Originally Posted By: KCJeep
I thought Panzerman was responding to your mention of 38 Super. Maybe he was talking in general terms.
The Remington Super ammo is good stuff. So is Aguila which I can usually find cheaper. Both run in the 1200's which is good target ammo, but I bought the Super to be Super so I often run the hot Geco stuff (which groups better than anything I have tried by the way) and my carry ammo is Underwood.
The Sig hollow points available in Super are high quality and run right at 1250 fps good match for medium loaded target ammo.
Some Super ammo is not one whit hotter than 9mm which is dumb because the cartridges potential is high. Federal and PPU for example are stupidly tame.
I purchased my Remington ammo on clearance, Since I shoot it in
Astra 400's originally chambered for 9 mm Largo, it's an excellent fit. Compare the
Remington .38 Super +P FMJ stuff I use ballistics data [130 gr FMJ, 1215 ft/sec, 426 ft-lb force] to the Wikipedia ballistics data for
9mm Largo [127 gr (8 g) FMJ, 1,167 ft/s (356 m/s), 384 ft-lb force (521 J)].
Yet there are still many who moan modern .38 Super +P is too hot for these older interwar production pistols, telling everyone on the internet they'll blow up in your face if you fire modern .38 Super +P in them. Yet no one can cite such a case occuring, although some later Star model pistols manufactured for .38 Super cartridges were problematic. As you note, there are hotter and not so hot .38 Super +P loads available (reflected on the Ballistics 101 chart). I feel like I'm Goldilocks and found the "just right" commercial load for the model pistol I'm using it in. I don't want to shoot anything hotter. I like FMJ in my .38 Super +P for penetration such as if a vehicle could be involved.