Wadcutter reloading question

[bullsi1911]

Instead of cluttering up Diver’s thread with another tangent, I thought I’d start a different thread.

I’m going to load up a bunch of wadcutters soon, and before I start testing them, I wanted to see if anyone (bigslug?) playing with these and comparing the terminal ballistics
Looking at the two Berry’s Plated 148 Gr .38/.357 options:
Double ended: https://www.berrysmfg.com/product/bp-3 ... 48gr-dewc/
Hollow base: https://www.berrysmfg.com/product/bp-38-357-148gr-hbwc/

I have played with the hollow base ones before, but mostly as a plinking load. Never really tested the penetration or performance in gel. I did load a few backwards and fired into water from a .38, and do know with certainty that they don’t expand that way.

But, what I’m looking for is which is most likely to give the deepest straight line penetration. The longer HBWC, or the shorter DEWC? Is one more likely to tumble in a target? Will the HBWC be more likely to tumble loaded ‘backwards’?

These days, loading time is pretty rare, and shooting time is even more so. Just looking to get a likely direction before I start sicencing.

[sakodude]

I load a 144gr DEWC in .357 cases for my 2 3/4" security six. I unfortunately do not have the means for any measurable performance evaluation but they are accurate and smack steel with authority. I know, not much help.

[GrapeApe]

Being plated, I expect zero expansion. Being the same weight and diameter, I'm pretty sure you won't be able to tell their wound tracks apart, if launched at approx the same velocity.

[CPJ 2.0]

Double ended wadcutter sounds like something kept
In a night stand drawer.

[bullsi1911]

Double ended wadcutter sounds like something kept
In a night stand drawer.

At the WNBA training camp?

[CPJ 2.0]

At my coworkers moms house

[Bigslug]

It's an interesting question....

My thought is that if you are going for maximum penetration without concerns of the bullet exiting, go with the solid bullet.

My reasoning for this is simply that hollow bases can have a difficult time when you try to drive them hard. In handgun-length barrels, once the bore is no longer supporting the Minie ball skirt, the remaining pressure of a hotter load can blow that skirt open - basically a hollow point expanding ass-first.

At lower speeds, there's some argument that a hollow base might resist tumbling because more of it's weight is shifted forward.

If you load the HBWC backwards, expansion might happen if you throw it fast enough, and your penetration will be about half what it would have been if it didn't. If it doesn't expand, there's some chance of tumbling for the same reason M193 5.56 tumbles - the weight is in the back of the bullet so it has more momentum than the front.

A couple of test results you might find helpful:

9mm 135 and 147 grain non-expanders in the 1000 fps range: I have found these to penetrate nine, ten, or ten-and-still-going/not-recovered gallon jugs. This is roughly in the range of 40 inches of gelatin equivalent. You'll get less out of a wadcutter at those speeds due to greater frontal area.

The dimple-nosed Hensley & Gibbs #50 wadcutter that I'm using, when cast of a non-expanding alloy, gives about 20" of gel equivalent when fired at 623 fps. We've got some speculation that it might be penetrating a little deeper than a true flat face

The same HG 50 load shot out of a 16" carbine picked up a bit of speed. At 860 fps, it looks to be good for 25" in gel, again, that may be a little deeper than a true soup-can WC.

What's the end game for this thing?

[bullsi1911]

Not really sure I have an end game on this one. I started off just thinking of getting an accurate deep penetrating round, then when looking at the HBWC and I remembered the old “.38 Super Police” .38Spl loading with the heavy, slow bullet that was designed to tumble after impact.

So, I was just kicking around that idea of maybe seeing if that could be recreated-ish with a faster moving hard plated bullet with the weight at the rear of the slug.

I know that Fort Scott Munitions has the “TUI” (tumble upon impact) rounds that they sell, but those are like 80 grain bullets in the .38SPL

[JunkCollector]

This thread got me thinking....dangerous I know.
Especially since I'm not a bullet engineer/designer.

That being said my thoughts wonder on a hollow base one what would happen if it was used backwards with a Sub caliber bullet, BB or even a gas check inserted into the opening.

[bullsi1911]

This thread got me thinking....dangerous I know.
Especially since I'm not a bullet engineer/designer.

That being said my thoughts wonder on a hollow base one what would happen if it was used backwards with a Sub caliber bullet, BB or even a gas check inserted into the opening.

Put a primer behind the BB, and it might get even more interesting!
(That’s a joke. Don’t do that. The primer would probably detonate when the gun was fired and cause a real mess)

[Bigslug]

Not really sure I have an end game on this one. I started off just thinking of getting an accurate deep penetrating round, then when looking at the HBWC and I remembered the old “.38 Super Police” .38Spl loading with the heavy, slow bullet that was designed to tumble after impact.

So, I was just kicking around that idea of maybe seeing if that could be recreated-ish with a faster moving hard plated bullet with the weight at the rear of the slug.

I know that Fort Scott Munitions has the “TUI” (tumble upon impact) rounds that they sell, but those are like 80 grain bullets in the .38SPL

Soooo. . .the jury is still somewhat out for deliberation on just how much tumbling we'd likely get in actual living tissue.

Years back, before I had acquired any Webleys, I tested the .38/200 or .38 Super Police concept with the Lyman 358430 195 grain round nose out of a J-frame Smith loaded to 570 fps, and I was lucky enough to have an industry contact let me shoot a block of his FBI spec of Jell-O with two of them. Total straight line penetration to the back of the 18" block where it was stopped by the hard rubber pad placed there for the purpose.

Fast forward to my testing with a true clone of the Brit MKI 200 grainer in jugs, and it unquestionable DOES tumble.

Another guy working with that bullet shot it into Clear Ballistic Gel and got a little bit of yaw to the track, but nothing like the totally sideways effect I was getting in water.

I'm thinking that gel is just too dense to allow the bullet to properly start wobbling, Probably one of those composite ballistic dummies with a body's natural variation in density would better tell us what that bullet is more likely to do.

But if a straight line penetrator is what you're after, the WFN (Wide Flat Nose) with a meplat of 75% or greater of total bullet diameter is the ticket if you don't have notions of shooting long range. If you do the LFN (Long Flat Nose) concept of 70% or less meplat will retain velocity to better do the job at distance. How fast becomes a matter of what effect you want.

[CPJ 2.0]

Facts: you’ll stop a dirtbag by a switch (CNS) or timer (blood supply)

Pontificating over the effects of handgun ammo tumbling in anything OTHER than dirtbags, with a minimum number of 30 dirtbags, (the minimum statistically relevant number) each being shot in an identical fashion, is just a way to waste electrons and keystrokes.

Hit the head, spine, or heart. Being confident in doing that, is faaaar more important than if that bullet pulls a half gainer on the way to its resting place. I mean if we want to split hairs, we also need to know WHEN it tumbles. Because ideally it would need to tumble damn near instantly on impact to be sideways (largest possible hole) when it hits something important. And at what distance does it tumble? How many times will it revolve in a distance equal to the thickness of the average heart? It ain’t stopping to do pirouettes as it’s passing, it’s tumbling (theoretically) as it’s moving.

That’s a long way of saying….it means fudge all on a big ship.

[Zee]

Facts: you’ll stop a dirtbag by a switch (CNS) or timer (blood supply)

Pontificating over the effects of handgun ammo tumbling in anything OTHER than dirtbags, with a minimum number of 30 dirtbags, (the minimum statistically relevant number) each being shot in an identical fashion, is just a way to waste electrons and keystrokes.

Hit the head, spine, or heart. Being confident in doing that, is faaaar more important than if that bullet pulls a half gainer on the way to its resting place. I mean if we want to split hairs, we also need to know WHEN it tumbles. Because ideally it would need to tumble damn near instantly on impact to be sideways (largest possible hole) when it hits something important. And at what distance does it tumble? How many times will it revolve in a distance equal to the thickness of the average heart? It ain’t stopping to do pirouettes as it’s passing, it’s tumbling (theoretically) as it’s moving.

That’s a long way of saying….it means fudge all on a big ship.

I love you, Chris. You have learned well. Thank you.

Shoot the stuff that matters. With whatever you have. And keep shooting until the threat goes away. But…….you have to hit the crap that matters!!!
Shooting love handles doesn’t solve the problem at hand.

[CPJ 2.0]

And if we want to be more nerdy and contrary, Soeed will affect the rate, and when it tumbles. So if we get the bullet to tumble at the exact right spot to spin sideways through the heart at 10 yards, what happens at 50 when the bullets has shed its speed?

Probably ought to just concentrate on hitting the good bits, eh?

[Bigslug]

Pontificating over the effects of handgun ammo tumbling in anything OTHER than dirtbags, with a minimum number of 30 dirtbags, (the minimum statistically relevant number) each being shot in an identical fashion, is just a way to waste electrons and keystrokes.

For sake of context, the Webley project over on Cast Boolits was a deep rabbit hole. We wanted to take a serious dive into what handgun terminal ballistic theory looked like in that period and see how it stacked up against current conventional wisdom. The Brits were no strangers to thumping angry aboriginals at short range and would have been deploying stuff that the felt worked.

A big part of the conversation revolved around the change from the .455 to the .38 revolver in the inter-war period, and the why behind it. In a nutshell, it wasn't the recoil of the .455 (which for the most common MKII round is 265 grains at only about 625 fps), but rather the fact that the MKVI revolver is a big iron hogleg that takes a fair bit of finesse to manage well. The .38 MKIV is a lot more svelte. Imagine if you had to shoot an action pistol match with the one-handed shooting technique of the day, and your choices were a Desert Eagle and a Browning Hi Power. It's not that extreme, but you get the idea. The .38 is simply a lighter, much handier revolver.

Tumbling or no tumbling, under our modern notions of shot placement and penetration being the important things, with diameter being considered much less so, it becomes pretty clear that if the .38/200 bullet was in any way inferior to the .455, it wasn't significantly so, and the portability and better handling made it a better choice overall.

As to the possibility of the .38 MKI bullet tumbling, we're not sure if it was a deliberate design feature, or just something the round might do. It's worth remembering that one of the reactions to the Hague Convention ban on expanding bullets in war was to cheat the system by creating rifle bullets that tumbled on impact. The British MKVII .303 round with it's aluminum tip UNDER the copper jacket might have been an early version of this, but the idea was being knocked around in WWII. Deliberately for REVOLVER rounds? I dunno, but reports of the MKI .38 tumbling were one of those stories I'd heard for years and wanted to KNOW the truth of, so down the hole I went.

Since we don't have the pesky Hague to worry about in civilian defense circles, there's no reason to really consider a tumbling bullet that makes an FMJ behave like a hollowpoint. We can use hollowpoints and WFN's, so why not?

We got our archeological ya-yas out, and decided that the Brits had a pretty good idea of what's what for the time and the rules they had to play by. I think the big takeaway we can use today is that, if you're not hung up on expansion, you can get by with A LOT less velocity to make those FBI "ideal" gel penetration numbers of 12" to 18", which can have a bearing on recoil, weight of gun, and even design of the gun.

If we only need 650 fps and a .38 wadcutter to carve a nasty, jagged hole to 18" of depth, we can shorten the cylinder to take .38 Short Colt rounds, which effectively gives us the old .38 S&W, but with the much more common .358" diameter bullets of today, while using the same rim thickness and diameter of .38 Special and .357 Mags. Smaller, lighter gun, less recoil, possibly equally effective.

[CPJ 2.0]

Or, I can just throw some 147 grain HPs in my 43x and get on with it.

[bullsi1911]

Facts: you’ll stop a dirtbag by a switch (CNS) or timer (blood supply)

Pontificating over the effects of handgun ammo tumbling in anything OTHER than dirtbags, with a minimum number of 30 dirtbags, (the minimum statistically relevant number) each being shot in an identical fashion, is just a way to waste electrons and keystrokes.

Hit the head, spine, or heart. Being confident in doing that, is faaaar more important than if that bullet pulls a half gainer on the way to its resting place. I mean if we want to split hairs, we also need to know WHEN it tumbles. Because ideally it would need to tumble damn near instantly on impact to be sideways (largest possible hole) when it hits something important. And at what distance does it tumble? How many times will it revolve in a distance equal to the thickness of the average heart? It ain’t stopping to do pirouettes as it’s passing, it’s tumbling (theoretically) as it’s moving.

That’s a long way of saying….it means fudge all on a big ship.

Well, yeah. I’m not going to carry a science experiment reload for personal defense.

This is more about screwing around and pretending I’m learning stuff.

[Zee]

The difference between science and screwing around is writing it down.

[Bigslug]

Or, I can just throw some 147 grain HPs in my 43x and get on with it.

Yeah, but I'm still holding out dreams of a Supermarine Spitfire MK1 as an accessory to match my Webley MKIV.

[bullsi1911]

The difference between science and screwing around is writing it down.

On the Internet!

[bullsi1911]

Well, I ordered both. If nothing else, learning and plinking round.

[Wambli Ska]

I'm a BIG fan of Berry's Plated bullets. I shoot them almost exclusively in my big bore rifles, especially in my level actions like the 45-60 and I'm starting to load them in my .45 Colt and will soon do some 44-40 lots with them too. It's kind of cool to drive a 350gr 458 slug to over 1,600 fps with ZERO leading and they are soft enough to engage rifling really well.

They are also supper accurate in everything I've shot them in. The idea of that hollow based WC loaded backwards is intriguing. I'm not going to carry it in a SD gun because I don't really have any desire or need to, but I think I'd like to see what they do flying fast when hitting a water filled gallon milk jugs!

[GrapeApe]

Depending on how heavy they plated those HBWCs, you might not get ANY expansion loading them backwards.

I base that on how little their 200gr 45 Hybrid HP expands into CBG at ~1000fps
https://www.berrysmfg.com/product/45-20 ... low-point/

As thick as the skirt appears to be on them, I'll be shocked if they do much.

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And yes, I've got experience with both HBWCs backwards and the original hydrashoks, which were originally a basic HBWC with a post

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[Wambli Ska]

They might or might not expand. It’d be fun to see how hot/fast I can send them out of a 4.5” barrel Ruger into water and giggle

[Japhy]

If you get no expansion try scoring the copper clad to match the rifling twist.