Looking for an American Rifleman article on the .38 Super

[beagle]

I'm looking for an article that was in the American Rifleman some time back. Don't know the title but it was written on the Colt .38 ACP/.38 Super test production run that Colt made for the government and what happened to them (part went to the FBI). Well, written and I'd like to have a copy if anybody has one and can scan it. PM me and we'll exchange e-mails and the scan. I've searched the American Rifleman archives and also Bruce Canfield without any luck. Lots of .38 Super articles but none pertaining to the government contracts.
Appreciate you fellers scanning your brain as mine's about worn out. Thanks./beagle

[Ricochet]

Is this it? https://www.americanrifleman.org/art...8-super-plusp/

[Ricochet]

Or this? https://www.americanrifleman.org/art.../the-super-38/

[Green Frog]

Many years ago (before the rise of IPSC) there was a big article in one of the gun mags on upgrading the 38 Super with a specially chambered barrel that headspaced (like the 45 ACP) on the case mouth. This conversion used custom made brass derived from .223 parent cases and required the Government Model platform that contained it to have the extractor replaced with a 9 mm version to get dependable extraction. Must have been too much work or something, because I never saw it mentioned again.

Froggie

[Green Frog]

A little off-topic, but about 35 years ago a big batch of ammo showed up at Virginia gun shows... it was spam cans of 38 Super ammo in the brown Kraft style military type 50 round boxes. The ammo was hardball type and loaded HOT. The story was that it was from a government contract (cancelled or over run) and had been intended for a 38 Super version of the infamous Tommy Gun(?!?!) If your research about the 38 Super round turns up anything concrete about this ammo, or whatever government project it was designed for, please post that here as well. I never found a word in print about it.

I had a 38 Super race gun at that time and boy howdy, that gun with that ammo was awesome! I shot it at an indoor range over in Roanoke and it lit the whole place up and got the other race gun shooters drooling!

Froggie

[RJM52]

Froggie...the article you refer to was in Guns&Ammo by Jeff Cooper... The cut down .223 in a BarSto barrel was I think called the Super Cooper. I asked Cooper about the gun when I hapened to talk to him at the SHOT Show in Dallas about 1984 and he said the gun was still hanging on the wall in his office at GUNSITE. No clue where it went after his death. The gun was a Colt Commander .38 Super with a 6 or 7" BarSto barrel. George Nonte discovered why the .38 Super accuracy was lackluster and had Irv Stone of BarSto cut a chamber so the brass headspaced on the casemouth instead of the rim as the stock Colt barrel did....problem solved. The Super Cooper was basically what the 9x23 is now...

Did the SPAM cans have yellow letters on the outside that said "900 CARTRIDGES CAL .38 BALL IN CARTONS" Boxes read "50 Cartridges Colt, SUPER Cal .38 BALL"

If it did those rounds were made for the shipment of 376 SUPER .38s that reportedly went to the OSS in 1944/45 along with 1 million rounds of ammo...and they were stored in....Rosslyn, Va. Almost all the guns disappeared...only a few are in private collections... The ammo you bought was what was sold off as surplus years after the war was over and there were no more guns to shoot it in... I have one box of it.

There were only a few Thompson SMGs made in Super... I have read where there are a couple in the FBI collection. The ammo was not for them...

Bob

[Green Frog]

Wow Bob, that's spectacular.

That's the most information I've gotten on either of those topics ever, much less in one short response. Thanks very much! It's good to get something specific about the development of a mouth headspacing 38 Super since my froggie memory was so sketchy I never have seen anything specific about the 38 Super sub gun from Thompson, so glad to hear something I can look for.

I'm guessing the ammo showed up here in mid-Atlantic gun shows because it was being released from Rosslyn. You described it perfectly, but I would have never guessed it was that old. It would have had to have been pushing 40 years old or more, because I'm pretty sure I got it in the mid-late '80s. Those hermetically sealed Spam cans must really work.

Froggie

[beagle]

Thanks guys. None of these fits what I’m looking for. This was well done by someone who had pretty good access to military channels. Quoted contracts, number of guns still on hand, etc. Well done. The FBI actually ended up with them as they were surplus to military needs. Actually it worked out pretty good for them./beagle

[Green Frog]

Friend beagle, i wonder whether the FBI might have been involved in the outfall from the OSS program Bob mentioned. Do you have any kind of time frame for the FBI having used the guns they had in 38 Super (or “Super 38”?)

I’m guessing it might have been in the late ‘30s when JEH was beginning to really build his FBI Empire into the mammoth it became, and this might have inspired the OSS to get these arms for themselves OR it could be that in the post-War era of juggling and jostling between the various “intelligence” agencies, the FBI might have seen them and thought they were something they should have, so they glommed onto them. This would explain how the OSS guns would have “disappeared” so quickly. Realize this is all speculation on my part, so regard it as such!

FWIW, I have a complete set of AR mags from the late ‘20s through the ‘90s, so I can find that article if I know where (or is it when?) to look. Can you give me any sense of the possible date of publication, beagle?

Froggie