Traditional ammo loadings can fade away for several reasons, and low performance is one major factor. (Shooting Times photo)
I recently received a reader’s question asking: “Whatever happened to the ‘police load’ of a 200-grain lead RN for the .38 Special?” The question brought up complicated matters of terminal ballistics, market pressures, and manufacturing constraints that are still valid today. And it presents a broader issue: why we test.
Before the 1960s, there were few factory loads for .38 Special. We had the ubiquitous 158-grainers at two velocity levels and sporting either a lead RN bullet or a metal-capped bullet. There was the 148-grain full wadcutter for paper targets. And there was the 200-grain LRN; Winchester-Western boxes for this bore the moniker...