.38 Super -- Is It *all* +p ?

[dgross]

I have a Witness with both a .45 top and a .38 Super top, and so I have just started looking for .38 Super ammo.

Seems that in 99% of the places I look, the ammo is described as +P. I was not preferring to routinely put +P through the gun.

One seller, on an on-line auction, had some new .38 Super ammo that he said isn't +P. It's from Armscor, a manufacturer in the Phillipines. And I'm starting to think that this seller may be incorrect, because I also read a source on the web that said that _all_ .38 Super ammo is titled as +P, in order to help keep it from getting confused with a another nearby caliber.

I e-mailed EAA Corp, asking then about this, and you'll see below the answer I got from them: two words, all lower-case ...

So, to re-cap: _is_ there such a thing as non +P ammo in .38 Super. Is a .38 Super Witness built to handle +P routinely?

Thank you!

---- the exchange with EAA Corp ----

try fiocchi

Doug Gross wrote:

> I recently acquired a Witness with two tops: one is .45 , and the

> other is .38 Super .

>

> Now that I have started looking for .38 Super ammo, it seems that just

> about the only type I can find is .38 Super +P . I'm not a big fan of

> routine firing of +P .

>

> Is non +P ammo available in .38 Super ?

>

> Or is routine usage of +P in this Witness okay?

>

> Thank you

[lynn jones]

dgross,

the +p is a beefer case than the 38 auto, and the 38 super. they did this to push the bullet faster, hense "plus power"... i guess. but the cartridge is the same.

all the commercial +p ammo and regular .38 auto should work fine in your witness.

hope this helps.

lynn jones

[gm iprod]

The 38Super is a beefed up 38 Auto Colt (not 380ACP or 9mm Browning Short, 9mm Kurz or 9mm Corto) as designed by J M Browning around 1900. There are still some loads around that are the original 38Auto loads, which was / is 130gr at 1040fps. Most of the modern brass that you buy is set up so it can be loaded for Major, so it is +P. 38 Auto brass is identical in dimension to the 38Super. But is not a heavily constructed, 38Super +P is slightly heavier again.

There is a good article by Stan Trzoniec on the 38Super Kimber Target II in the January 2003 Handloader magazine, it covers the changes better than I can. It is also another example of a nice pistol I desperately require to fill a void in my life.

[dgross]

I would like to thank those who kindly posted on this question.

Some further research I did has yielded the following, which I will quote from the web page linked below. Quite a good site, that Hawks fellow seems to have.

http://www.chuckhawks.com/38super.htm

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Note that externally the .38 Super cartridge looks identical to the .38 Auto (except for the headstamp). .38 Auto ammunition may be fired in .38 Super guns, but it may not operate the slide. .38 Super ammo should never be fired in .38 Auto pistols; it is way over pressure for these guns. In 1974 the Shooting Industry mandated that a +P be added to the headstamp of .38 Super ammunition to help differentiate it from .38 Auto ammunition. The +P still appears on .38 Super cases, even though there has never been a low pressure .38 Super load, and the .38 Auto has been discontinued.

<end quote>