S&W K-38 first time out!

[waco]

so i bought a S&W 14-2 K-38 Target Masterpiece off Gunbroker the other week.It has a 6" pinnwed barrel, and was made in 1968. I had some .38spl loads out in the shop that i knew shot well in my taruas tracker, and my wifes lady smith. Its an RCBS 162gr Gc SWC over 3.2gr of titegroup. I have not yet measured the cylinder throats, or slugged the barrel. These loads were sized to .357, have rcbs gaschecks, and are luber with BAC. Dont get me wrong...not all the targets shot were this good (im no great shot with a handgun ) buti was very pleased with the results. 6 shots from a chair, resting off my knee at 25 yards into 1.50". Thats about as good as i can shoot i think.I am very pleased with the fit and finish of this older smith. I cant wait to play around with some other loads and see what see can do!
here are some pics.

[340six]

Thats a nice looking gun. And the bullets look to be nice as well. :drinks:
I had as 16 year old a brand new S&W 6" 357 in nickel looks like yours still have it.
Looking at making some 38 wad cutters soon.
Sorry for the high jacked thread

[Firebricker]

Groups like that why measure ! LOL Like many here I love the older S&W's. You found a keeper there congrats. FB

[Trey45]

I am jealous! I have wanted a Target masterpiece K38 for a while now. Any time I've had cash for one, they're not around. When they're around, the cash isn't! By the looks of it, you have a real shooter on your hands there. Nice score!

[waco]

thanks
i paid $585 for it
$650 after shipping, ffl.etc....
i am happy though with what i got!

[MtGun44]

Try the 358477 over about 3.5 Clays or as much as 5.0 gr of Unique.

Excellent gun.

[Le Loup Solitaire]

It is one of the finest target revolvers ever made and as such a true classic. I have a 6 inch and an 8&3/8. Your initial work at 1.5" groups is impressive. When you get into 148 grain wadcutters with classic loads like 2.7 grains of Bullseye, and other combinations, you will get even better grouping. Good luck. LLS

[Echo]

One of the finest guns ever made. I don't have one, but I have a Combat Masterpiece (forerunner of the M15) that is basically a K38 with a 4" barrel & ramp front sight. Sweet gun, that goes along on desert treks, &cetera. I know you will learn to love that gun!

[Buckshot]

.............Don't have a picture of my K-38 but here's one of the very first "Let's Try This" load put through it:

http://www.fototime.com/C5773BB9E49798C/standard.jpg

Sorry for the poor photo but it was an old 1 mpx camera and I futzed with the photo too much :-) I believe that may be the same boolit you used? That was 6 rounds off sandbags. Not bad for visually inspected slugs and thrown powder charges. That revolver totally changed my feelings about handguns, and I thank God I hadn't found out about it earlier in my life or might now be divorced :veryconfu I do believe a person could do well with it having their eyes closed.

I have a perfect practice load I worked up and you just have to promise not to tell anyone else. It's a pure lead 148gr WC over 2.7 grs of Bullseye :drinks: I loaded up eleventy bazillion rounds of that and decanted them into 50 round boxes and even some zip-loc plastic baggies. If I figure I'll have some extra range time I can get in a couple boxes of 25 yard offhand trigger practice after the other stuff is done.

.................Buckshot

[JIMinPHX]

I love old K-frames, especially the ones with the recessed cylinders.

You paid pretty much full market price for it, but they don't make them anymore & the good ones are getting harder to find. I think that you'll be real happy with that thing. I know that I would.

My favorite K-frame plinking load is about 4 grains of Bullseye under a Lee 105-gr SWC @ 13 bnh. They kick like a .22, shoot great & don't use up too much lead.

[dale2242]

My K38 is the best S&W revolver I have owned. Super accurate with 358495 over 3 gr. Bulls Eye. What a fun gun to shoot. This is the gun and load I use to teach new shooters. Low recoil and muzzle blast.....dale

[GabbyM]

I love old K-frames, especially the ones with the recessed cylinders.

You paid pretty much full market price for it, but they don't make them anymore & the good ones are getting harder to find. I think that you'll be real happy with that thing. I know that I would.

My favorite K-frame plinking load is about 4 grains of Bullseye under a Lee 105-gr SWC @ 13 bnh. They kick like a .22, shoot great & don't use up too much lead.

They still make Models 14 and 15 but it's not a K38. IIRC the K38 is single action olnly.
Model 14 is right at the top of my list of things to get. Think they run around $760 for the new ones but many would argue the older ones were better made. Enough shooters think that to keep the price up anyway.

[NHlever]

A K38 was my first centerfire revolver. I paid $60 for it used I think in 1964. I killed all manner of game with it including my limit of partridge one day, and one deer. It was a very accurate revolver, and easy to shoot well. I was young though, and had the .357 Mag itch so it got traded off when I got home from Vietnam. My Dad sure wasn't happy at that turn of events. :D

[doubs43]

The K-38, as noted already, is one of the finest revolvers ever made. The K-38, K-22 & K-32 were all made to balance exactly the same.

My S&W 586 likes the Lyman 141 WC bullet over 2.9 - 3.1 grains of Bullseye in a 38 Special case. I'm betting that your K-38 would as well.

[fecmech]

Great gun and worth what you paid for it. I bought mine new in the 70's for I think $140. and have shot the heck out of it in PPC. My most accurate load is 4.2 of Bullseye behind the H&G 158 RN which clocks right at 900 fps and is a max standard pressure load in the Lyman cast handbook. For light target loads 3.1 of bullseye behind the H&G # 50 wadcutter. Both loads will stay well inside the 10 ring on a 50 yd Bullseye target.

[Hardcast416taylor]

Like Buckshot I probably put about umptyzillion 148 gr. Lyman wadcutters thru my M-14 over the years. My secrect load is 3.3 gr. eith HP-38 or Win. 231. I have 2 Lyman #358495 molds that are 4 holers I use to make a pile of boolets with.Robert

[Char-Gar]

The K-38 is a fine sixgun. I have had three or four over the years, but am down to just one. I bought it NIB in 1983 or so. It was a year or so after they stopped making them, but there was still one at a gun shop in Perryton Texas. In 2000 I bought a 1957 vintage Combat Masterpiece (Model 15) that was NIB. It set me back $350. I bought another pistol at the same time and it was a 1957 NIB 3" bbl. Chief's Special (Model 36). IIRC the price was the same.

I have several older M&P from before WWII. One from 1906 and the other from 1931. They are all very fine pistols.

But, I must admit to a very slight preference for older Colts. I have a 1956 OM Trooper, a 1950 Officer Model, a 1954 Official Police and a 1956 3" bbl. Detective Special. All in 38 Special of course.

I am something of an old 38 Special fan. More fun can be had with one of them than the law should allow. Throw in three or four .357 Magnums in case I need a little more oompf.

I of course have the obligatory stable of 22s, 32 longs, 32-20s, 44s (Mag and Special) and 45s (Colt, AR and ACP). But at the end of the day, it is the 38 Specials that give me the most delight.

I have an old 3 hole SAECO/Cramer No. 12 (155 SWC), that is a wonderfully accurate bullet in all 38/357. I have a WC mold or two, with a 4 hole NEI being my favorite. I have good old Lyman 358156 in both HP and solid versions should I need a GC bullet.

I only load tried and true Bullseye, Unique and 2400 in these pistol. Nothing new, nothing fancy, nothing hand numbing..just fun shooting with fine old pistols that will do anything this old Texan wants to do.

But there are some fine 1911 pistols. One tucked in your jeans loaded with 452423 over 4.7/BE is a real comfort to a fellow on the Border. Especially if they have Texas mesquite grips. No need to worry about expansion, just put the sights center mass and tickle the trigger. Nice clean through and through 45 hole that cuts through and doesn't push aside the innards.

[truckmsl]

My dad left me a 1951 combat masterpiece that didn't have 100 rounds through it. Fantastic gun!

[JIMinPHX]

They still make Models 14 and 15

I thought that all K-frames were discontinued a few years ago. I'll have to look into that.

[higgins]

Like Chargar, I'm partial to the old Colts. Occasionally I'll take my old Colts and my shooting buddy will bring his old S&Ws for an outing. We shoot each others guns, so get to experience the best of both revolver worlds. Both brands from back then exhibit amazing workmanship, even the "workhorse" models. Closing the cylinders is like closing the doors on an expensive car.

[Wally]

About 7 years ago I was in a sporting good store going OOB...I bought a new Taurus Model 84 which is a .38 Special with a 6" barrel..it was a target gun. I paid $150 for it. I had two .357 Magnum revolvers and almost didn't buy it....why buy it as I could shoot .38 Specials in them. However I soon found out that I made a most wise decision...using a wide variety of cast bullt loads in the .38 Spl caliber, I became a most proficent pistol shot. This gun worked well with just about any bullet that I used in it....from a 110 SWC to a 170 Keith.

I am sure glad that I ran accross it & I purchased it as I now use it more than any other gun that I own...

[Shepherd2]

Waco - I only paid $75 for my S&W 14-2. Of course that was back in 1966 and $75 was almost a week's take home pay. A lot of guns have come and gone since then but that old Smith isn't going anywhere but the range. I can't remember anyone that I've let shoot it that didn't try to buy it from me. My wife refers to it as the "Gun that never misses".

[JDL]

Like NHlever, my first centerfire revolver was my M. 14 K-38 Masterpiece in 1964. Retail was $64.00 but, being broke and newly married, I traded an Astra 600 plus $35 boot. A can of Bullseye and a 358432 DC mould put me in business. My load was a fired .22 LR case full of powder until I sprang for a Redding powder measure several months later. After all these years, it's still a better shooter than me! :-)
JDL

[ScottJ]

I have a friend with no heirs looking to pare down his collection. He and I have agreed upon $400 for his 28-2 Highway Patrolman. He's holding it for me to save up the $400. That's going to be my next purchase.

He also has a model 15 he said he'd sell me for $300 but he's still a little too attached to it to sell just yet.

[JIMinPHX]

They still make Models 14 and 15 but it's not a K38. IIRC the K38 is single action olnly.
Model 14 is right at the top of my list of things to get. Think they run around $760 for the new ones but many would argue the older ones were better made. Enough shooters think that to keep the price up anyway.

I was pretty sure that they completely discontinued all K-frames about 4 or 5 years ago. After I heard that, it took me a year or so to track down a model 65. I had been looking for a 66, but I settled for a 65, because it was what I could find. The new model 65 had one of the new "hybrid" type crush fit barrels. I've come to not like them at all. I much prefer the pinned barrels.

When I look back at the S&W website now, I see that a few K-frames are listed once again. They even have a section of "classic" revolvers that look to have pinned barrels. I'm guessing that enough people cried about them being discontinued & they brought them back. That's good news to me. The list prices are a little scary though.

[StrawHat]

waco,

You have one of the finest target revolvers S&W produced. I have the poor relation to that one, a 6" Model 15-3 and it dotes on 2.7 grains of Bullseye under almost any 148 grain wadcutter. Some revovlers prefer one of the many WC designs over another but so far, mine is omnivorous. Or at least it appears so from my shooting. My Dillon 450 is permanently set up to load this recipe.

(beagle, didn't you have something to do with a test of a half dozen different WC molds?)

I have also used some other loads but keep coming back to 2.7/148 for paper punching. For a harder hitting load cast the WC from harder lead and up the velocity. Still accurate and a big meplat.

I am intrigued by some of the loads mentioned in this thread and may have to try them.

Try the target load and take care of that fine revolver.

[Dale53]

I certainly agree with those that state the K-38 is one of the finest target revolvers ever made.

This was my PPC gun back in the late sixties and early seventies.It shoots my dbl ended W/C's under an inch (more like 3/4") at 25 yards. It would approach ½" with the excellent factory target W/C's of the time (Winchester and Remington).

I installed a Bomar Rib "back in the day" and it is a shooting machine:

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Dale53/DalesPistolsRevolvers5Selects-0189.jpg

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Dale53/DalesPistolsRevolvers5Selects-0190.jpg

Dale53

[Thumbcocker]

Come on guys. There is no way those antique guns can shoot good. They are made out of wood and steel for heavens sake! No polymer, no light rails, only six shots, no three dot sights. Geez. And the word "tactical" isnt anywhere in the advertising or name of the product. Your not fooling me for one second. :kidding: