Working on a HP load...'Barrel Lengths Matter'

[OS OK]

Some of you fellas already know that I've been working on a .38 Special load that could be an 'in house defense load' that would most likely stay in the perp and not exit and pass through a wall and injure someone else. I wanted that load for my wife's .38 Taurus 1 7/8'ths snubby. The powder, the quickest I have is the Bullseye. I think I need quick to make velocity in a short barrel.
I've been working with this old Ideal 358-439 HP mold with two lengths of pins included. On these tests the longest pin, deepest HP was used.
I could get only 2/5 rounds to expand using this +P load of Bullseye at 4.4 grains for this 155 grain HP in the snubby...those are in the top row. The lead is 7.4 BHN and should expand correctly around 800 FPS in a revolver. This snubby just can't make the required velocity to get expansion with each and every shot.
Just for giggles I thought I see what the +P load would do in the Smith with the long barrel, they are in the second row...way too much expansion to the point they fragment.
This is still a work in progress...I'm not satisfied with the snubby, will have to find some quicker powder I suppose, but I did find it interesting how a cast HP is almost enough in one barrel and too dang much in another.



***The two bent ones in the second row, I think hit the side of the test pipe...before mushrooming.

[buckshotshoey]

How much penetration and what did you shoot them into? Water? I would buy ballistic gel, add a layer of denim, and do it again. And buy a few different factory HP's and do a side by side comparison. That will give you more yard stick to measure by.

[OS OK]

The only problem with using ballistic gel is that it takes about $350.00 to set up with enough for two 16" blocks and one mold.
My test method is using a 10' long X 4" PVC pipe filled with water on about a 30* angle leaned on a couple of firewood rounds. I put denium on the front and shoot through two layers so far but on these I used two layers of heavy towels.
The other matter is buying several HP molds, they ain't cheap either so for now I'm stuck with my SWC-HP's for the .38/.357 and the .45 . If I had my ruthers I'd like to have a RNFP type HP with big cavity.
The only yardstick I can muster at the moment is that of making them work by adjusting BHN and powder charge and using the particular workup in only one length barrel in the revolvers.

This is what I got out of the .45 ACP...before trying the .38 Special...these are 9.4 BHN at 863 FPS. These work every time...

[Tim357]

"I'm not satisfied with the snubby, will have to find some quicker powder I suppose,"
Try a slower powder. Generally the loads that get the most velocity in a longer barrel will get the most velocity with a short barrel length. There was a piece in Handloader magazine about 30 years ago that chrono'd different loads in various barrel lengths in a Dan Wesson .357. Eye opening, to say the least. Unique torched Bullseye, heck even H110, Blue Dot and 2400 beat the snot out of Bullseye with the heavier bullets in the short barrels.

[fredj338]

With any LHP, vel & HP design matter. Even 50fps can cause an issue. A larger HP would get you expansion below 800fps. As a side note on testing. I find water kinda of "hard" on a bullet. Many times a bullet looks good in water & won't expand in gel or wetpack. Try filling the tube with newspaper & water. Yes, you'll get more vel with something slower like Unique. More blast & flash but might just get back that 50fps.

[OS OK]

I tried Unique and it was just as miserable at not making the velocity with this 155 grain boolit...I have some H110 and 2400...perhaps I'll give those a try, they are slower than Unique. fredj338...thanks for posting pictures with with your comments!
TIm357...thanks for your input also although I suspect that heavier in the .38 cal. is 170-200 grain casts...I'll try it anyway, heck...all I can do is gain more knowledge!

[buckshotshoey]

The only problem with using ballistic gel is that it takes about $350.00 to set up with enough for two 16" blocks and one mold.
My test method is using a 10' long X 4" PVC pipe filled with water on about a 30* angle leaned on a couple of firewood rounds. I put denium on the front and shoot through two layers so far but on these I used two layers of heavy towels.
The other matter is buying several HP molds, they ain't cheap either so for now I'm stuck with my SWC-HP's for the .38/.357 and the .45 . If I had my ruthers I'd like to have a RNFP type HP with big cavity.
The only yardstick I can muster at the moment is that of making them work by adjusting BHN and powder charge and using the particular workup in only one length barrel in the revolvers.

This is what I got out of the .45 ACP...before trying the .38 Special...these are 9.4 BHN at 863 FPS. These work every time...

OMG... I had no idea the ballistic gel cost that much. Never really looked it up. I too think I would go with heavier bullet and a slightly slower powder.

[OS OK]

Yes, I too was amazed, but...a good friend of mine did some videos on the gel...elvis ammo...a very cool fella and he's up on PC and the whole 9 yards...check him out.

[Tim357]

I tried Unique and it was just as miserable at not making the velocity with this 155 grain boolit...I have some H110 and 2400...perhaps I'll give those a try, they are slower than Unique. fredj338...thanks for posting pictures with with your comments!
TIm357...thanks for your input also although I suspect that heavier in the .38 cal. is 170-200 grain casts...I'll try it anyway, heck...all I can do is gain more knowledge!

Perhaps I should have mentioned the weight of the bullets I referred. Bob Hagel did a test with 110,125,140, and160 gr bullets.

[beagle]

I had my backyard machinist make a special top punch for me several years ago. It had six sharp teeth where the TP impacted the nose of the bullet. I drilled and tapped the center for a 10-32 screw which I worked down to fit the hollow point cavity. Upon sizing, two favorable things were accomplished. First, the portion extending below the teeth entered the HP cavity and centered the bullet when sizing. The six teeth serrated the walls of the HP cavity and enhanced segmented expansion. Finally, the pin in the cavity prevented the HP cavity from collapsing when the serrations were formed. One size TP does all. The 10-32 center hole can have various diameter centering pins made to fit your HP cavities. I've done bullets from .310 through .458 in mine and it works and definitely gives enhanced expansion of HPs at lower velocities./beagle

[runfiverun]

I do some jacketed bullets like Beagle does.
I cut the jacket and core open then form everything back together in the point form die.
you really can't see the cuts in the lead but the petals just about open if you drop them on the floor.

in your slower rounds try a little hot glue in the nose sometimes an initiator tip is all you need and it keeps the hollow from filling with material guaranteeing they won't open.

[bigolsmokebomb]

have you tried titegroup? i dont know if it burns any faster than bullseye but its worth a try at 24ish bucks a lb. ive used it for years in 9mm and havent had any issues in any of my guns with barrels from 3.5-5.25 and i developed my load for a 5.25in barrel. havent actually crono'd them out of the 3.5in barrel so i couldnt tell you how much of a difference there is but the load i have is a powderpuff for competition so it running a factory 3.5in semi is a good indicator

[buckshotshoey]

I had my backyard machinist make a special top punch for me several years ago. It had six sharp teeth where the TP impacted the nose of the bullet. I drilled and tapped the center for a 10-32 screw which I worked down to fit the hollow point cavity. Upon sizing, two favorable things were accomplished. First, the portion extending below the teeth entered the HP cavity and centered the bullet when sizing. The six teeth serrated the walls of the HP cavity and enhanced segmented expansion. Finally, the pin in the cavity prevented the HP cavity from collapsing when the serrations were formed. One size TP does all. The 10-32 center hole can have various diameter centering pins made to fit your HP cavities. I've done bullets from .310 through .458 in mine and it works and definitely gives enhanced expansion of HPs at lower velocities./beagle

Thats interesting. Kind of like a Speer Gold Dot?

[Spector]

I cast some 97%-3% boolits with my Accurate Mold 45-230Z, sized, installed aluminum PB gas checks as I resized and then clear powder coated. I chucked them lightly in my drill press chuck and ran them down onto a drill bit to create HP's. Then re-sized to .452'' in my Noe sizer. HPed Boolits ran right at 200 grains. I filled 7 with hot glue and 7 with booger glue I save from mailings I receive where dabs of that glue are used.

So far I have only fired one of each into new phone books because that material causes most HP's I've tried in the past to pucker shut and fail. It's caused every Black Talon I've ever fired into them to fail and about 50% of my Hydra-Shoks.

I chronographed one of my cast boolits at 823 fps. Both boolits expanded to over an inch in diameter with the one filled with booger glue fragmenting into 3 major pieces. Both stayed in the first yellow pages phone book, but the hot glue filled boolit busted pages into the 2nd phone book. These relatively soft glues do seem to aid in bullet expansion.

Try a little of both in some of your HP's and even at 700+fps I think you are going to see expansion with the booger glue. In water I do not believe glue will aid in expansion, but in tough targets they will. Should keep drywall and other such materials from causing HP's to turn into solids. I'd definitely try the booger glue in your snub-nosed revolver.

My boolits were drilled using a straight bit. A HP cast on a tapered pin should do better I would expect.

Mike

[45workhorse]

If this round is just for inside the house. How about a hollow based wad cutter put in upside down. At the speeds you are getting it ought to expand, maybe to much....
Just something to think about.

[PositiveCaster]

I tried Unique and it was just as miserable at not making the velocity with this 155 grain boolit...I have some H110 and 2400...perhaps I'll give those a try, they are slower than Unique...

Hodgdon data for a 158-grain LSWC shows the highest velocities with HS-6 and CFE, quite a bit higher than slow powders like H4227, higher than other mid-range powders like Universal (an imitation of Unique), and higher than fast powders like W-231. Heck, even TrailBoss gives higher velocities than the quickest powders. Powders which need high pressures to work correctly like H-110 should not be used in .38 Special loads appropriate for a snubby.

In some cases the difference is small, in others it approaches 100 fps. The data was developed in a 7.7" barrel, but extensive testing by many shooters in the 1980s proved that the powder which gave the highest velocities in long barrels almost always gave the highest in short tubes. Muzzle blast was an entirely different subject.

But most data was related to silhouette shooters, with little data taken with barrels as short as 2".


.

[OS OK]

I started out thinking that the faster powders would make pressure closer to the breech end of the barrel than a slower magnum powder that (I assumed) needed a little more barrel length and a little more weight to push also.
With all these varied and conflicting comments about slower powders and even lighter casts...I'm not sure which way to turn as nobody is quoting or posting the articles that they say supports their data.
Until we can sort this out I think I'll experiment with the same Bullseye but apply a little more crimp and see if that doesn't help to build the start pressure some. I'm very close and only need less than 75 FPM or so to get them all to open up consistently.
Once I can get this worked out I'll experiment with different materials to fill the HP and shoot through different materials ahead of the water pipe.
The trouble in evaluating the load books regarding the max. velocities is that they are all done in longer test barrels.

[Tim357]

The article I quoted is from HANDLOADER, Number 92, July-August 1981, titled " Powders for Short Barrel Handguns", commencing on page 26. I don't have permission to copy and post the article, so you're gonna need to locate a copy. Best I can do for you at this point.

I went back and reread the article. Bullseye was actually the slowest velocity powder with every bullet tested in every barrel length. Keep in mind, Bob Hagel was using jacked bullets in a .357, but the chrono, she don't lie.

Based on my own testing for my buddies, I would recommend Alliant Power Pistol, if you can find it.

[Blackwater]

OS OK, I feel your pain in trying to get expansion from a .38 Snubby. FWIW, I once carried a M-60 S&W on my ankle as a second gun on occasion, and I had some old bullets I'd picked up cheap. They were made or marketed by Taurus, according to the label on the box, and were dead soft, 158 gr. HP's with a VERY deep HP cavity. I loaded them ahead of 7.6 gr. of Blue Dot and crimped into the soft sides of the bullet with about 1/10" of the shank sticking out. They had no crimp groove, but the soft lead let them be held solidly, and I never had one even attempt to move forward from recoil.

This is a +P or +P+ load, and I don't see that load recommended any more, but it was very nicely powerful in the little M-60 with its small and pretty thin grips. That load expanded well in wet newsprint, which is probably the best affordable media for testing. I tighten down on a bunch of papers, get them as dense as I can with nylon string, usually, then place them in a garbage bag to hold the water in and wet them thoroughly, and leave them sit in the water until the next day. If I want to better simulate muscle, I'll add in a front panel of glossy magazines about 2-3" thick.

And as to the powder selection, it's pretty well been proven repeatedly that even in a 2" barrel, the powders that give the highest velocity in longer barrels, also give the highest velocity in the short ones. The muzzle blast and flash is greater, of course, and the velocity does indeed fall off from that of the long barrels, but it's still the highest attainable velocity in the snubbies.

I've pursued this before, but before I had a chrono. I tried all sorts of stuff, and went with that Blue Dot load above even though I knew it was probably right on the ragged edge of what the gun would take for very long. Probably only shot 150 or so of them through that old M-60, total, and used WC's or my cast SWC's for practice. Those loads were ONLY for "special occasions" when I thought the most power reasonably available might count for more than the longevity of the gun. I don't recommend it, and just relate what I did.

Nowadays, I'm kind'a leaning to a full WC cast hard so that full dia. cutting shoulder will cut as many blood vessels and leak as much blood as quickly as possible in a bad situation. And it'll also give decent penetration. We forget sometimes, in our search for expansion, that expansion is nice, but penetration can be critical.

At 2" .38 velocities, I want to be SURE that I get sufficient penetration, even on some 350 lb. drugged up gorilla with mayhem on his mind. When I practice on the std. K-5 silhouette target, I always try for the head at distances of 7 yds. or less. Even, if not especially with self defense, it's really more about where you hit them than what you hit them with.

Knowing penetration can be at a premium when velocity is down around or below 800 fps., I've simply elected to just make the hole as deep as I can rather than going for expansion. To get really good penetration and/or expansion, velocity is simply required. In the absence of attainable velocity, I think I'm gonna' go with the hard, flat pointed bullet. And just look for the best loads I can find and try them on some wet newsprint and the chrono.

But penetration will be my first thought in any snubby load. That's just how I do it, anyway. My old Colt DS won't even take +P, and it's a real jewel of a gun, and I love it. So I'm even more stuck than you are with the velocity thing, so I'm going to go with a hard cast bullet so it'll penetrate as deeply as possible. Just hope I never have to put it to the test, but .... you can never really know these days.

[ironhead7544]

I would try Power Pistol. A softer bullet might help. I would go as soft as possible. It might lead the barrel but you only need a few rounds generally for self defense.

Rim Rock Bullets sells a 5 Bhn 38 158 gr SWCHPGC. Might be worthwhile buying some of these for your special ammo.