Recreating something approximating the .38 Special "FBI Load"

Having recently scored a lot of .38 Special cases, I thought I might try and put together a competition load with a bit more punch and have been looking into the “FBI Load”; in other words the .38 Special loading used by the FBI and many other US law enforcement agencies back in the heyday of police revolver use.

There’s a lot of discussion on the internet about it, but the general consenus is that it was essentially a .38 Special +P load firing a 158gr lead hollowpoint projectile, and that most of the major ammunition manufacturers produced some variant on it (and a couple still do).

Further internet searching suggested that 5.2gr of Unique behind a 158gr lead projectile was widely considered the closest approximation of the loading, so I loaded up a batch with 158gr LRNFP Spartan cast projectiles, and another batch with 158gr JHP projectiles.

Interestingly, Alliant themselves list 5.2gr of Unique as the max powder loading for .38 Special +P, but I’ve got data from other published sources saying 5.4 and even higher (from some of the 1930s/1940s manuals).

When I got to putting the rounds downrange, I noticed the LRNFP projectiles performed more accurately than the JHP ones, despite being the same weight.

There’s still a bit of tweaking to do (I need to adjust the sights on the revolver, for starters), but I noticed this load had a more significant feel to it when fired than the usual .38 Special loads (around 4.7gr of Unique behind a 158gr projectile), which usually seem a bit lacklustre to me.

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What sort of velocity are you trying to reach with the 158 LRNFP?

Around 900fps or so. I’m less focussed on velocity and more on accuracy, and I find the hotter loads more satisfying to shoot.

Respectable. I wouldn’t call it +P though. My typical loads are around 860fps using 158gn RN. Very controllable from a 4" 686, so 900 doesn’t feel like a “+”. To me. But it does sound like a lot of fun. Although, that’s only a little away from 1000, in which case why not just go with 357? Probably easier on the cylinder chamber too.

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Mainly because I have a lot of .38 Special cases :stuck_out_tongue:

Solid reason!

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Ahhh the ‘Dallas’ load with the 158g semi wadcutter.

Make the ‘Darwin’ load with full wadcutter :slight_smile: