Model 36 and Whimpy ammo of today.

M

Master Blaster

New member
Well I went for it and bought a 1973 mfg S&W model 36 chief's special. along with the papers in the box I found the warranty card, and a brochure for S&W ammo.

Well it seems that the ammo we buy now is for whimps.

The S&W ammo brochure listed the following:
.38 spl 110 grain hp 1300 fps (4 inch Barrel!!).
.38 spl 125 gr jhp 1300 fps ( can you say .357 sig?).

.357 magnum 125 gr jhp 1850 fps!!!!
.357 magnum 158 hpswc 1540 fps.

This was 1973, all of the ammo meets saami specs???!!!!

We would call allo of this stuff dangerously over pressure today. So how come everyone's weaker old guns did not blow up?
S&W recommends the 110 grain at 1100 fps out of my snubby!!!
They call this midrange ammo. Today we would call it plus P.
 
Not to be too suspicious, but almost nobody had chronographs back them to prove 'em wrong. Add to that the product liability lawyering.
 
I think it is mostly product liability. 1973 was about at the end of the era when the consumer was expected to have a modicum of common sense and individual responsibility. There were a lot of .38 S&W handguns that were through bored and could chamber .38special. You just didn't shoot specials in the .38s. Now if somebody puts a hot .38special through a .38 and somebody gets hurt.....the manufacturer is sued. Manufacturer loses big bucks whether they win or lose. The only winners are the lawyers.

Sam....my favorite 9mm is the 9X32R
 
Hutch,

Actually the chronographs that were available to the ammo manufacturers back then were VERY accurate.

There were several types that were in common use.

1. Ballistic pendulum. Pioneered by Benjamin Robbins (?), it's essentially a weight of a known mass riding on a pivot of very low friction. You fire a projectile of known mass into it, and measure the pendulum's deflection. Simple mathmatics then give you the velocity of the projectile. The results can be extremely accurate.

2. Wire start/stop. Essentially, the projectile is fired so that it cuts a wire, printed circuit card, metallic ribbon, etc., which starts a timer, and then cuts a second wire, which stops the timer. The two wires are a known distance apart. Again, simple to arrive at a velocity.

3. Early shadow chronographs. These were still pretty much in their infancy at this point for anything other than heavy duty research/military applications. Essentially they operated the same as skyscreen chronographs do today, by registering the passing of the bullet's shadow to start and stop the timer.

Virtually all of these chronographs required the operator to plug the results into a series of mathmatical formulas to obtain the velocity.
 
The issue may be whether or not the load was fired from a vented test barrel. Moreover, I would be very dubious that the figures were achieved with a 4" barrel. It was more common to clock the revolver loads from a 6" or even an 8" test barrel.
 
Two things I started buying backin the early/mid 70's. Cars and guns. I didn't believe the claimed gas mileage figures or the claimed velocity for ammo. It was common accepted practice to skew the tests to give the desired results when the collected data was extrapolated. Bottom line was everything was taken with a huge grain of salt. (insert YMMV.)
Your mileage may vary became a household term back then.

I dug out the S&W ammo brochure from my own circa 1975 Model 19. Mine is a later printing where they dropped the barrel designations in the ballistics tables. If you turn it over and read the fine print it says: "BALLISTIC INFORMATION SHOWN IN THIS BOOKLET WAS ESTABLISHED USING INDUSTRY STANDARD TEST EQUIPMENT". What this means is that the 125 gr .357 mag in a 16 inch vented test barrel using the highest obtained and recorded velocity figure can hit 1850 fps. In your 4 in .357mag it may only hit 12 or 13 hundred fps.

I have some carefully hoarded Winchester Western Super X .44 magnum factory ammo which is hotter than the stuff you can buy today. But not that much. When I get around to buying a chronograph I'll clock the stuff out of my 4"Smith and my 16" trapper. All of the magazines from then listed claimed and actual velocity figures in their articles. Those figures varied quite a bit.

As a side note, the only S&W ammo I remember using was in .380.IIRC, it was pretty decent stuff, but no hotter than anything else.

In answer to wimp statement, we're pretty much using the same stuff now as then. Only the test methods and reporting are significantly different.
 
Chronographs

Mike, I didn't mean to imply that chronographs weren't around, or that the manufacturers didn't have them. My point was, that very, very few "civilians" had chronographs back then, so that there was little or no independent verification of factory velocity claims. Given that, it would not be surprising for the velocity claims to be based on very carefully selected velocity readings, and probably were not what the consumer could reasonably expect.

"Your mileage may vary. Actual highway mileage will be lower."
 
Gotcha Hutch.

You know what they say... Your confusion level may vary. :)

As for cars...

Every car I've ever had (but I've only been buying them for about 12 years now) has gotten substantially better mileage than what's been on the sticker.

My current car, a 91 Plymouth Sundance crapmobile (I'll drive it into the ground, it's paid for) had 23/30 MPG ratings new.

On one stretch of a trip to Maine I got 41 mpg when it was new. Around town today, after 10 years, I still get 25 around town.
 
Todays mainstream ammo wimpy compared to thirty years ago? In general; yes. Liability rather than chronograph error governing the intensity of the product.

One factor is pressure, SAAMI +P rating does not directly indicate higher velocity. Often defensive ammunition is loaded with flash reducing ingredients added to the powder. These additives alter the burn rate of the powder. +P means that the peak pressure of the load is higher (ten percent or less)than the standard for that round. A higher peak pressure may or may not result in higher external velocity for a projectile of given specs. I can probably shred a gun with a load of Bullseye that will not give as high a velocity as a moderate pressure load of W296.

Many variables in testing. Today as well as then.

Chronographs, then as now, are subject to operator error and lack of standardization for each testing session. In the 70s at the start of a test session the chronograph was calibrated with known ammo from a known barrel. Air density and ammunition temperature were taken into consideration. An uncalibrated rig used on a very hot day at 7,000' elevation will record some pretty high velocities. Accurate measuring but not representative of the ammo that is going to be used by buyer at near sea level and 60 degrees f. With all other factors equal, a non-recoiling machine rest will give higher velocities than a recoiling rest, which will in turn give higher velocities than hand held test weapon. Usually.

Actual bore diameter of test rig may be quite different from that of the customer's barrel. We measured the bore diameters of many duty weapons in 9X19, .38spec and .357mag. The variations within a given caliber were greater than the nominal caliber differences. IE..the smallest .357mag barrel was as small as the smallest 9mm. The largest in 9mm and .357mag were also the same. Thus, the chronograph results from gun to gun in the same caliber and barrel length with a given lot of ammunition varied wildly.

Now let's throw in variations in chamber diameter, which affect pressure and in the case of a tight chamber, bullet release force required.

As to the veracity of the velocities given for the S&W ammo of 1973, several other manufacturers in that same time frame listed equal or higher velocities AND specified barrel length of the test gun.

Some of the hotter stuff was labled "High Velocity, Use in Large Frame Revolvers Only". Other brands and loads didn't bother with the warning.

Today Winchester loading data shows a load for the .357mag putting a 125 gr bullet out at 1,800fps with peak pressure nearly 10,000 BELOW normal max. In 1974 they marketed a factory round that approximately matched that load of today without any special labeling.

I regularly shoot a 125gr .38spec load out of a 2.5" bbl 686 that knocks IDPA steels down quite smartly. My first run 36 gets some of that food and seems quite happy.

? Hotter then than now ? In many cases, yes.

Sam
 
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