American Handgunner Jul/Aug 1981 - Jeffersonian

Bull-barrelled Frank Fry .38 Special
absorbs recoil well under rapid-fire.
installation but locks the screws in place.
An extra sight blade was also prepared for
future use at this time.
The barrel. was now cut to finished
length and a target crown machined at the
muzzle. The second test firing produced
some very satisfactory results. Rapid firing
required no effort to bring the muzzle back
into line. The mass of the gun soaked up
recoil easily. Fifty yard groups easily
bench rested into the center of a PPC
target. The action was then tuned, polished
and balanced. A few rubs with some emery
paper, a lick or two on the buffing wheels
and it was ready for a blueing bath. Finally
a set of R&J grips were installed. Empty
the gun weighs in at 42 oz.
Chuck has carried this gun on duty now
for 8 months and tells me it is ~
exactly what he ordered. ~
Frank's Gun Shop, 4646 E. Cty 15 St.,
Yuma, AZ 85364.
R & J Grips, 508 W. MacArthur Blvd.,
Oakland, CA 94609.
Dan Wesson Arms, 293 j Main St., Monson,
MA 01057.
COP TALK
(Continued from page 29)
suitable for general issue. Like the .45
auto, it's really pretty much an "experts
only" gun.
One comes, inevitably, back to the .38
and the .357. While I like the IIO-gr JHP in
either caliber, for the ri1inimized recoil and
reduced penetration coupled with substantial
shock effect, there are cases of
dramatic failure to shoot through barricades.
I dislike the 158-grain bullet's substantially
greater recoil, but that weight
gives three advantages: auto body penetraiion
is good, the bullet will print in
roughly the same place as the 148-grain .38
mid-range wadcutter ammo the officer is
almost certainly trained with (thus making
sure that his gun is reasonably well sighted
in for his duty load, compared to 110­
grainers which often hit inches away from
the practice load's point of impact), and
because, in a hollowpoint loading, it deliv-
32
ers maximum energy transmission and is
unlikely to exit the target mass and cause
danger to standers-by.
A better answer may be found in the
new generation of381357 loads developed
by S&W Ammunition and Remington.
These are 90-grain semi-jacketed pills at
extremely high velocity. These rounds
have been known to pierce "bullet-proof'
police vests that stop .44 Magnum slugs. At
the same time, you're getting up into the
lower regions of rifle velocities where secondary
shock waves are set up that tear
apart living tissue for a fist-sized radius
around the wound channel.
However, there hasn't been time enough
for sufficient reports to come in from the
field as to whether this bullet will reliably
drill through car doors, or whether it will
dangerously drill through felons.
The all-lead hollowpoint 158-grain .38
Special is a load that grows more popular
Popular Jordan-style holster shown
with S&W stainless Model 64 M&P .38.
with police every week. In the 1000-1100
FPS range out of a 4" service revolver, this
is a formula that mushrooms dramatically,
hits hard by whatever criterion you're
using to measure it, and virtually eliminates
overpenetration. Capability of drilling
through barriers, however, is mediocre.
W/W's LH P .38 may be the ideal .38
Special load. You may never see the equivalent
in .357, because the leading problem
demands an alloy so hard that the expansion
capability would be impaired, but if
the .38 is your gun, and you don't patrol
the Interstates, the 158 gr. LH P in the fast
down to standard (± 900 fps) velocity.
Most other agencies have kept the" + P"
velocity specs (in the region of 1000-1050
fps), and many feel that this may be the
ideal all-purpose police cartridge. The.
chopping shoulder of the Keith style bullet
does deliver much greater stopping power
than the round-nose, and in the .38, velocity
is "just about right" in that complete
felon-body penetration seldom happens,
while auto body penetration is adequate.
Oddly enough, the Keith style bullet is
quite good for shooting through steel. Remember,
round noses glance ofl', and hot
lead is a lubricant substance. If you're
shooting at a car from an acute angle, the
sharp shoulder of the spinning semi-wadcutter
takes a biting purchase into the steel
and drills through instead of sliding off.
4-INCH HERE TO STAY
Enough ofammo. What about the guns?
There was a time, and not so long ago,
when street cops' carried mid-frame fourinch
38s, and highway lawmen packed 6"
heavy frame wheelguns. The six-inch is
outre and will remain so; it is too awkward
to carryall day, monstrously uncomfortable
to sit down with when carried in a
conventional police holster, and actually
harder to shoot accurately in rapid combat
fire at point blank range because the
longer sigh t radi us is harder to line up even
roughly.
The big Colts, such as the New Service
.45 revolver carried for so long by the ew
York State Police, are history now, but the
"N" frame Smith & Wesson is still
extremely popular in the Highway Patrolman
.357. This gun offers much less recoil
than any other weapon in its caliber save
the heavy barrelled Colt Python and Dan
Wesson Pacesetter, neither of which are
popular as issue service revolvers. The
action is smooth and trouble-free, accuracy
is superb, and the gun is formidable
in appearance without being unduly bulky
in the holster, at least in the 4" barrel
length. Several state police agencies still
issue it, including the Texas Department of
Safety, and because it's such an excellent
dollar value (the best in the S&W catalog, I
feel) many municipal and county lawmen
who buy their own weapons choos~jt. As
an issue gun, the N-frame Smith has but a .
single drawback: a lot of people with small
hands find it slightly awkward.
COMBAT MAGNUM CHOICE
+ P loading may well be your choice. There was a time when Smith sold as
The same round in a solid Keith Semi- many Model28s to cops as they did Model
wadcutter is growingly popular with po- 19s. This is not now the case; the trim
lice, as a compromise between the inefl'ec- Combat Magnum is the odds-on choice for
tual roundnose and the hollowpoint bullet both individuals and departments who are
that in some regions is too hot to handle upgrading to .357 Magnum firepower. The
politically rather than ballistically. Mas- stainless Model 66 is especially popular,
sachusetts State Police went to his round in and at least four state police agencies have
their Model 10 .38s after their JHP 3-D switched to it.
brand service ammo caused a hue and cry For all the talk about police automatics,
in certain circles of that politically ultra- the real trend is to the .357 revolver. In fact,
liberal state.
a lot of departments that have gone to the
NYCPD went to this load, but watered it (Continued on page 70)
AMERICAN HANDGUNNER· JULYIAUGUST 1981