The first priority of defensive ammunition is reliability. To explain, we start with establishing some priorities for choosing defensive ammunition:ġ. In an era of hi-tech hollowpoints, why in the world would I recommend a low speed, solid lead, soup can of a target round for defense? Some of my fellow bullet nerds are thinking that I lost my marbles right about now. So, after some discussions and some testing, we found a better solution for our friend, and that solution was about as far from the fire-breathing Magnum as you could get. The most powerful and capable bullet does you no good if you can’t connect with it, eh? In truth, there’s very few shooters who are trained, dedicated and practiced enough to do good work with the.
Our friend isn’t there yet, and if we had stuffed the chambers of that LCR full of Magnum ammo, I can guarantee it wouldn’t have been pretty or effective. 357 Magnum earned its laurels when fired out of heavy, steel frame revolvers with 4 and 6 inch barrels, but when you put that much horsepower into a flyweight snub, it takes a very accomplished shooter to hang onto the reins and control it. Our RevolverGuy didn’t need the biggest and the baddest bullet on the block. 357 Magnum loads have developed a pretty fierce reputation as manstoppers over the years, but in the quest to choose the best numbers from a table or spreadsheet, the view of the big picture was lost. The bullet nerds were trying to be helpful, but they didn’t do a very good job of reading the situation and tailoring their advice for our friend. No Magnums for me in a lightweight snub, thank you very much. 38 Special load that I could control well enough to guarantee accuracy and fast follow-ups.
I could almost hear the sigh of relief through the wires when I told our friend that it wasn’t necessary to carry Magnum ammo in a Magnum revolver, and that I wouldn’t do it myself in the Ruger LCR. Lightweight snubs require careful ammunition selection, to find that delicate balance between power and control, energy and performance.Īfter the experience with the. The shooter admitted to being uncomfortable with the recoil, and had left the majority of the box of +Ps unfired. Our shooter’s formerly tight, well-centered groups turned into shotgun patterns with a bunch of low, 6 O’Clock hits that betrayed some recoil anticipation. 38 Special +P, 125 grain loads and things didn’t go so well. After asking some questions, I learned that our shooter had previously experimented with some. Our shooter reached out to us here at RevolverGuy, after discovering the blog, and asked what we thought of that advice. 357 Magnum was the King of “stopping power,” so why would anybody choose something less? All their graphs, charts, tables, and slide rules told them that the. Before finding us, our RevolverGuy had sought advice from local experts, and the bullet nerds in the community insisted that 125 grain. 38 Special ammunition in a Ruger LCR with Magnum chambers. Our RevolverGuy was relatively new to shooting and had been shooting a steady diet of mildly-loaded, standard pressure. Death Rays,stopping power, and Other LiesĬonsider the case of a budding RevolverGuy who contacted me recently, seeking a recommendation for a defensive load. We bullet nerds sometimes have a tendency to lose the forest through the trees.
Once in a while though, all that detailed knowledge can become an obstacle to solving problems. That’s all good fun, and sometimes it can even be useful (for more than starting bar fights). If we were sitting together around a campfire, we’d probably keep each other entertained into the wee hours with animated discussions about sectional densities, stories of hunting bullets that brought down game, or the best carry loads for our gats. Some of you are probably bullet nerds too. I enjoy learning about how bullets do their work, and studying the minutiae of expansion, penetration, retained weight, permanent and temporary cavities, testing protocols, and all the numerical measures of bullet performance. I’ve always been fascinated by ballistics, and particularly terminal ballistics.