Back in the day, Remington and Winchester offered the 200 gr lead roundnose bullet in
38 spl. and called it a police load. I still have a couple boxes. The stuff kicks.
Anyway, during the 60’s and early 70’s at least two writers cited this combination to be effective because the bullet woud tumble and thus do more damage. The same people said that the British Webleys in 38.S&W(same bullet weight)were good man-stoppers for this reason.
My question to Doc is: even if the above bullet did tumble in flesh, at .38 velocities would tumbling make any difference?
Also noted back in the day was that the 200gr “Super Police” was often referred to as a Nerf bullet since it would bounce off of windshields and bad guy’s heads more often than not.
One of our old Chiefs shot a guy during the course of a gunfights in the face, twice, without any effect at all. This was common when using this load.
One of those nice theories, like the ultralight JHPs that became popular a bit later in history, that didn’t work out in practice.
The 200 gr .38 Special was popular with a few cops in the 70’s. Some of them thought that they were more powerful because they were loaded with 200 grains of powder. I remember one guy tell me that the difference between the .357 Magnum and the .38 Special was that the .38 was loaded with the less powerful black powder.
There was an article in a 70’s Gun Digest about the 200 grain .38, ‘Big Bullets For Little Guns’. It covered the British development of their .38-200 and our .38 Special 200gr loading. The British Army believed that the long, unstable 200gr bullet would equal the wounding effectiveness of their .455 bullet.
I have fired the Remington and Winchester 200gr loads and have bounced them off of car doors when fired from my 2 inch Mod 60 at 90 degree angles. I have also bounced target velocity 148 gr wadcutters off those same doors which doesn’t give me alot of confidence with that load either.
It would be interesting to see what a + P 200 grain .38 load would do. Another 150 fps might make a difference. A .357 Magnum loading of that weight bullet would also be interesting.
I don’t think a .358" WFN 200 gr bullet @ 1200 fps will tumble…
And for antipersonnel use, what do you get in return of the recoil and blast of this load, compared to a milder one? It is a non-expanding bullet, does not tumble and probably overpenetrates like crazy on soft tissue. You’ll gain barrier penetration, but how important really is it?
I don’t think a .358" WFN 200 gr bullet @ 1200 fps will tumble
I didn’t expect it to tumble either. Looks like a load that may be useful against bear skulls.
A self defense .38 200gr bullet could be designed for early yaw. It would probably be a round nose or semi pointed design. A +P loading would be needed in order to get decent penetration through clothing, common pocket contents and bone.
That load and the ole Highway load was a waste of time on people, inless it hit bone, then it tended to drop them fairly quick. We carried them back in the 60’s,
Now loaded up in 357 cases it might have made it better , don’t know for sure
I loaded some of LBTs 180gr WFN bullets for pig hunting. I shot a small meat pig froma 6" Dan Wesson rwvolver at about 20 yds. The wound channel was very small. The bullet passed about 1/2" under the spine with no effect. The second shot was in one ear, and out the other. Penetration was complete in both cases. There are definetly better choices out there for SD I wonder if the 180gr Nosler partition can be driven fast enough out a .38 special to expand.