.38 spl vs .38 S&W

[atr]

I want to make sure of the differences between the 38 special and the 38 S&W
as far as I can tell the 38 S&W case is shorter than the 38 spl and fires a bullet of slightly larger diameter....
firing the larger dia. 38 S&W in a 38 spl revolver would NOT work.
have I got it right?...have I missed any salient points?
why is there so little information on reloading the 38 S&W?
thanks
atr

[captaint]

atr - the 38 S&W is a much older, shorter cartridge. Mostly, the guns chambered for 38 S&W were breaktops. These were much weaker actions by todays standards. I would not shoot any 38 S&W is my 38 SPL guns. I'm not totally sure about boolit diameter, but you could be right. I have an old S&W breaktop lemon squeezer in 38 S&W. I'm afraid to shoot it. enjoy Mike

[dubber123]

The .38 S&W is about 1/2 the length of a .38 spl. The Special uses around .358" diameter boolits, while the shorter S&W uses around .364" boolits. The case is enough fatter that it normally won't chamber in a .38 Special. The S&W is pretty well considered obsolete, I believe Harrington & Richardson were the last to chamber guns for it in the 70's.

[MtGun44]

IME, .359-.361 diam boolits are what my Colt PP in .38 S&W wants, and the pressures
need to be kept a good bit lower than .38 Spl for many guns.


Unfortunately, I cannot easily find a mold that throws .361 boolits reliably, so far
have beagled a mold and gotten better results.

Bill

[ReloaderFred]

The .38 S&W case is larger in diameter than the .38 Special case, and uses a bullet with a nominal diameter of .361". The case is almost the same diameter as the .38 Super, and some manufacturers of reloading dies use the same sizing die for both .38 Super and .38 S&W.

Some .38 Special revolvers will accept .38 S&W cases in their chambers, but most won't. Not all .38 caliber double action revolvers are made for the .38 Special. There were many made for Great Britain in .38 S&W during World War II.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[Salmoneye]

I have written elsewhere on this subject...Sorry for the length:

The bullet diameter of .38 S&W according to current SAAMI is .361"

I have never found a bullet close to this diameter when pulling bullets from factory rounds...

The reason I believe is the large spread of bore diameters used in various arms chambered for the .38 S&W/Colt New Police/.38-200 over the decades...

I have old loading manuals that variously list the bullet size required as being from .354"-.360"...

Back to the ammo in question:

I just pulled a bullet from a cartridge of the Winchester X38SWP that I have on hand, and it mic's at .354"...It is dead soft, unlubed, and has a cupped base like a heeled bullet...It is my opinion that this design will 'slug up' on firing, and conform to whatever the bore is on the particular gun it is fired in...

I also believe that if this was fired in a more powerful cartridge with a large bore (like .357") it would strip the rifling and lead the barrel terribly...

These fire fine in my Albion Enfield No2 mk1...Though they are not supposed to, they chamber and fire in my S&W 686...They will NOT chamber in my Rugers...When the pulled Winchester bullet is dropped into a chamber on my Albion, it quite literally falls through the chamber and barrel unmarked...

When I load for the Albion, I use 2gr Red Dot under a regular 158gr .358" bullet for a very accurate, light round...

ADDING:

Slug your bore and chambers before you choose a bullet diameter...The old Ideal #38 Handbook, and the Lyman #44 Manual are available free on the net as PDF files, and have enough load data to keep me happy...

[Guesser]

I have two S&W hand ejector type solid frame revolvers chambered in 38 S&W. A Regulation Police from the middle 20's, "I" frame. An "improved I" frame from 1953. Fantastic little 4" barreled 5 shot revolvers. Bores on both slug to .360. I have 4 Ideal SC molds of designs specifically for the 38 S&W, they all drop larger than .361 which is what I size to and works very well in my revolvers. Great cartridge and great guns.

[trapper9260]

I like to know if anyone ever use the data of the 38 S&W in 38spl that are short to load as 38spl to shoot in a 357mag .If so how did it work out? thank you

[atr]

thanks for the info guys.....seems like the biggest problem would be to find a casting block which would give the proper diameter.....
I did check the saami site for dimension ....and it does confirm that the dia. of bullet is larger than that for a 38 spl.

[dubber123]

I have never slugged any of mine, rather I just size to fit the cylinder throats. .363" seemed most common. I have 2 or 3 Smiths, and an old IJ currently.

[ReloaderFred]

I have a .38 caliber swaging die that produces bullets .361" in diameter. I've bumped up .357/.358" bullets to .361" for several friends who shoot .38 S&W. They's all reported good accuracy with the bumped up bullets.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[Guesser]

The swaged Speer and Hornady HBWC will work too. The hollow base works well to compensate for oversize bores and 148 Gr. is right in the ball park for near duplication of current factory loadings.

[bob208]

i have a victory model s&w 5" barrel. i have never sluged it. i do shoot bullets from a 358429 mold un sized they drop at .360. it shoots very well. one time when they were selling .38s&w as surplus. we bought a bunch of it ran it through a carbide .38 spl. die and shot it in a .38spl colt op and my ruger security-six .357 they shot well out to 15 yds.

[Combat Diver]

I used to load for a Webely MkIV when I was in Germany with some .358 158gr LSWC and 2.1 gr Red Dot. Notes say lots of leading in barrel and cylinder. IIRC the British service load was a 200gr LRN at 630 fps. For a lightweight bullet mold today you should be able to use a 9mm Makarov mold (.363-.364) Load won't be regulated as it was for the heavier bullet.

CD

[Nobade]

NEI makes (or used to make) a 200gr. .363" roundnose mould just for the 38 S&W. When I had a M31 I used that boolit in it, it would hit to the sights and was extremely accurate. Wish I still had both the gun and the mould!

[WinMike]

I've posted on this before, but a friend of mine has a Victory M&P in 38 S&W. We ordered .359" & .360" bullets from a couple of sources (Penn, Western & Missouri) and they shot very accurately.

At first, we used the 38 S&W data, but since it's not a top break, we've felt comfortable loading starter 38 Special loads. We're reluctant to go much higher, since stuffing too much into the S&W case would increase pressures too high, we believe.

What was fun was loading and firing a 200 gr. bullet (Western Bullets), re-creating the old 38-200. So much fun I ordered some for my various 38 Specials. They really do penetrate: 4 water jugs and 5" into a fir trunk. See also: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?75914-38-S-amp-W-penetration-test-200g-bullets&highlight=38-200 which has lots of info from previous posters on this site.

[Green Frog]

... or you could try to find one of the old moulds made by S&W for the 38 when 38 S&W was all they made. It can also be used for recapping, since it was part of a complete reloading kit they sold way back when. I got lucky about 20 years ago and found one of the later, "peanut handle" type moulds. I only recently got a couple of I-frame Smiths to use it with, but it was too neat a mould to pass up when I first saw it. :D

Froggie

[Guesser]

Ideal numbers that work very well in my Smiffs:
360271
360302
360344
358246
All drop at least .361 from very soft alloy and all work very well in my Smiths (I already said that dint I?)
They are out there, I had a couple of them even before I started loading 38 S&W; just kept my eyes open and picked up the other two here at Castboolits.