Lyman 310 die set in 38 S&W L

[BrassMagnet]

I have a set of Lyman 310 dies in 38 S&W L.

38 S&W is factory marked on the box. The "L" is marked with a pen rather than neatly ink stamped.

CMR is marked 38 S&W L

DA is marked 38 S&W

Expander is marked 358

All other dies are correctly marked the same as a 38 Spl set, i.e. "1"



38 S&W L is not on my Lyman 310 chart.
Is this likely a different way to mark 38 Spl?
Is this a set that can load 38 S&W or 38 Spl?
Is there really a 38 S&W Long?

[dsh1106]

I checked an old Ideal manual, 38 S&W TL Jr Die is #34 nothing mentioned about "L"

Scott

[Green Frog]

I know there was a 38 Long cartridge for the Ballard (both in RF and CF.) Could this die be also usable for that? A friend of mine had a Ballard #2(?) in this caliber and was able to make a suitable substitute by minimally modifying 38 special brass and firing round balls and/or HBWCs out of it. It could be possible that a 38 S&W would work as well.

Disclaimer: The preceding opinion (unsupported by additional information) along with $1 plus tax, will buy you any size cup of coffee at McDonalds (for a limited time only!) :coffee:

Froggie

[Wayne Smith]

Brass, are the dies marked or the boxes? My dies usually only have the numerical code except for the expander stem.

[Char-Gar]

This post made me take down my boxed 310 tool in 38 S&W. Here is how it is all marked.

Box hand written: 38 S&W
Sizing die: 38 SW MR
Decapping die: Unmarked
Expanding die: Stem only is marked .358
Priming die: 1
Shell adapter is handles: 17

Not an "L" anywhere, so your guess is as good as mine.

[BrassMagnet]

Brass, are the dies marked or the boxes? My dies usually only have the numerical code except for the expander stem.

Post #1 describes markings on dies and markings on box.

[Green Frog]

Hey Brass, I just had another thought since it's a CMR die. How wide is the space between the W and the L? Could it actually be an FL die that has a missing letter (from a TL Jr set) that somehow got mixed in? As you know, after all these years we see all kinds of mix and match sets, and even from the factory some strange things sometimes happened.

Your Phriendly 'Phibian