R.P 38 Spec +P

R

redhat1968

Inactive
My father has passed on his love of reloading and shooting to me. I have enjoyed teaching my kids safety first and then the fun of shooting. I recently purchased a chrony and began testing some of my cast rounds I had worked up. I used factory rounds as a control to determine how far off my chrony was reading the published velocity.

A factory Magtech 38 +P 158 grain was listed at 890 fps out of the muzzel. It was chrony'ed 876 fps at 10 feet. My 158 cast reloads zinged in at 972 using a slower Blue Dot powder.

When I went to test my smaller 125 grain SJHP bullets, I used factory Remington nickel brass marked R.P 38 Spec +P as a control. I was surprised to find these loads clock in a just over 1300 fps.

Is there any 38 Special load out there marked as such that would dial in at what seems Magnum loads for the .357? I guess I am lucky I still have a gun, the brass, and all my fingers...
 
There was a time in the 80's where you could find .38 Special +P+ (which has no actual industry standard) and for the most part... it was basically just .357 Magnum ammo in .38 brass meant for municipalities where "evil magnum" ammo was verboten due to bad PR work.

125gr jacketed at 1,300 fps is indeed .357 Magnum territory, I would want to know how many you shot, how the recoil felt, if you are certain the chrono measured them accurately and what kind of box or packaging they came from?
 
There was a time in the 80's where you could find .38 Special +P+ (which has no actual industry standard) and for the most part... it was basically just .357 Magnum ammo in .38 brass meant for municipalities where "evil magnum" ammo was verboten due to bad PR work.
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That is why the Ruger Security-Six was chambered in .38 Special as part of a few special/custom runs for LE organizations. They didn't want the officers using .357 Magnum. It was the exact same gun, so technically hot .38 Special loads would have been fine. They only problem is finding such ammunition.

Out of a 6" barrel, the 38 Special +P 158 Grain Hard Cast Keith from Underwood or Buffalo Bore approaches .357 Magnum muzzle energy at 548 ft.lbf. Buffalo Bore states that such loadings are okay in "38SPL and 357 magnum firearms of modern design that are in normal operating condition". Don't feed your K-frame these all day.

+P+ has always been targeted to LE. .38 Special +P+ from Winchester under the LE only Ranger ammunition line (now discontinued in .38 Special) had a muzzle energy of 239 ft.lbf.

The Buffalo Bore and Underwood lines must meet the SAAMI pressure maximum of 20,000 psi to classify as +P. The Winchester Ranger loading has a max pressure of 23,500 psi with almost half the muzzle energy. It looks like Winchester tested the Ranger cartridge out a 2 inch S&W Model 15. So with a heavier bullet and lower operating pressure the 158 Grain +P loading from Underwood and Buffalo Bore still would probably outperform the +P+.
 
9x18_Walther said:
Buffalo Bore states that such loadings are okay in "38SPL and 357 magnum firearms of modern design that are in normal operating condition". Don't feed your K-frame these all day.
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Isn't a recent-production K frame the very definition of a "38SPL [or] 357 magnum firearm... of modern design"?

I could understand not using these loads in WWII or prewar vintage K frames that were heat-treated the old fashioned way (i.e. by watching the metal color through a window in the oven), the 1920s and earlier guns with cylinders that weren't heat-treated at all, and the infamously fragile 1950s alloy-cylinder Aircrewman and Airweights that S&W has advised against ever firing regardless of the ammo used.

However, I can't understand why it would be a problem to fire these in virtually any late 1950s or later K frame. People have run thousands of +P rounds through K frames with no ill effects, including the Model 12 Airweight, which has an IMHO undeserved reputation for fragility (a reputation which probably stems from the problems with the early alloy cylinder).
 
Something to think about. If you are chronographing rounds, and find that your rounds are significantly faster than either factory or mad handloads, it probably means that your pressures are higher. Nothing in physics can be cheated. Pressure is what pushes it out the barrel. To increase velocity you can only do a few things.


You can increase your pressure by loading higher. The other options are to reduce projectile mass, reduce barrel friction, increase the acceleration of the bullet by tweaking barrel length, or increasing acceleration by tweaking charge properties.

If you find your rounds giving higher MV than factory loads, think about this. A +p round in factory ammo is the best they can do given pressure limits. If your rounds are faster with identical bullet weights, it's almost a dead certainty that you've got higher pressure than the factory.
 
I wonder if you should pull the bullets on a couple reloads and verify the powder charge to validate some assumptions. I would probably pull them all and start over. You might think twice about throwing the powder back, because it might not be the powder you thought it was.
 
OP has not responded since opening this discussion. Best I can tell... the high speed round is either some unknown factory round -OR- entirely unknown round that he did not handload himself.

Speculating about what "he may have built" given the evidence in his one single post kind of seems pointless.
 
My experience with Remington 125 JHP +P is that it ran exactly as advertised...925 FPS from a 4" Model 10. I don't know what this 1,300 FPS stuff is he shot. That's the same as my nasty hand loads. Wonder if his dad loaded them and put them back in the factory box?
 
OP has not responded since opening this discussion. Best I can tell... the high speed round is either some unknown factory round -OR- entirely unknown round that he did not handload himself.

Speculating about what "he may have built" given the evidence in his one single post kind of seems pointless.
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Another reading indicates that he is clearly referring to his reloads.
 
38 Special Loads

Although I had always taken an interest in target shooting and self defense, it wasn't until the months leading up to my father's death that he began passing on his wisdom like Jedi Master Yoda passing on the secrets of the force to Luke Skywalker. He always practiced and preached safety so I am certain that he would have never reloaded .357 Magnum loads in 38 Special Brass. When we were growing up, me and my siblings shot his 38 Special S&W Model 64-3 that he passed on to me. He reloaded many thousands of rounds of surplus mixed 38 Brass using his own 158 grain cast bullets with the minimum charge of old Trap 100 powder (4.2 grains). Recoil is very light and accuracy moderate.

Over the last few years, I have passed on the tradition of teaching the safety first and then the fun of target shooting using these rounds. I have then reloaded this brass using slower burning powders and hotter loads safely withing +P specs for my target practice. It was for this reason I decided to purchase the chrony and test my loads. The new loads consistently clocked in the upper 900s whereas the older loads varied within the upper 700s, with the spread probably due to the 40 year old powder them. (Not one squib or other safety issue.)

All of the 125 grain SJHSP bullets were in a Remington box with the exact same nickel brass labeled R.P 38 Spl +P. They are all still shiny and polished even after 40+ years in contrast to the nicked and dull mixed brass that has been reloaded over and over again. Unfortunately, I previously threw away the ragged, torn box and do not remember the exact load specifications. All of the evidence points to the 125 grains to be factory rounds versus my Dad's kid-friendly reloads. The recoil of these loads were moderate and the accuracy extremely high at 15 yards, certainly less recoil then my 40 caliber loaded within specs. I have read articles and viewed forums about older FBI loads and newer reduced factory loads due to lawyers and the government getting involved in the manufacturing process. I was just hoping that these loads would be great for "come to Jesus" self defense moments. However, it seems that at 1300 fps, I have just as much of a chance of coming to Jesus as the bad guy...
 
I'd be willing to say that your rounds may be safe at 1,300 fps. With all things working right and a six inch barrel, a stout action, it sounds as if your seemingly excessive velocity can be explained by the longer barrel, and if you are using one of the heavy framed revolvers capable of .357 pressure levels, pushing the upper limits of the loads is less of a concern.

The important thing to remember is that there are a bunch of ways that you can determine whether a load is safe. Check out the load data,pay attention to brass,pay attention to how it shoots, etc.you don't want to study the effects of over pressure by analyzing fragments of steel.

I'm one of the people who will preach a conservative approach to reloading.
 
http://cartridgecollectors.org/content/catalogs/REMINGTON/1969-Rem-DuPont-Nov-LE-Flyer.pdf

125 grains at 1370 fps. This is before +P offerings. :eek:

It looks like in 1977, Remington had a 125 grain +P round that advertised 1210 fps.

Later on the +P 125 grain loadings dropped to 945 fps.

Remington's velocity figures don't mean much since it appears that some years they provided velocity figures for vented barrels (attempting to replicate the revolver cylinder gap) and other years regular barrels.

In 1972, the max pressure for almost all rounds was lowered by SAAMI. New .38 Special +P I hear is close to what pre-1972 .38 Special (non +P) was. The link I provided would appear to confirm this.
 
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The biggest thing that changed over time was the technology, tools and methods for actually getting an accurate measure of the pressure. While lament how much weaker the ammo and even the published data is today versus way back in the day... their ability to measure exactly what is happening is probably the motivating factor.
 
R.P Spl +P

Thanks. The flyer 9x18_Walther posted was exactly like the box I threw away. I knew the ammo was old, I was just not sure how old. My barrel is 4" so I can understand why I got 1300 fps rather than the 1370 advertised. I just could not imagine a round that shot so well being so dangerous.

The extraction of the Remington 125 grains out of the cylinder was no worse than my light hand loads that had been reloaded time and time again. Re-sizing was actually easier for the Remington brass rather than the old surplus brass shot using light loads. I never plan on shooting these on a regular basis, but I wanted to test them for self defense purposes. If this is the case, then wear and tear on the gun would be minimal and it seems like the rounds are safe.
 
This may amount "manure" . . . and i don't have any RP +P brass to look at as compared to regular RP brass which I have and use for reloading.

But . . . is not a +P casing built heavier at the base than a normal 38 Spl. casing? If so, case volume would be smaller equaling increased pressure. While it may not be a lot of volume difference . . . it might be enough to increase the pressure?

Maybe someone can compare the volume of a standard RP casing and a +P RP casing?

I don't load anything in +p or +p+ - just 38 Spl. ad 357 so I may be wrong on the case volume in comparison?
 
Ill try to weigh some later. At least the ton and a half of brass I have, it seems that the plus brass is at least heavier than a lot of commercial brass. Some of the commercial non plus brass, however, was unusually heavy.
 
I. Put about thirty rounds of mixed fired brass out of storage through my scale. Results spread over a range of less than five grains. The heaviest were rp + p and Win +p.
 
redhat1968 said:
I never plan on shooting these on a regular basis, but I wanted to test them for self defense purposes. If this is the case, then wear and tear on the gun would be minimal and it seems like the rounds are safe.
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Of course the "conventional wisdom" is that you shouldn't use reloads for self defense.
 
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