45/38

[pumpguy]

Saw a new one yesterday at the gun show. A guy had a bunch of estate stuff. In it was a box labled 45/38. He had necked down a box of .45 ACP to .38. Looked like a .357 Sig except it was a .45 parent case. Anybody ever heard of such a thing?

[Harry O]

Saw a new one yesterday at the gun show. A guy had a bunch of estate stuff. In it was a box labled 45/38. He had necked down a box of .45 ACP to .38. Looked like a .357 Sig except it was a .45 parent case. Anybody ever heard of such a thing?

It was a fairly common wildcat about 30-40 years ago. Just goes to show that there is nothing new under the sun. It was inexpensive. Use a stock Colt 1911, get a .38 Super barrel, and run a reamer through it. I don't think that the spring even needed to be changed. It would match .357 Magnum velocities fairly easily. I don't have any personal experience with it, but I have heard others talking about it at the range. Seems to be well thought of.

[Doughty]

I had one years ago. Easy to use and worked well. But my thought was, "If you already have a .45, why would you willingly switch to a .38?" After answering my own question, I sold it to a guy who had a different thought.

[longhorn]

I think somebody came up with this one as a relatively low recoil option for the "any centerfire" matches. I wanted one real bad back in the '70's, but ran across some long article by Dean Grennell, I think, that claimed you really couldn't push the bullet much past garden-variety .38 Special velocities without running the risk of case blow-outs in the unsupported area of the case head. Kinda made sense when you look at non+P pressures for the .45ACP, and the tendency of some of my .45 loads to bulge a little.......those loads now go in a Model 25. I decided I wouldn't work my lazy fingers to the bone making precious wildcat cases and then scrounging in the grassburrs for 'em. Now, of course, good barrels are widely available for .38 Super, .357 Sig, 9x23, and who knows what else. A wildcat whose time is past.

[Echo]

I had one 40+ years ago. Right, it was inexpensive. I had Jim Clark do the work for me, got the dies for forming and reloading. Checked the case capacity, and found it to be LESS than a standard .38 Special! Loaded some half-jackets (?), shot it some, then sold the rig and re-installed the .45 bbl. Exercise in futility.
And, right, it was designed for target work, not maximum hunting work, the idea being that stuffing a necked-down case into the bbl was easier than stuffing the .45 - a solution to a problem that didn't exist.

[wonderwolf]

I had the hots for one last month pumpguy but I gave up the chase as dies are hard to find, you don't benifit much over standard loads and you can go with a 41 avenger or .400 corbon set up just as easy!

I have a few wildcat articles on teh 38/45 and they all seem to warn against them.