38 Cal Hollow Base Wad Cutter Question

[joedjr]

I am going to load 38 Cal Hollow Base Wad Cutters for the 1st time. Which end gets seated in the case, the hollow end or solid end?
Thanks

[Magnum Wheel Man]

the hollow end

[Unclenick]

Normal use is in .38 Special cases over 2.7 grains of Bullseye powder, hollow base in, as the last post said, and the front flush with the case mouth and the case roll crimped slightly over it. With a different powder, the charge needs to be kept to about the same pressure level as that load to avoid having enough muzzle pressure to expand the hollow base like a skirt when the bullet exits. Short barrels are also a problem for that bullet design because the pressure is higher at the muzzle of a short barrel. The solid double-ended and bevel base wadcutters work best in short barrels. The hollow base ones mainly shine with the 6" target barrels they were originally intended for.

If you load one of these backward it is less stable and leaves less room for powder, so you have either to seat it out further and crimp into the lead or to reduce powder charge to about 2 grains and work up to be sure you don't get too much pressure. The reversed seating is bad for target shooting because of the stability problem, but some folks used to do it to try to get a rapidly expanding hollow point for low velocities. I don't think that ever worked out very well as the expanded soft lead tended to fragment too easily.

[gunner269]

The old .455 Webley 'man-stopper' was really a double ended hollow based bullet. The effect was horrendous, When we in England were allowed to own cartridge pistols I had a WWI example, I fired a copy of the man-stopper at a Roe deer that I had shot with my .308. The bullet expanded to nearly one and a half inches, you can see why any British soldier that was caught by the Germans, with these bullets, was summarily executed.

[jim n iowa]

I have known of crime fighters reloading the wad cutter in reverse, they claimed it would tumble on inpact, with results more favorable than fmj bullets.
jim

[Unclenick]

Gunner269,

I would be interested to know how deep and wide that hollow was? I've not seen one of those. I don't think the conventional hollow-base .38 and .32 wadcutters could be made double-ended without there being a hole all the way through the middle of the bullet, or close to it. I am away from home and can't get a measurement to say which it would be? I am guessing your hollows were more shallow, and that would help it keep together.

The reversed conventional hollow base wadcutter expands a treat in a water jug if you don't run it too fast. If you give it a lot of zip the expanded skirt fragments. I ran some in .357 magnum cases back in the 80's that did that, but I'd have to look up the load. Probably just Bullseye, but might have been Unique or even 2400. I do recall there being magazine articles on the topic at the time, so a bit of research might turn up more details. Water splashed pretty well, as I recall.

Nick

[rn22723]

Double Ended Hollow Base Wadcutter? Does not make sense at all.

DEWC are sort cast....for the most part, and hollow base WC are swaged.

[SL1]

I have read that using hollow-base wadcutters with high pressure loads can occasionally result in the base-hole blowing through while the bullet is in a long barrel, leaving a barrel obstruction. If that happened and you did not realize it, the next shot would ruin the gun and maybe so body parts.

These bullets are soft-swaged lead, and are designed for low-pressure .38 Special loads, so please be careful about trying to make .357 Magnum varmint loads out of them.

SL1

[Jim Watson]

I could not readily find a picture, but one source describes the .455 Mk III "Manstopper" as a 218 grain bullet with a hemispherical cavity in both ends. Not a deep tunnel like the .38 midrange wadcutters we are more familiar with.

[margiesex]

Back in the beginning (some 40 years ago) my brother loaded and shot these all the time. Yes, he even "upended" some.

I have tried to duplicate his success, and frankly gave up as I just could not seem to get the proper depth with the necessary crimp - plus they were a mess.

However, if you get these made up correctly - well, they were the most accurate .38's he even fired through his Ruger and Dakota. And, as above he use 2.5 grains of Bullseye - so you can crank out some 3000 rounds for a pound of powder!

Good luck - God bless.


Margiesex

And remember - hug your God and your guns - 'cause he's coming for them both - and soon!

[RedneckFur]

The hollow end goes into the case.

I have loaded some hollow base wadcutters backwards as a joke, and used them to shoot paper targets. I dont know what effect this would have on game animals, but I imaigne the bullet would mushroom and fragment.

[Unclenick]

Thanks Jim. I figured it must be something like that, precisely to avoid the center blowout mentioned by SL1. Even at Webley pressures, that would be a concern.

I should mention, by the way, that of all the .38 Wadcutters I have tried, by far the most accurate from my Smith K38 is not the hollow base, but the Lee Tumble Lube design fired as-cast from alloy about the hardness of wheel weights. From that gun, it shoots groups literally half the size of Federal Match with its hollow base bullets. Nor can I load swaged hollow base bullets myself to do significantly better in that gun than the Federal. I could not get conventionally lubed and sized wadcutters to shoot as well, either, but admit I bought those ready made and didn't have a mold, so I couldn't try them as-cast or sized a little bigger.

[Russ5924]

I shoot both HBWC and DEWC and really can't see much difference accuracy wise between the two. Just be careful reloading the HBWC if you load them just a little hotter they come apart I was using W231 and I took them up to 3.5 ( I THINK long time ago) I was getting two holes for one shot they split in two pieces but not all did but most of them did. Went back to 2.8G