The Amazing, wonderful .38 Special
August 17th, 2008 by Syd
Outback Notes has a good piece on the .38 Special:
Never having been afflicted with magnumitis I have always found the .38 Special a useful and admirable cartridge. Even my .357s digest far more .38 loadings than magnums. Where handguns have any usefulness at all in "varmint control"— and they certainly do— the .38 will accomplish just about anything that needs to be done. The trick is knowing what it’s good at. As a self-defense cartridge it has been much derided, but with modern +P loadings it can more than hold its own. There’s also much to be said for a pistol that can be emptied into a playing card at seven yards in less than two seconds by a reasonably adept practitioner. There’s spray-and-pray and there’s control. With enough practice, the .38 definitely lends itself to precision and control.
Read the whole article here.
Now ya know, I *may* get the guy that’s into *caliber snobbery* all POd but I am a lot better with my 357’s than I am with the .45, I NEVER shoot .38’s in em either, even the wife shoots magnums loaded…
If it held 14 rounds my Model 28 would be the perfect pistol too…
I am the guy who wrote “The Snubnose Files.” http://www.snubnose.info/
I love the .38 and the .357. I’m willing to suspend my caliber snobbery on them for a variety of reasons. I don’t really consider .38’s and 9mm to be in the “mousegun” category. Time has shown that .38’s and .357’s work pretty doggone well for self-defense guns, and they carry so well.
Syd
No Syd, I didn’t mean you, I was refering to the guy that commented the other day about the .22. will kill you as dead as a .44….
I’m a Snob too, I have .357’s and .45 and shotguns… I like BIG…
I think TF is referring to me, but I really don’t understand where you’re going with your first post TF.
.38 Special is a very nice round for shooting, it’s very economical to reload and there’s so many choices of guns and loadings. I don’t carry one, but I’ve thought of a lightweight snubby in .38 Special and wouldn’t bat an eye at the thought.
I tend to concentrate more on how well the gun fits me and what I want to do with it than agonize on trying to get a certain caliber crammed into the package I want.
I understand now. You must have really big hands. My hands are medium to large-ish and the boot grip of the snubbies is almost too small for me. They’re certainly not comfortable for me to shoot for any period of time. One reason I like the “hammerless” Centennial is that the backstrap is longer and it lets me get more of my hand on the gun.
I wear a size 14 ring…