Original Super Vel

I know SV had a 9MM 90 grain JHP. But I think they had something like 107 grain JHP and 112 grain JSP ammo too. But it's been a long time, and the heavier weights might have just been for the 38 Super....
 
A retiredLOEat my church, recalled when his department..

switched to Super Vels .38Spl., and the one-shot stops [not causing deceasing of perp] increased. He explained that dropping the 158 LRN ammo [ for the 110gr SV] caused the perps to spread the word to avoid his downriver town outside Detroit.

I bought a box of Hornady Frontier 110gr HP,and loaded them in Dad's Colt PP Special and at the range Dad was impressed with the accuracy and snappines of the loads.
 
Me and two high school buddies would load those Super Vel 110 gr. JHP's with data taken from the 1970 Speer #8 Reloading Manual into 357 Magnum cases and shoot them out of our Ruger Blackhawks . They would explode water filled gallon jugs and watermelons .
I wont post how many grains of Unique I would load under this one but if you have the manual it lists the vel. as 1592 fps . We had no way of testing velocity but I'm glad Bill Ruger built his single action revolver heck for stout .
That was all cutting edge bullet technology at the time....no company was loading light JHP's at that time in 357 magnum , he started a revolution and soon after every manufacturer started making light for caliber JHP's .
Gary
 
Some things about Super Vel, the name of the company founded by Lee Jurras and J.D. Jones


Jurras’ new company, Super Vel Ammunition, put jacketed hollow point on center stage with police departments and federal agencies. By using a light bullet of 110 grains in .38 Special and .357 Magnum, Jurras could push the velocity over 1,400 fps with a huge increase in kinetic energy, nearly 500 ft/lbs, but at the same time his bullets expanded dramatically, increasing the frontal surface area of the bullet to cut a larger wound channel and to slow it and stop it from exiting. Jurras and his partner J.D. Jones tested his super-fast new bullets on everything from car doors to blocks of wet clay to stacks of newspaper and, yes, big game animals. The proof was overwhelming— the jacketed hollow point was far more effective at "stopping power" than conventional bullets...

... Super Vel also loaded subsonic 9mm Luger cartridges with a 158 gr. FMJ which was type-classified by the U.S. Navy as the Mk 144 Mod 0 9mm. It was for a special S&W pistol fielded by the Navy SEALs in Vietnam called the Mk 22 Mod 0 but better known as the Hush Puppy. The gun was a highly modified version of the Model 39 with a suppressor to take out Viet Cong guard dogs as the SEALs snuck behind enemy lines to rescue POWs and downed pilots— hence the name Hush Puppy. Today, we offer the very same subsonic load, a duplicated of the original SEAL subsonic load.

When Super Vel burst on the scene in 1963, virtually all policemen carried .38 Special service revolvers and the standard load was a 158 gr. lead roundnose trundling along at a lazy and sedate 850 fps. This load was absolutely terrible, with little kinetic energy to affect an instantaneous "stop" yet with a bullet profile that over-penetrated and went ricocheting all over the neighborhood. Jurras and his 110 gr. jacketed hollow point would solve this, and solve it in spades.
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But Super Vel's problems were not limited to obtaining components. At the same time, Super Vel's potent 90 gr. JHP 9mm Luger load was drawing some concern for being "too hot" for the then-new Smith & Wesson Model 59, the first American-made double-stack 9mm pistol. The feedramp on the Model 59 was cut such that a good portion of the rear of the cartridge was unsupported by the chamber, and some case "blow outs" occured on the Model 59. Word that Super Vel was "too hot" spread. It was hard to explain that it wasn't the ammo, it was these new guns with their feedramps and unsupported chambers! Of course Super Vel's competitors were only too glad to pass along these stories of blown-up guns!
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Here are good sources for more information on Super Vel

https://supervelammunition.com/our-story/

https://7655d8d6-c27a-4dfd-ad66-bce...d/20bfb2_a4925775a6ba49d2b2a7e12cd2c9ea3c.pdf

https://americanhandgunner.com/discover/lee-jurras/

The result of this testing was the Super Vel Cartridge Company, founded in the mid-1960s. It offered 90-, 110- and 125-grain loads in .38 Spl. and .357 Mag., as well as light bullet loads in 9 mm, .45 ACP and other calibers. And, this new ammunition drove bullets at velocities that others only dreamed of. Bullet design and increased velocity gave a much better chance of acceptable expansion, while reducing penetration to a useful level. Super Vel was the ammo of choice when I went into police work. I was able to examine the results of several shootings where Super Vel was used and, in every case, the results were impressive. Sadly, the future for Super Vel was not all that rosy.
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https://www.shootingillustrated.com...ras-the-development-of-personal-defense-ammo/

tipoc
 
A bit more...

The lineup covered all the typical chamberings: .380, .38 Special and .357 Magnum, 9mm, .45 ACP and .44 Magnum. Some used normal-weight bullets, but the real performers were the .38/.357, the 9mm and the .45, all of which used bullets lighter than customary.

The .38 and .357 loads, for example, both employed 110-grain bullets. The speeds the company achieved were way beyond any other ammo being produced at the time by other makers. (Super Vel allegedly also manufactured slower ammo from a facility in Greensburg, Indiana.)
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They offered a 38 Spl. in 107 gr.s 110 gr. 357s and a 190 gr. 45 acp bullet that wasn't a target load but a defensive jhp.

https://www.handgunsmag.com/editorial/the-legend-of-super-vel-ammo/137747

https://www.handgunsmag.com/editorial/the-legend-of-super-vel-ammo/137747

tipoc
 
I have an original box of .357 super vel I found in my grandpas house after he passed. I was jazzed to try me out and I’ll be darned even though they look fine none of them will fire. They have funny pointed bullets.
 
Used Super Vel 110s in my Model 19 after they came out. Hottest factory ammo I ever shot. In the 4" barrel, they lit up the night!
 
When I was in junior high, my friends dad took us shooting.
He had a 5in model 27 S&W, and fired a cylinder full of Super Vel .357 about an hour before full dark.
It was awesome, muzzle flash lighting up the area.
Very impressive, summer of 1973, I got hooked on S&W revolvers.
 
I bought my first center-fire handgun about 50 years ago (a well-used Colt Trooper - not a MK III, the original Trooper, which I foolishly sold somewhere along the line). Along with a set of dies and a few other odds and ends, it came with a couple hundred pieces of Super Vel .357 brass. Good stuff - I've been reloading it ever since, no idea how many times, and have only lost a few due to neck splits.
 
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