Hello there
I have what your looking for its dated May 1 1975 (use the data at your own risk) this article was taken from whitney sales inc. (See attached PDF)
38-45.pdf
Hello there
I have what your looking for its dated May 1 1975 (use the data at your own risk) this article was taken from whitney sales inc. (See attached PDF)
38-45.pdf
Thanks for that John!
I saved it to my reloading file for future reference. I've really got to load this calibre again. So much to do and so little time! I seem to be busier as a retiree now that... well that's not true so I'd better get those dies out after I work up a Blue Dot load for my 1903 Springfield.
Keep your powder dry,
Scharf
Liberalism is the triumph of emotion over intellect, but masquerading as the reverse.
I don't know how we ever shot maximum loads before P/C come along and saved us all. R5R
"No mosque in the United States flies an American flag."
"Dueling should have never been made illegal in this country. It settled lots of issues between folks."- Char-Gar
It is true that the 38/45 wasn't meant for hot loading, but it can be done with some changes. One: you have to bush the firing pin hole in the slide to 9mm/38Super. If you don't the larger firing pin hole will cut donuts from the primer. Two: It's best you have a ramped barrel that supports all the web on the case. Three: You can make cases from 308 Win, but it's a lot of work, but if you want to use large rifle primers and get away from bushing the firing pin hole to the smaller size you need the rifle cases for the primers to seat fully below flush. I suggest this too if you're going to use an unramped barrel. You can get away with 45acp cases or 45 Win Mag cases in the ramped barrel. You can also get away using all the above in an unramped barrel if you keep the loads down.
The round will blow the doors off the 357 Sig with the things done above.
If you're using a 9mm/38 super slide and opening up the breech face to accept the larger 435acp rim you of course don't have to bush the firing pin hole.
I find the 38/45 in a tuned 1911 to be extremely accurate. My bottom line advice is enjoy it for what it is and don't try to hot rod it.
Hey guys. I hope it's OK to revive this old thread with my first post. It's hard to find info on this round. I know it started life as a target round but what I've been wondering the whole time is what it would've been like as service round for police. Imagine the .38 SPL 158gr soft LSWHPGC +P load (maybe around 1200fps) but from a 1911 at standard .45 pressures. What a duty gun/round combo that would've been in the early sixties. And now!
I've loaded 155gn round nose over a nice slow powder and got 1200-1250fps. Goes off with a nice kaboom compared to the little nine mil.
An old friend of mine, now long deceased, was on the Navy Pistol Team back in the late '50s and through the '60s. He was a gunsmith for the team under the legendary Charlie Frasier and they had pretty much free rein to experiment on whatever they could build to gain an edge on other teams. Among other things, they designed and built what they called "Zip Guns" using 1911 frames and Model 52 Winchester barrels along with part of an Ace slide to build something like the later Kart and Day conversions.
Steve had a 38/45 he had built and with it was able to set a record one year for the CF timed fire leg at Camp Perry. I thought he was shining me on until I actually saw his name in the records for that year. Needless to say, he shot his way to Distinguished Expert. I bring all this up to say that the round as originally designed was a world class target round. Once you go to high speed/high pressure loads, it's another animal entirely and you're on your own.
Froggie
"It aint easy being green!"
Dave, think I have the Grenell .45 book up in the shop. I'll look tomorrow. If I don't PM you, bug me about it. One of the guys at the MTU at Ft Bragg had one back in the 60s and shot it a lot. As I recall it did pretty well but there was a problem with reloading the fired cases. Maybe getting the headspace correct. Been so long I don't recall./beagle
diplomacy is being able to say, "nice doggie" until you find a big rock.....
Do you guys think that 158gr LSWCHPGC at 1200fps would be possible at or under 21k PSI? I'm asking because in the 60s HPs weren't what they are now with regards to reliability but the FBI load in .38 SPL +P was a proven performer. Getting the same performance from a semi auto famous for its reliability and concealability would've been a feat.
Last edited by H3R3T1K; 07-13-2017 at 06:12 AM.
Okay .... Two years farther down the road, I've got a 38-45 barrel on order, and am looking for any and all info on this round !!
Scharfschuetze,
You still use that 38-45 barrel on a regular basis? This thread has serious legs.
I Cast my Boolits, Therefore I am Happy.
Bona Fide member of the Jeff Brown Hunt Club
I found a barrel, bushing and die set on Gunbroker.com today for my 38-45 Clerke 1911 pistol project. Once the barrel and dies arrive, I'll work to set up some range time to give a report on how it goes.
If all works well, I'll have a pistol with three fitted slide groups for that particular frame: 45ACP; .400 CorBon and now 38-45 Clerke.
Bruce
I Cast my Boolits, Therefore I am Happy.
Bona Fide member of the Jeff Brown Hunt Club
I have no desire to shoot a .22 in any of my 1911s. I didn't need the 38-45 barrel but I wanted it to see what I could do with it. I own a ruger 22-45 for the Rimfire portion of the Bullseye Course of fire.
The Marvel Conversions are nice but i won't waste the money on them.
I Cast my Boolits, Therefore I am Happy.
Bona Fide member of the Jeff Brown Hunt Club
The theory behind having different “uppers” for a single Gov’t Model receiver was that if you built one lower and got completely used to it, you could shoot better overall regardless of the caliber being shot... but then it seemed like too much effort to swap out parts, so each upper got its own receiver. At that point you’re still building multiple guns so you might as well have each purpose built gun be the best for its caliber... enter the S&W Model 41 and High Standard Victor (among others) for 22, the S&W Model 52 and some of the European 32s for the Centerfire leg, and of course the good old accurized Gov’t Model for the 45 leg. Then some folks trimmed it down to shooting both of the center fire legs with the same 45.
Back to the OP though, a well built 38/45 in the right hands and a Model 52 with another good shooter would be a fair contest, right up until their owners had to replenish their brass supply! Then the S&W wins hands down and its owner is sipping adult beverages while the 38/45 guy is slaving over a forming die!
Froggie
"It aint easy being green!"
PS to last: Once the “Military Grip” High Standard was developed, the various 22 uppers for the Gov’t Model became superfluous. With that, the S&W Model 41, and the Ruger 22/45 to choose from, the grip angle of old slab sides was sufficiently copied to be able to concentrate on purpose building the 22 inside.
Froggie
"It aint easy being green!"
Bruce, I played with this extensively over the last year or so. A friend GAVE me his late stepfather's barrel, bushing, forming dies, and reloading dies. I had a few dedicated threads going, one of which you just replied to.
My intent was in keeping with its original purpose, namely a soft recoiling accurate .38 caliber on the 1911 format to shoot NRA Bullseye. So, all my loads were geared to that. What I settled on was a 124 grain Lee TLTC bullet, 3.5 gr Bullseye, and a 10# Wolf variable rate spring. Also, I found that reforming new, virgin .45 ACP cases was very easy. I got zero failures to form. Using many times fired cases resulted in lots of splits and buckles. Oh also, my forming die set is 4 dies, but the FL sizer die in the reloading die set serves as the 5th forming die. Your set(s) my differ.
I tried a few 158 gr SWCs that I had molds for, they all shot fine, I also played with full wadcutter 148 gr bullets. They shot very accurately, but I could never get 100% function with them. Close, but not 100%. Oddly, the one dummy round that was in with the stuff I was given was loaded with exactly that.
Many have mentioned the writings of Dean Grennel. While I am a HUGE DG fan, he focused on the later (in the 80s) attempts at hotrodding this round into a .357 magnum, or as close as possible. I have no problem with people doing this, but like I said it was just not my objective.
These should be links to my threads. I got a lot of helpful information in them from the guys here
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...erk&highlight=
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ect&highlight=
NRA 2700 tournaments did/do include .22LR, centerfire (any) and .45acp.
Many shooters used .38 caliber for reduced recoil in the centerfire stage. Some used .38 wadcutter guns, 1911s or S&W 52s. The .38/45 was meant to solve feeding problems some wadcutter guns suffered.
Eventually most, myself included, found it an easier solution to shoot all centerfire with the .45. Unless one could afford (notI) 3 high dollar custom guns, all on 1911 frames with identical feel and trigger pull, etc, then switching between 2 guns is enough. I didn't like the difference in trigger feel between squeaky clean and "fouled".
In the game the .38/45 was created for anything beyond adequate velocity brings only disadvantages.
Last edited by DonHowe; 04-18-2020 at 09:46 AM.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |