38 Special Short Barrel Ammo Choices

[RedFord150]

My personal fave for HD is a Ruger Speed Six .38 special with a 2 3/4" barrel.
This gun was originally designed as a .357 mag. It will handle +P loads all day long and is fairly heavy. Recoil is not a major issue.
I am thinking of switching to a Defensive Ammo specifically designed for short barrels and also low flash.
The most common ammo I see for this use is Speer Gold Dot, Winchester PDX, and Buffalo Bore.
Do any of you have any experience with this type of ammo?
What are your preferred choices?
Thank you in advance.

[ckprax]

I think they will all perform well, I like bb myself.

[MudCamper]

Hornady Critical Defense is another option.

[PEZHEAD265]

Buffalo Bore it cost a little extra but it packs more of a punch.They have low flash regular and +p loads.The good thing about a wheel gun is you don't have to shoot alot to see if it will jam.Check out the numbers and you will see that buffalo's are better then the others.

[Black_Talon]

Speer 135gr +P Gold Dot Short Barrel.

[Librarian]

Speer 135gr +P Gold Dot Short Barrel.

That was recommended to me as well. It was out of stock just everywhere until recently; haven't shot any of it yet.

[gunsmithcats]

148 gr full wadcutters. No **** full wadcutters penetrate really well out of snubnose. Very little flash and quick followup.

[VMCJ-3]

It used to be called the "FBI load". A .38 Spec +P 158gr. lead hollow point. Not cheap, but pretty effective.

[HskrVern]

148 gr full wadcutters. No **** full wadcutters penetrate really well out of snubnose. Very little flash and quick followup.

This is what I give my wife when I'm gone, she's can hit pop cans at 25 yards with the S&B wadcutters all day.

[h0use]

Speer 135gr +P Gold Dot Short Barrel.

+1 on this load. this is what i carry in my sw m642 1 1/8in barrel.

[till44]

Good article by DocGKR:

There have been many reports in the scientific literature, by Dr. Fackler and others, recommending the 158 gr +P LSWCHP as offering adequate performance. Please put this in context for the time that these papers were written in the late 1980's and early 1990's--no denim testing was being performed at that time, no robust expanding JHP's, like the Barnes XPB, Federal Tactical & HST, Speer Gold Dot, or Win Ranger Talon existed. In the proper historical perspective, the 158 gr +P LSWCHP fired out 3-4" barrel revolvers was one of the best rounds available--and it is still a viable choice, as long as you understand its characteristics.

While oversimplified, bare gelatin gives information about best case performance, while 4 layer denim provides data on worst case performance--in reality, the actual performance may be somewhere in between. The four layer denim test is NOT designed to simulate any type of clothing--it is simply an engineering test to assess the ability of a projectile to resist plugging and robustly expand. FWIW, one of the senior engineers at a very respected handgun ammunition manufacturer recently commented that bullets that do well in 4 layer denim testing have invariably worked well in actual officer involved shooting incidents.

With few exceptions, the vast majority of .38 Sp JHP's fail to expand when fired from 2" barrels in the 4 layer denim test. Many of the lighter JHP's demonstrate overexpansion and insufficient penetration in bare gel testing. Also, the harsher recoil of the +P loads in lightweight J-frames tends to minimize practice efforts and decrease accuracy for many officers. The 158 gr +P LSWCHP offers adequate penetration, however in a 2" revolver the 158gr +P LSWCHP does not reliably expand. If it fails to expand, it will produce less wound trauma than a WC. Target wadcutters offer good penetration, cut tissue efficiently, and have relatively mild recoil. With wadcutters harder alloys and sharper leading edges are the way to go. Wadcutters perform exactly the same in both bare and 4 layer denim covered gel when fired from a 2" J-frame.

When faced with too little penetration, as is common with lightweight .38 Sp JHP loads or too much penetration like with the wadcutters, then go with penetration. Agencies around here have used the Winchester 148 gr standard pressure lead target wadcutter (X38SMRP), as well as the Federal (GM38A) version--both work. A sharper edged wadcutter would even be better... Dr. Fackler has written in Fackler ML: "The Full Wadcutter--An Extremely Effective Bullet Design", Wound Ballistics Review. 4(2):6-7, Fall 1999)
quote:
"As a surgeon by profession, I am impressed by bullets with a cutting action (eg. Winchester Talon and Remington Golden Saber). Cutting is many times more efficient at disrupting tissue than the crushing mechanism by which ordinary bullets produce the hole through which they penetrate. The secret to the increased efficiency of the full wadcutter bullet is the cutting action of its sharp circumferential leading edge. Actually, cutting is simply very localized crush; by decreasing the area over which a given force is spread, we can greatly increase the magnitude to the amount of force delivered per unit are--which is a fancy way of saying that sharp knives cut a lot better than dull ones. As a result, the calculation of forces on tissue during penetration underestimate the true effectiveness of the wadcutter bullet relative to other shapes."


Currently, the Speer Gold Dot 135 gr +P JHP, Winchester 130 gr bonded +P JHP (RA38B), and Barnes 110 gr XPB all copper JHP (for ex. in the Corbon DPX loading) offer the most reliable expansion we have seen from a .38 sp 2” BUG; Hornady 110 gr standard pressure and +P Critical Defense loads also offer good performance out of 2" barrel revolvers.

Any of the Airweight J-frames are fine for BUG use. The steel J-frames are a bit too heavy for comfortable all day wear on the ankle, body armor, or in a pocket. My current J-frames are 342's and previously in my career I have used the 37, 38, 649, and 642. I like the 342 w/Lasergrips very much. Shooting is not too bad with standard pressure wadcutters and the 110 gr DPX, but not so comfortable with the Speer 135 gr JHP +P Gold Dots. Before the advent of the 110 gr Corbon DPX load, I used to carry standard pressure wadcutters in my J-frames with Gold Dot 135 gr +P JHP's in speed strips for re-loads, as the flat front wadcutters were hard to reload with under stress. There is no reason to go with .357 mag in a J-frame, as the significantly larger muzzle blast and flash, and harsher recoil of the .357 Magnum does not result in substantially improved terminal performance compared to the more controllable .38 Special bullets when fired from 2” barrels.

[rugershooter]

I use 110 gr. Hornady Critical Defense FTX loads in my Taurus 85 snubby. Good penetration and expansion, and my revolver likes it. I've been wanting to try the Gold Dots though.

ETA. Look at this guy's channel on youtube. He does amateur ballistic testing, so view it with that in mind. But it's good for some visual impressions of the different ammo choices and how they perform. http://www.youtube.com/user/tnoutdoors9

[bombadillo]

I don't think you can go wrong with any of the defense ammo options. I love .357 Hornady leverevolution a lot. It's pretty hot stuff and I've shot a lot of .44 and .357

[SnWnMe]

I don't have a favorite HD load because I haven't shot anyone yet but I do have a stash of the old Eldorado Starfires and the FBI 158gr +P

[voiceofreason]

The short barrel Gold Dot would be my #1 choice, except I shoot the Federal Nyclad FAR more accurately.

So my .38 carry load is Federal Nyclad.

The Barnes bullet .38 load & the Gold Dot +p short barrel would be my other choices if I couldn't get Nyclad.