hi we're out on the range today so bear with me if you hear gunfire in the background 38 Special versus 357 Magnum and a snubnose revolver well before we go any further let me show you a closeup of what these two rounds look like on your left is a 38 special and on your right is a 357 Magnum they're identical in diameter the only real difference is the 357 casing is slightly longer you may have heard me say that you can't judge the power of a cartridge by its size this is the archetypical example of that the 357 is just slightly bigger but it's a lot more powerful in a minute we'll demonstrate just how much more so I've got two revolvers here now this is a Smith and& Wesson model 1538 special and this is a Ruger Security 6 357 Magnum they both have 4-in barrels when you're testing different kinds of ammo different brands with different bullet weights will give you different results so in the interest of consistency we're going to keep things as much the same as we can Remington green and white box 38 Special plus p with 125 grain bullet Remington green and white box 357 Magnum also with 125 grain bullet so let's go over to our chronograph and see what kind of results we get so we've got our chronograph set up here at 7even yards let's start with the 38 special and see how we do 970 947 957 943 now let's see how that compares to the 357 so let's shoot our security 6 357 and see how we do 1458 1452 1454 1473 let's go crunch the numbers so how' we do well our 38 gave us a mean average of 954 ft per second let's just round that off to 950 the 357 gave us 1,459 ft per second let's round that off to 1450 that's 500 ft per second more and when you're talking about the velocities you get out of handguns 500 ft per second more is a lot the 357 Magnum is a lot more powerful than the 38 Special so where do we come up with the idea that a 38 special is just as powerful as a 357 why do you hear people say that the thing is when you make the transition to your short barreled concealed carry type of guns now the concept is the way this works when your Hammer strikes your primer and ignites your powder the process of the powder detonating is not instantaneous it actually takes some time a microsc but still some time as the powder Burns it builds up pressure forcing the bullet down the barrel the long the barrel is then the longer it has to burn and build up more pressure so longer barrels will give you more power out of the same cartridge up to a point that's why you'll see handguns with six 8 10in barrels there's other reasons for that too but that's one of them so when you shoot out of these really short barrels you have so little time for that powder to burn you lose a lot of power and the concept is that the 357 with a bigger powder charge loses more power than the 38 does especially in a plus P configuration well we'll put that to the test in a minute now I have to point out that 40 years ago when plus P ammunition first came into being really the only thing it was was just more powder in the shell and that was done with the mindset that it was most likely going to be used by security Personnel or police officers using a gun like this one in fact 40 years ago this gun was owned by a police department today 38 plus P ammunition is just formulated the powder charge is such a thing that they're thinking that most likely it's going to be used in a concealed carry gun like this we've gotten some more efficient types of powders and you get a little bit better burn out of a 2-in barrel so you don't lose near as much as you used to in that transition but do you lose so much out of this that you lose the 500 ft pers second difference well let's go back to the chrom graph and see if we can put that to the test so let's try our snubnose 38 this is a Smith and Wesson model 637 with a 1 and 78 in Barrel 827 844 839 856 now let's see how that compares to our snubnose 357 now let's shoot our snubnose 357 now this is a Ruger SP 101 it's got a 2 and a/4 in Barrel which is 38 of an inch longer than that 38 Barrel but that shouldn't make too much difference see how we do 1,252 1,271 1,244 1,265 now let's go crunch those numbers so how' we do the 38 Special gave us a mean average of 841 ft per second let's round that off to 840 so with a longer Barrel it was 950 down to 840 that's a loss of 110 the 357 Magnum gave us 1,2 59 let's round that off to 1250 so from 1450 down to 1250 that's a loss of 200 so a loss of 200 a loss of 110 yes this did lose more but the net result is it still ended up with 1250 versus 840 over 400 ft per second more that's a lot more so when a gun store employee wants to tell me oh no in a short barrel 38 Special is just as much as a 357 Magnum 400 ft per second less is just as much I want to hire that guy I'm going to pay you $12 an hour and that's just as much as 20 I want to date that guy's sister no honey I'm going to take you to McDonald's and that's just as good as chatle exorb on 400 ft per second less is not just as much however there's another aspect of this when you're talking about concealed carry personal protection you're most likely going to be carrying a hollow point bullet hollow point bullets are Velocity based generally speaking the faster you propel them the more expansion the more effect you're going to get way back when in the early days of 38 plus P ammo when you started shooting them out of these short barrels some of those plus P rounds the hollow points wouldn't even expand because they were still made for the longer barrels but believe me that's not a problem today plus P ammunition out of a short barreled gun like this will expand just fine however with the 357 Magnum that hollow point is made to expand at 1450 or maybe even with a longer Barrel at higher velocities are you still going to get expansion out of the short barrel only going 1250 or even if you do get some will it will it be a sufficient expansion let's put that to the table test so to test our Hollow Point's Effectiveness out of this short barrel we'll set up a very Hightech test we'll shoot through two one gallon jugs of water and then into our high-tech Bullet Stop which is just 40 layers of fleece we'll be able to see from the recovered bullet how much it expanded and we'll be able to see how much damage it does to these jugs so let's shoot from seven yards and see what happens that seemed pretty effective and I recovered the bullet but let's try that again and see if we can get a consistent result and there's the result both bullets penetrated the exact same amount of fleece only a couple of layers both are expanded both are mushroomed out flat very consistent results and without question even at the lower velocities in the snub-nosed gun 357 hollow points will expand perfectly well there you have it the results speak for themselves one thing I'd have to say is I am not saying that a 357 snubnose is a better carry gun than the 38 they're heavier they have a whole lot more recoil the ammunition is more expensive they're a lot louder and they can be very difficult to shoot so might not be the right gun for everybody I'm only saying one thing it is indeed a lot more powerful so as always don't try this at home I'm what you call it professional and thanks for watching the 357 versus 38 Special snub knows [Music] video
