Curiouser and curiouser
Looks like DoubleTap almost immediately discontinued their .38 Super offering with the 125-grain JHP and replaced it with a 147-grain bonded JHP (manufacturer unspecified) at 1225 fps. That’s a good 250 fps more than the 9mm manages with the same bullet weight.
A pretty smart lady once told me,
“Y’know what I like about .38 Super? 147gr@1200fps. Heavy and fast.”
The potential problem, of course, is that the 147-grain bullets on the market now were engineered for the lower, 9mm velocity level, and bullets driven too fast have a tendency to get all ’splodey instead of holding together and penetrating (bonding the core to the jacket typically solves this problem). I’d really like to find out what bullet DoubleTap is using, and I’m even more curious to see what it does in gelatin testing.
As far as I know, the only bonded 147-grain JHP on the market right now is the Speer Gold Dot. I think a phone call to DoubleTap is in order…
Winchester has a bonded 147gr 9mm bullet, part of their Ranger/LE line.
Comment by Caleb — January 11, 2010 @ 1:22 pm
I’ll be VERY interested in the outcome of that phone call.
Comment by Kevin Baker — January 12, 2010 @ 3:03 pm
Ha you said “DoubleTap”.
Comment by quizzical pussy — January 12, 2010 @ 3:07 pm
Hmm, Doubletap also has 147gr. in 357SIG and it’s bonded…
Comment by mike w. — January 14, 2010 @ 1:52 pm
147gr .357SIG makes me happy from a ballistic standpoint, but the thought of that long, heavy bullet and the dinky bearing area of the short .357SIG case neck always gets me a little squicked, especially at the pressures .357SIG generates.
Comment by Tam — January 15, 2010 @ 10:56 am
If you want a fast .38 – 9×25 Dillon is still the king. It has the same relationship to the 10mm as the .357 Sig does to the 40S&W. It will lob that 147grn bullet at 1500 ft/sec. Of course than means A)Parts breakage, as it’s reported to be very hard on guns and B)Possible muscle injury, as it has a rather nasty habit of giving shooters tendinitis.
And oh, Only Double Tap currently makes ammo, and I don’t know anybody making headstamped brass.
Comment by HTRN — January 25, 2010 @ 8:29 am
Mike McNett or one of his folks told me (via email) Speer made him quit using the “Gold Dot Hollow Point” in his product descriptions, but that the 45 ACP and 357 SIG I buy from him for CCW are still the Speer bullets (230 gr and 125 gr respectively). The 45 is moving pretty fast out of a 4.5/5″ bbl, but isn’t blowy-uppy at all and the 357 SIG is designed for those velocities. I got a nice perfectly expanded 230 gr sunflower for a friend’s class (for DA’s) by popping an old car fire extinguisher, no missing bits and pieces.
Call them, or email – they’ve been doing a great job for quite awhile now.
Regards,
Brian in CA
Comment by Brian in CA — February 13, 2010 @ 1:30 pm