Description
The 38 Special was once the standard service cartridge for most American police departments, and it was a popular choice for military sidearms from WWI until the Vietnam War as well. It doesn’t see much official use nowadays – but it gets the job done as far as you’re concerned.
rAnd Hornady’s American Gunner series 38 Special certainly does get the job done. This cartridge’s 125 grain jacketed hollow point is Hornady’s eXtreme Terminal Performance. It is an accurate bullet which features a swaged lead core wrapped in a concentric drawn gilding metal jacket. The jacket produces reliable terminal expansion thanks to two features which strategically weaken it: the notches around its rim, and the way it becomes thinner the closer it gets to its rim. The XTP’s jacket also enhances reliability thanks to its rim’s fully jacketed edge, which sufficiently hardens the bullet to prevent a feeding jam in a lever gun and put a stop to deformation before the bullet has fully entered soft tissue.
rThese self-defense loads are armed with Hornady’s distinctively high-quality brass cases, Boxer primers and low-fouling powder. You can reasonably expect to witness that 900 fps muzzle velocity if your barrel is 4†– slower out of a snub nose, faster out of a rife.
