38 Colt or 41 Colt? Which way would you go for a conversion?

[Stopsign32v]

Well about to dip into some 36 cal conversion revolvers. I know you can line the barrel easily to shoot true 38 special in them but I just want to be different.



38 Colt



Pros:

Original to old conversions

Can do heeled 38 Colt short

Can do hollow base 38 Colt long



Cons:

Heeled reloading



41 Colt



Pros:

Not dealing with heeled and go with internally lubed boolits

Pretty cool



Cons:

Have to have 38 special cylinder bored out for 41 Colt

Hard to find brass I'm sure

[cwtebay]

41 Colt is also a heeled bullet.

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[AntiqueSledMan]

Hello Stopsign32v,

First a question for you, have you ever loaded a heeled bullet?

Personally I have yet to load a 38 Colt, short or long.
But I do reload 44 Colt, I'm fascinated with how they put them together.
You load them just like any other cartridge, but when you seat the bullet you just seat it, not crimp.
Crimping the 38 Colts can be done with a LEE .35 Remington Factory Crimp Die, and a riser under the cartridge.
I've seen this done with a 1/4-20 bolt and a nut for adjustment.
Of course the hardest part of reloading any heeled bullet is the lubrication.
And that isn't to bad, just another step. I have gotten away from lubing.
I shoot all my Cartridge Conversions with Black MZ, no lube required.
And yes I do realize Black MZ is discontinued, but it's the same as APP & Shooters World "Multi Purpose Black".
I do reload on a single stage press, it might be a bigger issue with a progressive.

I know Hoof Hearted does the 41 Colt Conversion.
Brass should be available from Star-Line.
But I'm just not to keen on running a .386 bullet down a .375 bore.
Maybe one could do a wildcat, a 41 Colt case with a .375 bullet.

cwtebay,

Yes the original 41 Colt was originally a heeled bullet, .403 or so with a .386 heel.
But they later changed them to an inside lubed .386" hollow base.
My documentation says .388", but what ever we're pretty close.

I do plan on doing a couple 38 Colts, one long and one short.

AntiqueSledMan.

[smkummer]

Shooting heeled bullets with black powder is easy. Go with the original 38 colt. Remember the later 38 colt with inside lubed hollow base would work with .375 bores as well as the newer .357 bores.

Your creating a new “scenario” shooting a hollow base .386 bullet ( which was designed to expand up to .410) into a .375 bore…..not good.

My experience comes from shooting both heeled and hollow base bullets in 41 colt. My first reloading tool was an ideal combination tool that included the heel base bullet mold. One simply presses the heeled bullet onto the case charged with black powder. Outside lubed. It works. I had marginal success with bullseye but at the time, I didn’t have a way to crimp. I finally “pre crimped” the case so the heeled bullet went in harder and was OK with bullseye. Not consistent with trail boss or unique.

[Wayne Smith]

Contact Old West Bullet Molds, if you don't know them. Bernie is the expert in all things heeled boolits. I am crimping my 41Colt heeled boolits with a modified Lee crimp die that Bernie made.

[cwtebay]

Thank you Antique Salesman for setting me straight. didn't realize that it is offered in a non-heeled variety.

I load for both, Bernie has set me up pretty well for crimping but I used homemade modified wire crimper before that and it worked just fine also. The lubing is a little odd compared to "regular" bullets, but you get the hang of it pretty quickly.
I noticed several of these responses say they don't crimp. I have tried that with poor results; bullets walking out and wedging the cylinder.
This is an interesting video using a novel reloading tool.

Loading 38 Long Colt with heel based bullets fot 1851 61 Navy Revolvers
https://youtu.be/UdFTf0xrpRA

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[AntiqueSledMan]

Well guys,

I did put together a pdf about different ways of crimping heeled bullets, but I think it was on the Remington Forum and is gone forever.
Anyway, My friend Tucumcari_Kid used the Lee Factory Crimp Die in 35 Remington for his 38 Long Colts.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?393662-38-Long-Colt-Heeled-Heel-Based-Crimp-Diehomemade-
ish

Also, I really liked how Larry Pottefield used the Hornady Cam Lock Bullet Puller.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWXz3GR6seo&list=ULyvrpHz21ToQ&index=464

There are a lot of ways to skin a cat.

AntiqueSledMan.