+P recommended for Colt Detective Special?

[hsim]

OK, I am not really a revolver guy, I know, we all have our faults and I am just hanging out at the local gun store shooting the breeze, when in walks this young faller and offers to sell a Colt Detective Special mark II to the owner. He passes on it and notes that it's in excellent condition, but for him to buy it, and then resell it he would only pay $100 less for it.

Long story short, I walk out side with this young faller and about 20 minuets later I have this revolver at home don't know what came over me, just had to have it.

Anyways, to my question, how safe is shooting a limited (and by limited I mean about 20 - 40 rounds at a time) of +P to shot through this old Colt? I don't believe I plan on carrying this little guy, or do a whole bunch of shooting with it, just would be nice to know if the need arouse, that the little faller can handle it OK.

[GrandmasterB]

That's a fine ole Colt you have there. Congrats!

I would limit the +P in that gun. I think they are rated for somewhere around 1000rds of +P over the lifetime of the gun. But shoot standard pressure .38 special to your heart's content and enjoy that fine revolver!

[Dfariswheel]

Your Detective Special is a pre-1972 model.
In '72 Colt changed to the heavy barrel with the shroud over the ejector rod.

In 1972 with the new barrel, Colt first authorized "some" use of +P ammo in the DS, "up to" 3000 rounds, at which point the gun was to be returned to Colt for inspection and possible frame replacement.

In the earlier guns like yours, Colt did NOT rate the gun for ANY +P ammo.
However, a limited amount of +P will not wreck the gun, and 50 rounds or so should do no harm.
Keep in mind that shooting +P ammo will increase wear of the gun.

It was common to shoot standard .38 Special ammo for practice, then to load up with +P ammo for "business".

[GrantCunningham]

This subject concerns quite a few Colt owners, enough so that I wrote a short article about it:

http://www.grantcunningham.com/coltammo.html

[hsim]

Thanks for all the response. If I understand everyone correctly, since it's a pre 72' I should avoid using +p as the guns were never rated for this.

However, if I chose to do so, to limit the use and have it inspect by a Colt gunsmith every 3000 or so rounds. This is all assuming that the gun is in perfect condition to began with. well I guess, she'll stay in the safe and have a steady diet of regular pressure .38's from now on.

Thanks again

[Person of Interest]

Here's an ad from 1940 in which Colt OKs the use of the 38-44 ammo in the Detective Special. The old 38-44 ammo was much more powerful than the +P being loaded today so if 38-44 loads didn't cause concern with it's 21,500+ PSI I don't know why the current +P at 18,500 PSI should be a problem. The reason Colt NOW advises against +P is because their lawyers are worried about any potential lawsuits. That's why the ammo companies reduced the loads from 21,000 PSI to 16,000 for standard loads and 18,500 for +P.

I, personally, would give factory +P exactly zero concern in any Colt or S&W revolver as these guns were designed for the steady use of 21,000 PSI ammo and factory +P as currently loaded by Winchester, Remington and Federal only generates 18,500. Alloy frames will probably wear a little faster but in a steel gun you probably won't see any effect. But you do what makes you comfortable.

[Dfariswheel]

"However, if I chose to do so, to limit the use and have it inspect by a Colt gunsmith every 3000 or so rounds"

NO.....Colt only rated the POST-1972 heavy, shrouded barrel guns for +P, and the rating was for "up to" 3000 rounds before inspection.

Your older pre-1972 model was NOT factory rated AT ALL.

However, as above, a limited number of +P rounds will not destroy the gun or cause a "KA-BOOM", but will increase the wear.

The gun is good for unlimited use with standard .38 Special.

[Ala Dan]

I ain't a'bout too shoot NO +P loads in MY vintage 1966 and 1971 Colt
Dick Specials. Of course, these guns are "safe queens" and
don't get shot anyway~!

[Doug.38PR]

The old 38-44 ammo was much more powerful than the +P being loaded today so if 38-44 loads didn't cause concern with it's 21,500+ PSI I don't know why the current +P at 18,500 PSI should be a problem. The reason Colt NOW advises against +P is because their lawyers are worried about any potential lawsuits. That's why the ammo companies reduced the loads from 21,000 PSI to 16,000 for standard loads and 18,500 for +P.

Are you sure that is right? You say 38-44 has 25500 PSI and the standard .38 Special used to have 21,000 PSI that's almost the same

You showed me that catalogue reference before. It convinced me to finally try some +P rounds in my 1966 2cond issue DS. Shot a dozen rounds in it safely about 2 weeks ago. 158 gr LSWCHP +P. Not bad at all! I now regularly carry Remington .38 Special +P LSWCHP 158 gr in that gun without hesitation!

I'm not sure that because the post 1940 (or depression era) guns were rated for .38-44 means that you can give a steady diet of those rounds. It is safe for use but the gun just won't last as long and will shake it loose over time.

I have cut down on putting .38+P rounds through my Post War Official Police just because I don't want to wear it out. I used to put 20-50 rounds through it every three weeks or so when going to the range. I would guess it's seen about 200-300 rounds of +P through it since I got it back from PHH a year ago.

[whitebb]

I thought +p was designated by SAAMI in 1974. Be hard for a older gun to be rated before the designation. Just my 0.02

[tube_ee]

.38-44 loads were running velocities (and, presumably, pressures) akin to modern factory .357 magnums. That's not really surprising, since the 38-44 gave birth to the .357.

Colt advertised their guns as able to shoot those loads. Should you? No. In fact, I don't think those loads should be loaded anymore, since we have the 357 magnum now. Not to mention the fact that, lawyers aside, metallurgy and engineering have advanced a little bit since the 1930s...

What I think can be derived from these things is that any quality all-steel .38 special revolver is overbuilt for it's intended purpose. You can use that margin in a number of different ways. You can use it to shoot higher pressure loads, or you can use it to shoot standard loads basically forever. The choice, and the risks, and the gun, are yours.

If it were mine, I'd shoot and carry a standard-pressure 158 gr LSWC-HP or 148 gr LWC. The LSWC-HP might expand, but if not, it's a great bullet anyway. If you cast your own, I'd bet you could come up with an alloy that would expand at snubby velocities. Concerns about carrying handloads have been extensively aired here (and elsewhere) so that's something you'd have to decide for yourself. The straight wadcutter will cut a full-caliber hole all the way through, creating an impressive wound even without high velocity.

Folks more knowledgeable than I like the standard wadcutter for a standard pressure snubby load. I'd go with the LSWC-HP, just because it might expand.

None of this is based on personal experience shooting people with the bullets in question, so take it with the appropriatly-sized chunk of NaCl. Remember, unless you're Lee Harvey Oswald, there is no magic bullet.

--Shannon

[Person of Interest]

Doug, I don't know what the operating pressure was for the 38/44 (that's why I typed it as 21,500+ because I don't know how much + there was) but all you have to do is look at the specs to see that it was much more powerful than current loads. The 38/44 was a 158 grain bullet at about 1,140 FPS and this is a stout load. The current 125 +P from Win, Fed and Rem is listed at 950 FPS.

Apparently a lot of folks disagree with me (their option) and a lot of shooters seem genuinely fearful of modern +P (beyond me). I simply do not consider a 125 at 950 as a powerful load. To me this is barely standard pressure. I have shot these factory 125 +Ps in several revolvers and was totally unimpressed by the performance. Cases fell from the guns without needing the ejector and the sides of the cases were sooty indicating a low presure situation meaning the cases were not being sealed in the chambers. As one friend noted if he observed this with his hand loads he would increase the charge as this load is clearly underpowered.

I know some will be horrified by this but I consider the current factory 125 +Ps to be underloaded and underpowered. The limit for the .38 Special is 21,000 or 21,500 PSI and current +Ps are loaded to only 18,500 according to the on-line sources I consulted in the course of my research. Can someone explain to me how ammo loaded 2,500 PSI below industry limits is to be seen as powerful? The +P is higher pressure only when compared to current standard loads which are set at 16,000 PSI. A true +P would be at more than 21,000 PSI, not less. I think the ammo manufacturers have pulled a marketing ploy by telling us that ammo loaded to 2,500 PSI below pressure limit is high performance.

Back in the 1940s standard .38 Special ammo was typically a 158 grain bullet loaded to 950 FPS. I don't know exactly what sort of pressure this load developed but it was certainly more than what's offered today and was likely close to the 21,000 PSI limit established for the caliber. By the 1970s the load was reduced to 870 FPS and by the 1990s it was further reduced to 780 and current specs show 730 FPS. It is obvious that the manufacturers reduced the load level because of the presence of cheap, poorly made guns imported from foreign nations. They felt they had to match the ammo to the weakest gun out there to protect themselves from lawsuits. This means all of us with quality guns are stuck with low performing ammo.

Note that this situation really doesn't exist with the 9MM P or the .357 Magnum. You just don't see hordes of crappy guns in these calibers so the legal threat isn't nearly as bad. But I do believe the loads in .357 Magnum have been reduced slightly in recent years due to the popularity of the medium frame revolvers in this caliber. Many shooters object to a 125 at 1400 FPS from a K frame so current loads are around 1250.

BTW- The operating pressure limit for the .357 is 35,000 PSI. Does it really seem like the .38 Special, chambered in a decent gun from Colt or S&W, needs to be kept at less than half this pressure? Is a Model 15 really less than half as strong as a Model 19? This is what the ammo makers are telling us when they load the .38 to 16,000 PSI.

I have some factory +Ps on hand that I use for plinking. I am still at an absolute loss to understand why people think this ammo is powerful. It simply is not. But as always, I would never tell another man what gun to use or what ammo to carry. If you believe that +P is really powerful and it makes you nervous to shoot it in your gun then don't do it. Just because I realized that factory +P is actually pretty wimpy doesn't mean you should lose your fear of it.

Tube_ee, the 38/44 wasn't close to the .357 back then, but is now.

[Dfariswheel]

Personal opinions aside, when the factory that invented and built a gun now says "NO" you can ascribe that to lawyerly weaseling, but a smart owner stops and considers for a moment that possibly the factory knows something we don't.

According to the above figures, the 38-44 seems to be up in or near the police-only +P+.
I direct your attention to pages 127 and 128 of Jerry Kuhnhausen's book, "The Colt Double Action Revolvers: A Shop Manual, Volume One".

These pages show blown up Colt "D" frames shot with as little as ONE round of +P+.

Colt built the gun and NO ONE knows more about it then they do.
With that said, an owner just has to make his own decision about it.

[Person of Interest]

If a Colt blew up with one round it wasn't the "power" of a factory +P because there isn't any. Not that kind. Guns are manufactured machines and sometimes they are defective as delivered. I suspect that any Colts or S&Ws blowing up with any factory ammo had problems with tempering or something to cause a catastrophic failure. Factory +P ammo is simply not hot enough to blow up a gun.

As for listening to Colt (or any gunmaker) they are listening to lawyers. Oh, that's right. You don't believe that (and I think you are the only one, BTW).*

Like I said, dude, do what you think is best.

But, yes or no, do you really think a 125 grain bullet driven at 950 FPS is a powerful load in the .38 Special?

* After posting this I asked my wife (the lawyer) to see if she could find any cases regarding ammomakers being sued for defective products. She spent about five minutes on LEXIS (a legal search engine) and found eight lawsuits starting in 1957. I looked at a couple of the cases and they were about guns blowing up. This is only a small sample and if you think Federal, Winchester et al don't have such potential litigation in mind when they are manufacturing ammo you should think again. She then searched for cases involving gunmakers and there were pages and pages that popped up. I checked out a couple and one involved a gun blowing up. I submit that lawsuits against gun and ammo companies are so numerous and well known as to be considered common knowledge and I can't imagine these companies not acting to protect themselves by advising against using ammo that is marketed as high performance (even though it really isn't).

[Doug.38PR]

PoI
DFaris wasn't saying that the gun blew up under +p pressures. He was saying it blew up under +P+ pressures (BIG difference I understand).
While I agree that +P is not enough to blow up a gun (post depression that is), could it be that Colt overrated some of their guns by saying that .38-44 ammo could be shot through it? Or maybe standard .38 rounds (as they were then) were ultimately damaging to guns. (maybe not dangerous to shooters but to the gun) Because there were so many lawsuits, that could mean something was overrated somewhere (either the ammo or the gun). I don't doubt that something large like the OP could handle the .38-44 tops (at least a limited amount) but a DS....ohhh, kinda makes me hesitant. Not that it will necessarily blow up the gun, but cause extra wear or damage the gun in some way.

EDIT: another thought on the other hand. An older gunsmith who has been around for years and handles a lot of LEO gunsmithing (I think that's just about all he does work for, he doesn't advertize himself to do work the public unless someone hears about him and walks in off the street from word of mouth.). I believe he told me he used to work for Colt a long time ago (I may have that wrong as he didn't favor Colt DA revolvers too well, he refused to do actual actionwork on mine as he didn't have the means to fix it adequately or guarantee a satisfactory job). This gunsmith told me that +Ps would be fine in my PreWar Colt Official Police. I winced. He said, that before the factory ever sent any of those guns out (even then as now) they test fire each chamber using something like 10 times (I may remember that wrong, or I or he may be exaggerating to make a point) more of a charge of powder than I will ever shoot in them at any one time. Hence +Ps will be fine in it, but like me he agreed that taking a box of 50 of them down to the range every single day wouldn't be wise for the revolver's sake.

[Majic]

Smart money is on limiting your use of +P ammo in the older Dick Specials. Whether you believe Colt's warning or old advertisements there aren't that many frames, cylinders, and barrels should yours decide to let go. Why stress a vintage gun that you most likely have no idea of how much or often it has been stressed in it's lifetime?

[dasmi]

What a gorgeous old Colt.

[Doug.38PR]

75-90% of the time I just use standard .38 rounds. It is afterall just paper, don't need much to practice on that.