How much does barrel length impact bullet velocity in .38 Spl and .357 Mag revolvers? We tested 8 different loads in 11 different guns to find out. Watch the video below for a summary of the results, or keep reading for the old fashioned text version.
A lot of you guys have been asking about the status of our .38 Special and .357 Magnum ballistic gel tests. We are very close to having that wrapped up and I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as the results are ready.
In the meantime, I wanted to give you a quick look at some of the background research we did before we started the actual gelatin tests. With .38 Special, and especially with .357 magnum, conventional wisdom says that barrel length has a huge bearing on the effectiveness of the bullet. The longer the barrel, the greater the velocity, and for self-defense rounds, higher velocities often translate to better penetration and expansion. The same could be said for the semi-auto calibers that we’ve tested in the past, but .38 and .357 cover a much broader range of velocities than any one semi-auto caliber and that means barrel length tends to be an even more important factor with revolvers.
So for our ballistic gel tests, we wanted to test each load with both of the two most common barrel lengths for defensive revolvers, which are 2-inch and 4-inch. But deciding which guns to use for the tests was a little tricky because, for example, not all so-called 2-inch snub nose revolvers are actually 2 inches. Some are 1 ⅞ inches or 2 ⅛ inches or 2 ¼ inches, and we weren’t quite sure how much of a difference it would make in our test results if we chose one snub nose over another. We also wanted to verify that there was a significant difference in velocity between the two inch and four inch guns we were planning to use before we started shooting up our expensive gel blocks.
http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/revolver-velocity-vs-barrel-length/
