros are also, ipso facto, the weapon-bearing mammal. We take get the dominant species—the alpha, the top predator if y'all will—because we have learned to tailor our tools to the given task.

Therefore, Logic 101 tells u.s., if we must tailor the tool to the task, and if the tool is the gun and we know that the gun's bullet is more important than the gun itself, why, we realize with our superior man brains that choice of ammunition is admittedly disquisitional.

The history of constabulary enforcement ammunition selection is a proficient i to study because it encompasses all four of the basic models of pick that the civilian will have bachelor. Information technology is from experience that common sense is born, and the law sector has that feel.

Four models

There are essentially 4 models that police force used for selection of ammunition over the years. They might be described as the Traditional Model, the Advertising Model, the Laboratory Model, and the Experiential Model.

Police force calibers today, in order of popularity. .40 Southward&Due west is far and abroad the most used. .45 Motorcar and .357 SIG are increasing in popularity. 9mm utilise is waning greatly in law enforcement.

The Traditional Model was used for the starting time two thirds of the 20th Century—longer past some of the more institutionalized departments—and it failed miserably. The .38 Special revolver was the standard then, using 158-grain round-nose pb ammunition with a muzzle velocity of 755 anxiety per 2d, generating some 200 foot-pounds of energy at the muzzle.

This ammunition, from the first, performed dismally at its intended purpose. The rounded tip of the bullet slipped through flesh with a wedge effect, leaving backside it a dimpled channel similar to an water ice pick wound. Information technology would kill, just slowly. Withal, information technology had little "stopping effect." The round became known on the street as "the widow-maker," because you could empty your gun into your attacker and he could yet make your married woman a widow before he went down. Because the bullet tended to get through and through, there was great danger of striking an unseen bystander behind the intended target with the exiting projectile. Because of its low free energy, this aforementioned bullet that penetrated too much on humans penetrated too piffling on difficult barriers, such equally car doors and windows, often bouncing off a felon'southward windshield.

In the late 1920s and the '30s, efforts were made to find something more powerful. These included the .38/44 round, simply a high velocity 158-grain .38 Special; the .38 Super Automated from Filly, with a pointy nose 130-grain full metal jacket bullet at some 1200 human foot per second, generating peradventure 420 foot-pounds of energy; and the .357 Magnum cartridge jointly introduced by Smith & Wesson (the gun) and Winchester-Western (the cartridge). In the Magnum, the 158-grain bullet was retained, but with a flat betoken and much greater velocity and energy.

These hotter loads were meliorate human being-stoppers if heavy os was struck and shattered, or if the bullets hit a liquid part of the trunk, such as the brain or a full bladder. Otherwise, they only zipped through the trunk with even more exit force than a .38 round nose, and most law chiefs banned them for fear of their corollary impairment adequacy to bystanders.

The .38 Special circular nose stayed ascendant for the kickoff two thirds of the 20th Century, simply considering of tradition. "It'south what we've always had." "Nosotros've always done it this way." Not until the 1960s did things go better. Lee Jurras in Shelbyville, Indiana, founded the Super Vel armament company and produced a line of calorie-free weight, high velocity hollow point rounds. With these, the .38 Special now had an expanding bullet that would open upwardly or "mushroom" in the body. It delivered much more than "shock consequence" and was much less likely to exit. It was as well much less likely to ricochet, which round nose bullets were and are infamous for doing.

Accuracy is normally a welcome side benefit of purchasing premium armament. 230-grain Federal Hydra-Shok .45 Auto round has given author a 13/8″ group at 25 yards with meaty Glock 30 pistol.

At present was built-in the Experiential Model. Police departments that took the assuming pace of adopting the new ammo were inundated with queries from other agencies equally to how information technology had performed. When learning of its highly satisfactory results, the inquiring agencies adopted it themselves.

With widespread adoption came more collective experience. Police had at concluding fallen back to their cadre competence—being trained investigators—and applied it to equipment choice. The upshot was much improve ammunition and a quantum jump in both officeholder safety and public rubber.

In the mid-1970s we saw the first large-scale awarding of the Laboratory Model. In what is at present recognized as a classic example of junk science, the National Institute of Justice spent seven figures on a study to determine RII, or Relative Incapacitation Index, of handgun ammunition. Using an sometime conception of ballistic gelatin as flesh simulant, the testers went on the assumption that whatsoever bullet created the greatest temporary cavity in the substance would deliver the greatest "stopping ability" in living tissue. They so set well-nigh quantifying stopping ability value, with tables that indicated the old .38 circular nose might exist a ameliorate stopper than the Regular army .45, and that a 9mm automatic with ball ammunition would be more potent than the .45. "Softnose" bullets received the same value as hollow points.

The expensively funded report had the prestige of the U.South. Regime behind it, and departments flocked to buy ammunition that rated well in the RII studies. Unfortunately, they were doomed to disappointment.

The RII results flew in the face up of iii quarters of a century of observed reality. The starting time examination of junk scientific discipline versus existent scientific discipline is, "Do the results from the laboratory correlate with known factors from the field?" If they do not, we know something went incorrect in the lab. Many of the hypothetical conclusions that the RII report put along as written in stone were in fact 180 degrees off from a large torso of observed reality. That early warning bespeak was ignored, and the results were tragic.

High tech bullets in premium ammunition are what nearly cops employ today, and about hunters are going in the aforementioned direction. Top: Remington brass jacket Golden Saber, and Winchester's SXT. Below: Federal's proven .45 Hydra-Shok and Speer'due south popular, effective Aureate Dot bullet with bonded jacket and cadre.

Many of the quick-expanding bullets favored past the RII written report would not penetrate securely plenty into a homo body to accomplish the vital organs of a large man from certain angles. In Michigan, a policewoman fired 2 calorie-free, fast .38 hollow points into a gunman's chest, and manifestly believing that this had washed the job, lowered her service revolver. Instead of collapsing, however, the assailant raised his gun and shot her in the head, killing her instantly. He survived to stand trial. In Miami, a bullet that had done well in the RII tests was fired into the chest of a gunman who, unfazed, then shot and killed the human being who shot him and his partner, both FBI agents, and wounded several more agents before being killed by bullets in the head and neck.

This resulted in the FBI Wound Ballistics Workshop of 1988 in Quantico, Virginia. Among those present were Dr. Martin Fackler, head of wound ballistics research for the U.s. Army'southward medical training center, Letterman Constitute. Fackler had developed an improved ballistic gelatin model that he had scientifically correlated to swine muscle tissue, which in plow is comparable to human muscle tissue. He hypothesized that wound depth was much more important than previously thought, and recommended ammunition that could send a bullet at least twelve inches into his ballistic gelatin.

The FBI agreed. By this betoken, the 9mm semiautomatic pistol had ascended to dominance over the half-dozen-shot service revolver in the police world, and the FBI adopted a heavy, wearisome moving 9mm bullet that weighed 147 grains and traveled at a subsonic velocity of less than thou feet per second.

Even this did not work terribly well. The bullet often went deep, just also frequently failed to expand reliably, and penetrated too far. Most departments that adopted it were so disappointed in the street results that they either inverse armament or went to more powerful pistols.

Once-traditional 158 grain round nose pb .38 Special ammunition is now recognized as obsolete, and a poor choice for anything but target shooting.

Meanwhile, in a archetype example of the Experiential Model, Detroit homicide detective Evan Marshall had begun a drove of thousands of police gunfight reports, and attempted to rate the stopping power of the ammunition used based on what really happened in gunfights. He was presently joined by ballistic researcher Ed Sanow. In a dissever study deputed by the Police Marksman Association, Richard Fairburn analyzed gunfights submitted to his data base by various agencies, and his results were almost identical to those of Marshall and Sanow in identifying the best performing constabulary handgun rounds.

Meanwhile, the Advertisement Model—taking the manufacturer'south grandiose claims for having the newest and deadliest ammo at face up value—had rapidly failed. Winchester's early on Silvertip performed dismally in well-nigh handgun calibers, though information technology would afterward prove itself in subsequent generations of improved ammunition. Federal's Hydra-Shok series worked superbly in .45 quotient, just performed less effectively with some smaller bore bullets. The law soon learned to trust just the Laboratory and Experiential Models, preferably in combination.

Combined models

Experience has taught constabulary that what actually happens on the street is more important than what happens in the bogus surroundings of the laboratory. The 9mm circular now best-selling to work the best is a 124-grain to 127-grain high tech hollow bespeak at a velocity of 1250 feet per second. NYPD, with some xxx,000 officers conveying this blazon of ammo, the Speer Gilded Dot +P 124-grain, is happy with the performance of its 9mm service pistols. Ditto the Orlando, Florida, Law Section, which uses the Winchester Ranger 127-grain +P+ in their standard issue 9mm SIGs.

Tailor the tool to the chore. Both of these hunting cartridges are .308 Winchester. The 165 grain Federal Premium at left is ideal for big deer, while the 125 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip at right is better suited for smaller animals like pronghorn antelope.

Most other departments accept gone to more powerful rounds. The .forty S&W caliber is the overwhelming tiptop choice of police departments today, followed past the .357 SIG and the .45. Created to duplicate the best ballistics of the .357 Magnum revolver in a semiautomatic pistol, the .357 SIG spits a 125-grain jacketed hollow point at 1300 to 1400 anxiety per second, delivering 500-plus foot-pounds of free energy. Departments which have adopted information technology are delighted with the performance, reporting a high frequency of ane-shot stops. The Virginia State Police force, who issue the .357 SIG Model P229 pistol, told me that they were particularly pleased with the number of felons who dropped and stopped fighting later on receiving non-fatal wounds in non-vital parts of the body.

In .40 quotient, the original 180-grain hollow point at subsonic velocity has worked better than expected, just the star performers in .forty ammo tend to be loftier tech bullets such as the Winchester SXT or Ranger T, the CCI Golden Dot, and the Remington Gilded Saber with 155-grain bullets at 1200 human foot-seconds or 165-grain bullets at 1140 to 1150 feet per 2d. Using the 165-grain Ranger in their .forty caliber Glocks, the Nashville, Tennessee, Constabulary have amassed a long series of impressive one-shot stops.

In .45 quotient, the matured Federal Hydra-Shok design is something of a gold standard, and the Winchester SXT, Remington Gold Saber, and CCI Gold Dot also have delivered impressive performance in the field. These bullets reliably open up and go the task washed. In .45 Machine, the 230-grain bullet at some 880 pes seconds has become standard in police piece of work. Annotation that all of these are high-tech projectiles, what is known in the trade equally "premium ammunition."

Premium ammo

High tech bullets are more than expensive to industry. The bonded cadre of the Gilt Dot, the interlocked bullet trunk and jacket of the SXT, the mail in the eye of a Hydra-Shok's hollow point, and the driving band that surrounds the base of a Golden Saber bullet are all more expensive to manufacture and therefore toll more than. Why do police departments that buy on bid specify this premium ammunition? Considering it works improve, and with homo life on the line, they cannot afford to economize.

America's near pop police service pistol today is this Glock 22. It holds xvi rounds of .twoscore S&W ammo like this Black Hills EXP, which delivers 485 foot-pounds of energy per shot.

The same is true for the hunter, to a caste. Life may not be on the line, but operation is still important. If you are shooting a small deer at relatively shut range with a high-powered hunting burglarize, conventional hunting ammo bought in a "value-pack" at Wal-Mart will probably be practiced enough. However, if yous are aiming at a yard pound moose, and winter meat for the family unit hinges on the bullet performing its task, it'south more than worth a dollar a cartridge to have a high-performance bullet designed for this particular chore.

This is why hunting rounds like the Federal Premium and the Winchester Supreme sell and then well in gun shops. This ammunition is bought by the serious hunters. Their research, and the anecdotal feel of their friends who have used information technology in the game fields, has convinced them to pay a few dollars actress to guarantee every bit much as possible the best performance when there is an opportunity for only one shot and the results are critical.

In the end, the smart hunters have done exactly what the cops did. They went with the reality of what worked in the field, in a way that was quantified and given credibility in the laboratory. This approach mirrored the commonage, institutionalized learning experience of law enforcement in ammunition option.

Some call it a combination of the Experiential Model and the Laboratory Model. Some might telephone call it Reality Based Selection Protocol.

And some just telephone call it common sense.

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Source: https://www.backwoodshome.com/choose-your-ammo-police-style/

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