As soon as I got my fill of higher education, I signed on with a police department up in North Texas. It was a good outfit and our chief, a retired highway patrolman, was a pistol shooter. We had to buy our own guns, Colt or Smith & Wesson revolvers, and always got plenty of ammo for practice and the opportunity to send it downrange.
The only real fly in the ointment, as far as we younger cops were concerned, was the fact that we had to carry .38 Special +P ammunition. We could carry .357 Magnum revolvers, but they had to be loaded with the department-issued ammunition. It was kind of embarrassing for a young Texas lawman, I can tell you that. And you can bet that I did my share of whining about the dinky ammo and you can also bet that the chief got plenty tired of hearing me whine.
Looking back, my arguments must not have been very solid because the chief sure stood his ground without much trouble. Police chiefs have been known to do that, you know.
However, one day I got to reading a magazine article by an ex-lawman named Skeeter Skelton. Skeeter was listing his favorite sixgun loads and one of them was a .357-level load done up in .38 Special cases. Being a handloader, I already had a supply of empty department brass, Smith & Wesson brand as I recall. And the bullet in our issued ammunition sure looked a lot like Sierra hollowpoint bullets. Those Sierra bullets were loaded over an impressive amount of 2400 powder.
It didn’t take me long to whip up some handloads that looked just like our issue ammo, only it was a good bit hotter and quite accurate, too. Since I carried a Smith & Wesson Model 19 .357 Magnum, I had no worries about the increased pressure.
All went along pretty well until the night that I made the mad dog call. The report was that a large dog was terrorizing a neighborhood, had bitten several people, and something needed to be done, soonest.
Now, let me say right here that I don’t like to shoot dogs, pets or wild. I love dogs and get along with them pretty well. I’ve probably only been bitten twice in my life and neither time was very bad. Most of the time something else can be done. This was one of the exceptions to that rule.
It was after dark and I was standing in a front yard, talking to the complainants. Suddenly, that dog came blowing around the side of the house like a mad Cape buffalo. He was about as big as one, too. I could tell right away that this was not going to end well. He was zeroed in on me ... so I zeroed in on him. One shot and the threat was over.
My next step was to radio my sergeant and report that shots had been fired. To my surprise, the chief was out, too, and he came over to my location. Both of them talked to the complainants and various neighbors and quickly learned that I was the new neighborhood hero. This had truly been a dangerous animal that needed to be destroyed before someone got seriously hurt.
About that time, the chief turned the dog over and gave him a close examination. “Young man, come look at what your .38 hollowpoint did to this dog! Now I d*mn sure don’t want to hear any more out of you about carrying magnum ammunition!”
Just one of the many times when I outsmarted myself.
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