did there used to be a way for them to work together?

reliably ?

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
did there used to be a way for them to work together?

reliably ?

There were only a couple of Auto loaders designed for wadcutters.

The Smith and Wesson model 52 and a 1911 variation produced by a few custom shops and Colt

Which firearm are you working with?

The 52s are legendary for their accuracy. I have found both of mine to be VERY reliable. That is both with Factory loaded Midrange Match ammunition from Federal, Winchester and Remington or with my personal hand loads



The Colt 38 Midrange Wad cutter guns and the gunsmiths builds all had trouble with the wad cutter ammunition and you really do not see any of these produced today.

Colt made 3 'marks' of the Mid Range guns,

Mk I,
the MKII which was an improvement but not many made,
and the MK III that was made up till the series 70 came out IIRC,

Colt also offered in in kit form for gunsmiths to assemble (barrel,slide,frame)

a lot of smith's made wadcutter guns, including Clark, Chow, Giles etc


there are still used today in the bullseye circle

A Colt Gold Cup MKIII. My father used this as a bullseye gun and he won a few State Police Championships with it. The original grips are with the box, but the grips that my father used were custom to fit his hand and I'm not sure where I put them. The gun is fairly mint and the picture (taken with crappy camera) doesn't really do it justice. I only wish I could get extra mags for it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Klusk2,

for some reason I had the idea that the people who used to shoot the .38 super , in competition,
had come up with the magic combination.

but this would have been in the 1987- 1990 time.

thanks for the recommendations

I never saw a .38 Super with wadcutters.

My Model 52 does well with .38 Special midrange wadcutters and a guy here had one of those odd little blowback Colts that was fine until he cut it up to make a .45 out of it.
I don't know what I would do with a gunsmith conversion... but I might like to find out.

It is not too much trouble to set up a 1911ish auto for semiwadcutters. Some foreign guns are not as adaptable.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
for some reason I had the idea that the people who used to shoot the .38 super , in competition,
had come up with the magic combination.

but this would have been in the 1987- 1990 time.

thanks for the recommendations

some do, or did,

usually the IPSC or action pistol types, from what I remember,

some bullseye folks have used super, but it is not that popular

supers had their own production runs (serial number ranges) at first, (IIRC)

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Watson:
It is not too much trouble to set up a 1911ish auto for semiwadcutters.

Over the years, I've shot with quite a few 1911 folks shooting the 200gr lead semiwadcutter. It makes a nice clean hole in the target.

There were the M-52s, Colt MR guns, and 38 Super to 38 Spcl. conversions using wadcutters, but I never saw anyone using wadcutters in 38 Supers. There were a lot of Supers used in competition, but not attempting to use low velocity type wadcutter ammo to punch clean holes in paper. Rather, they were loading hot, high pressure 38S ammunition to make major. All kinds of bullet shapes to ensure reliable feeding, but never saw or heard of wadcutters being used. I have personally seen 38 Super ammunition used in a S&W Model 52 .38 Special pistol though.

I did read something someone posted somewhere, indicating they had successfully used full wadcutters in their 38S pistol. Don't recall why they wanted to do that, perhaps Bullseye competition? I've owned several Supers since the '70s, but never tried to use full wadcutters. With ramped barrel Supers though, perhaps reliable feeding of wadcutters could be achieved without too much headache?

My new production Series '70 Colt National Match Gold Cup shoots 185gr wadcutters all day long. So does my Les Baer, but of course it is the "Wad Cutter Model".