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I have been reading that 38 special can be practical for small game. How true is this? If so, perhaps the medium sized 357 Mag revolver truly is the perfect hiking/survival easy carry weapon. You can take down dangerous predators to small game for food.
"The .38 Special is one of the finest small-game handgun cartridges. The old standby 158- grain lead RN factory load comes close to perfection. The velocity is just right, and the gentle tip design of the bullet will not damage too much edible meat."
Or if you dont think the revolver in 357 Mag has enough kick or too much kick, there is this single shot by Thompson Center. It gives you longer barrel so higher velocity, and there is two points of contact. You can grip with both hands. That should help manage felt recoil. They even make one in 45 Long Colt which can also shoot 410bore
It comes into it's own with cast bullet handloads. I prefer to load even light loads for my .357 gats in full length brass, for better accuracy and to avoid building up a ring of crud that can interfere with using full length brass if you use a lot of .38 Special loads. The 32 S&W Long is also a great small game round, in both rounds I like an SWC bullet for any sort of hunting.
If you don't handload, 38 Special target wadcutter ammo should work great for most small game shooting. I say "should" because I have not tried it myself. Of course if you do handload, you can make this type of ammo up yourself.
I have to say the 158 grain RN factory load would best be restricted to head shots on small game. The RN bullet configuration, while it is very efficient in terms of velocity retention at subsonic velocities, does not do much damage to a living target, instead passing through like a strike from an ice pick - which if it hits a vital organ that is eventually fatal, but not necessarily quickly... I personally think if you are going to hunt small game with 38 Special factory loads, the 148 grain full wadcutter is the way to go. I have to admit this is based on reading other people's accounts and theory, not actual use by "Moi", so it could turn out that I am wrong. But right now I doubt that I am wrong.
Adjustable sights would be a serious plus on any .357/38 gat you want to hunt small game with, but if you handload, you can cook up a load with a full wadcutter that will shoot to the sights pretty easily. And, Hell, if you have a gat with fixed sights, you can certainly try some full wadcutters, they may shoot close enough to point of aim to be good hunting ammo.
And again, good as the 38 Special is for small game, the 32 S&W Long is IMHO even better. Full wadcutter target ammo is (or at least was before all this hoarding began) available, and for rabbit and squirrel, I can hardly come up with anything better.
Because you have the gat and want to hunt with it, because you want to hunt with your own handloads as opposed to .22 rimfire, maybe you have an accurate 38 or 32 but if you have a .22 it's not as accurate, or mostly, just because you can.
If a .38/.357 was all I had- sure as heck I'd hunt with it. However my wife has long said if the only thing I had was an iron skillet, I'd hunt with that too.
I happen to have an old Colt Army Special in 38 Special (fixed sights) , an Officer's Model Heavy Barrel Match in 32 S&W Long, and another Officer's Model in .22 lr, both with adjustable sights. And a 2nd generation SAA in .357, again with fixed sights. For small game they are all very good. The 38 would easily range on up to coyotes or similar better than the smaller wheelguns would. Various S&W models would also fill the bill here. I would rather have adjustable sights for hunting, but they are not strictly speaking necessary, if you stay fairly close to what was considered a "standard" load when the gat was built, usually fixed sight guns shoot pretty close to point of aim.
Again the centerfires come into their own with cast bullets and perhaps somewhat reduced loads, depending on what you intend to hunt, and with which caliber. The 38 Special has considerably more than the minimum necessary power for small game, even shooting "powder-puff" wadcutter loads.
Of course, unless you have your ammo supply or components already in stock, we are just whistling in the wind, good luck finding any 38 Special ammo at all, I got a couple of boxes of 158 grain lead RN ammo a few weeks ago, otherwise nada.
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