About 700,000 rds of new .38 S&W brass

[trooperdan]

Is anyone near Texarkana, TX? Government surplus there is selling lots of 7,000 each NEW, unprimed Winchester .38 S&W brass, about 88 lots of 7,000! Would be a tempting group buy as an investment if nothing else... if we had someone that could honcho the pickup of a couple of lots!

http://www.govliquidation.com/list/e1729/lna/1.html

[felix]

Too bad that ain't 357 mag or at least special. But, it might be just the thing for the cowboy shootouts. They are always looking to get more ammo in a lever gun. ... felix

[grumble]

I'd be in for some if someone wants to honcho. I sure don't need more than one or two thousand, though.

[Shepherd2]

From the label on the boxes it appears that the cases are 1994 manufacture. Any ideas what the government would be procuring these for? Just curious.

[BruceB]

Are we CERTAIN that this is in fact, ".38 Smith and Wesson" and NOT ".38 Smith and Wesson SPECIAL"????????

What in the world would the US Gummint be doing with 3/4 million .38 S&W cases, when the Forces DO issue .38 Special revolvers on a limited basis, but NOT guns in .38 S&W?

I strongly suspect the stuff is .38 Special, not the shorter/fatter .38 S&W. It wouldn't be the first time such confusion has arisen, especially in the ranks of clerks and bean-counters....

Having said that, it sure LOOKS like .38 S&W, don't it??? Maybe some clerk DID think he was buying stuff to fit the .38 Specials?

[grumble]

Seems to me that an enterprising ebayer could do pretty well buying all of these for resale. Getting one's hands on them is the main obsticle.

[9.3X62AL]

Yep, them's 38 Short & Weak, all right. Wondering why the government would need such things.....Royal Hong Kong Police carried 38 S&W revolvers well into the 1980's and probably later. Ruger made up a bunch of Service-Six revolvers in this caliber for RHKPD in the 1980's--Ken Waters used one of them in an article covering the caliber that Buckshot gave me a copy of when we got underway loading this little critter.

[Scrounger]

[QUOTE=BruceB]Are we CERTAIN that this is in fact, ".38 Smith and Wesson" and NOT ".38 Smith and Wesson SPECIAL"????????

What in the world would the US Gummint be doing with 3/4 million .38 S&W cases, when the Forces DO issue .38 Special revolvers on a limited basis, but NOT guns in .38 S&W?

I strongly suspect the stuff is .38 Special, not the shorter/fatter .38 S&W. It wouldn't be the first time such confusion has arisen, especially in the ranks of clerks and bean-counters....
Having said that, it sure LOOKS like .38 S&W, don't it??? Maybe some clerk DID think he was buying stuff to fit the .38 Specials?[/QUOTe)

It also wouldn't be the first time some someone ordered the wrong thing.

[StarMetal]

Post Offices use to be armed. One of the revolvers that was issued was the SW 38, not the special, but the short stubby one. I know, I use to work for the P.O. and closed alot by myself and was in charge of locking that revolver up. So there were alot of post offices around the nation so there had to be alot of ammo, or componants for making it.

Joe

[grumble]

From that same website, I see that Davis Monthan AFB has a lathe for sale. Maybe I should take my Pinto down there and get it. Unless Buckshot gets there first, that is.

http://cgi.govliquidation.com/auction/view?id=712016&convertTo=USD

[NVcurmudgeon]

IIRC, when I used to deliver to the Oakland Army Terminal in the early sixties, the (Civil Service) Department of Defense security guards carried S&W K frame revolvers (Model 10?) in .38 S&W Not Very Special. I cleverly deduced this by looking at the cartridges on their belts.

[Junior1942]

From that same website, I see that Davis Monthan AFB has a lathe for sale. Maybe I should take my Pinto down there and get it. Unless Buckshot gets there first, that is.

http://cgi.govliquidation.com/auction/view?id=712016&convertTo=USDGrumble, you need to go get that sucker. It only weighs 5,000 lbs and needs 3 phase electricity.

[grumble]

Exactly what I was thinking, Junior! That's why I need to fire up the '86 Pinto. No doubt the 'lectric company would be tickled to run 200A 3-phase power to my place, eh?

I just hope Buckshot doesn't beat me to it.

[Buckshot]

..............That brass will probably got to scrap, but if the person had half a brain they'd offer a couple 100K around the gun business at maybe a nickel a case.

Grumble that lathe is a big ole Warner and Swassey barfeed turret lathe. I can't tell if it has a saddle with crossfeed and compound or not. If so it would be a tad more useable. It's a monster in any case. Heck 110 amp, 440 volt 3 phase? A rotary phase converter would cost a couple grand if you couldn't get the power company to oblige. It'd sure make the ole electric meter smoke when you fired it up! Tooling would be a pisser :D

You notice how the gubmint handles it's precision machine equipment. You bet, parked out in the weather. Wonder if it went through AZ's monsoon? One thing for sure though, if you used bar stock as the raw material, you could make a ton of whatever it was, HA! Big old machines like that usually go for practicly nothing.

Like shapers. A 7 to maybe 20" one is fine for the HSM crowd. They get pretty big money. You see those big Cincinnati and Kearny & Treacker 32" and bigger machines with beds you could stretch out on just wilt on E-Bay. Big ole horizontal milling machines the same way. Can't even sell them for $500. If you had the room and a way to move them, you could outfit a heckuva capable manual machine shop for a couple thousand bucks.

...............Buckshot

[grumble]

Well shucks, Buckshot. Since you seem to really-really want it, you can have it. Besides, I couldn't get the Pinto started in this cold weather to haul it from Tuscon to my place. <GGG>

I'm still on the lookout for something I might actually be able to use.