Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away - - -
Skeeter Skelton was a wonderful writer. I fell under his spell back in the middle 1960s, not long after he started writing for Shooting Times magazine.
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A few years later, after proving all I wanted to learn about shooting small Hill Country white tails with .45 ACP, .45 Colt, and .44 Special, I dug out some of Skeeter's old articles. I loaded up some of his 13.5 gr of 2400 formula in once-fired .38 Special cases with CCI magnum primers: Fifty with 158 LSWC bullets from a Lyman mould, and another fifty with Sierra 150 gr. Jacketed Hollow Cavity. The LSWC were cast a bit soft and I got noticible leading in my old Colt's Three-Fifty-Seven (pre-.357 Trooper) so I settled on the JHC. These were accurate, but didn't "feel" nearly so hot as my pet loads in .357 cases.
I shot one elderly buck with that load. Distance about 35 yards, perfectly placed high lung shot. He staggered for several seconds and finally fell as I was about to put in a finisher. I would have been far more pleased had I used a full-house .357 load. Since then, I've felt that 150 grains at 1150 fps is NOT a sporting proposition, even for our small deer, far less for the large river deer and their western cousins.
The sad thing was that I had plenty of good .357 cases in which I could have put up some really warm loads.
At the same time, I worried about having some 'WAY overloaded .38 Special brass on hand. I had marked the case heads with a red Marks-A-Lot, but it still bothered me. I mean, what if I dropped a round or two at the range and someone picked them up and shot them in a Chief's Special? And worse, what would they do to an alloy-framed Cobra or S&W AirWeight? I worried until I found all the red-marked empties and loaded ammo. I shot up the JHCs and pulled the lead bullets. The risks, to anyone's .38s and to my conscience, outweighed any benefits.