Double the Fun: 38 Special Style – by Dan Larsson

If you can’t have fun doing it, I’m usually not interested. Not all of life can be fun, but reloading is. When Frank or Frankie at Rimrock bullets told me about their 80gr stackable wafer bullets (DEWC – Double Ended WadCutter), I had to try them! It is not uncommon to shoot a 158gr bullet in a 38 Special pistol or rifle load and two of these wadcutters adding up to 160 grains is perfect. The guys at Rimrock say you can get 3 of these in a .357 but I have yet to play with that. A 3x 240gr payload in a revolver could be a life changing. I need to up my .357 game…

This is simple. It is not dangerous. Most of all, it is a blast! A double blast! Hahaha.

You hold two bullets flat to flat and load them in the 38 case like you would a regular bullet. It is truly that simple. Find the load data you want to use for a bullet in that 155-160gr weight range and load away. I like to seat the two bullets until the case mouth just covers the lube groove in the front bullet. With a sharp edge on the front of the wadcutter, these probably won’t cycle in your .357 lever action, but I honestly haven’t tried it. I shoot these in a couple of different Smith and Wesson revolvers and love them. Sidenote, my go to .38 Spl bullet is the 155gr Rimrock DEWC. My go to load is 4.8gr of Unique for these bullets. My pistols love them.

I learned long ago that a flat sharp-edged bullet does a lot more damage than a round nose bullet. Not to be gruesome, but we have varmints that need controlled or eliminated here in Montana. The Columbian ground squirrel, AKA “Gopher,” is at the top of our list. They dig holes that can break livestock and wild game legs and generally make a mess of the landscape. I enjoy hunting them with a revolver. Many a center hit gopher, with a .38 round nose bullet, will crawl down their hole before expiring. In contrast, the word that comes to mind when shooting them with wadcutters is SPLAT. It is literally twice as lethal. This is good when you do not desire anything to suffer longer than necessary.

Some years ago, dad let me read his book Guns, Bullets, and Gunfights by Jim Cirillo. If I remember correctly, he was a police officer in New York many decades ago. Most of those police officers carried a snub-nosed Smith .38 Special revolver. It was a rough time for Cops in those days. A buddy of mine who worked a similar area of New York in those days showed me his service revolver with a broken hammer. As far as he knew, it was still in the back of the guy’s head who attacked him.

I remember Jim writing that one of the most effective .38 loads they used was the wadcutter as the sharp edge of the bullet wouldn’t slide across a skull the same way as a round nosed bullet. I would have to agree. The shock value as a self defense load will be exponentially more and these should be less likely to penetrate walls. This isn’t my main concern, but it is something to think about when you are reloading.

So, how does it shoot? What are the results? Why do I like them so much?

I find that around 10-20 yards, the bullets tend to spread out 2-4 inches out of my guns. They are usually up and down but occasionally they hit side to side. I had one big bull gopher one day lying on the top of his hole from left to right. He was about to charge me so I took the shot. Both bullets impacted him side by side. It is a great varmint load. We don’t have much for dangerous snakes in my part of the world, but I would gladly use this load for dispatching such reptiles. When talking to Jonathan, the editor/writer, about this article, he said it sounded like snake shot.

If you load for a .38 pistol, you need to get some of these! Why settle for a single bullet when you can have double the fun?