38 Special

[mag_01]

:coffee: ---Another good day and off to the range--loaded some 38s with 2.8 and 3 bull---with the 158 gr waddcutter---Tl Lee boolit. thinking about loading 38s I remember way back about 2.8 bull behind a 158 or 160swc turned out to be the best group wise--a wimp load indeed but easy to shoot and the results today should both loads where good---best group with 2.8 bull --25yrds. off hand was 1 inch center to center and best group with 3 bull was about 1- 3/4 inches both loads shot well---I'm happy with the 2.8 load

I do have a tack driving load but its hot rated +P+----Its a Lee 125gr. (9mm) Tl boolit with 5.5 bull behind it---feels like a light 357 load---No pressure signs and not bad to shoot. Be careful if you use this load work up to it---also shot some 357s with tight group but groups where bad---had to use some Kentucky windege a Little to the left to hit tin cans at 40 yrds. all in all a good day ---hope you got out to shoot--------Mag

[Buckshot]

..............Don't know why as I'm not a "Peestol Guy" but one morning I just woke up and HAD to have a K38 Smith. The whole deal is STILL a mystery to me. As luck would have it a good friend of mine had a nice one he said he'd be willing to sell. He was right, it was a very nice pinned barrel one, complete with box, book and original sales reciept.

It was the first or second time out with it and I did this:

http://www.fototime.com/C5773BB9E49798C/standard.jpg

I was pretty happy with it!

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

[KCSO]

I shot a K38 on the Department pistol team in the 70's. The gun was guarenteed by Smith to shoot under 2.5" at 50 yards and if I did my part the gun would do it. We use to have a side match where we shot 5 shots at the little black sill loge on the side of the B27. Whoever didn't keep all his shots in the little black man had to buy!

[fecmech]

Gentlemen--The .38 spl has to be my all time favorite cartridge. It is very accurate and and very easy to find and accurate load with many different bullets and powders. The K gun that shot the pictured groups has somewhere in the neighborhood of 70K rds thru it. S&W turned the barrel in and recut the forcing cone at about the 50K mark. I like to shoot my groups using one target as the aiming point and also to catch a composite of all the shots fired to see total uniformity. I also slide a backer sheet behind the main targets to get the individual groups shot so that I can get an average of the total number of 6 shot groups. The composite here shows a total of 24 shots with a total group size of 2 15/16"@ 50 yds.The 4 individual groups were 2",1 9/16",1 5/8", 1 3/4" which worked out to a 1.73" avg at 50 yds. The bullet was the classic 158rn ahead of some dirty old bullseye powder at about 900 fps. My Ruger GP100 will do a little over 2"@ 50 yds with the same load. These guns are a real pleasure to shoot. Nick

[Char-Gar]

The 38 Special is a wonderful round. It will do about 95% of what we want a handgun to do and do it will great accuracy.

I like my 44 and 45 sixguns, but if the truth be know, I could live the rest of my life with a good 22 pistol, a 38 Special target revolver and a 1911A1 and not feel underprivileged.

[robertbank]

Charger you have it bang on. I bought a used K 38 a couple of yeras ago. The darn gun along with it's sibblings, a K 22 and Model 27 are three of the most accurate guns I have ever shot. Something about the old Smith quality and sights that you just have a hard time finding in the modern iterations.

Take Care

Bob

[Wayne Dobbs]

I don't know that it can get any better than the .38 Special for ease of shooting, inherant accuracy, simple reloading recipes, decent power level and graceful, beautiful and "ergonomic ahead of their time" revolvers...

Wayne

[45 2.1]

I don't know that it can get any better than the .38 Special for ease of shooting, inherant accuracy, simple reloading recipes, decent power level and graceful, beautiful and "ergonomic ahead of their time" revolvers...

Wayne

How about an English "Adams".

[Four Fingers of Death]

I have a K38 which I use for bullseye shooting. I have had it for a couple of years now. While I was waiting for the paperwork to come through the gunsmith I had bought it through rang me and said he has a guy (wanker) looking for a double action conversion for his K38. Apparently his was one of the most accurat single action smiths that the gunsmith ever handled and he didn't want to see the guy chop it up. I ended up swapping the trigger, etc and now have a single action K38 which is an absolute joy to shoot. When I stop all of this travelling about and get settled properly back home, I will really wring this gun out. I have just thrown a few loads together and it shoots like a dream. I have an old single cavity Lyman 142Gn BNWC mould which always gave me excellent boolits, it will be cranked up soon. MIck.

[Dale53]

I, too, have an S&W K-38. "Back in the days" I needed a PPC gun (we shot with the local police) but didn't have the cash to have one made up. I bought a Bomar full length rib at a good price and installed it myself. What a sweet "semi-custom" pistol it became. I had a couple of close friends who were in the grip business and they made me some really nice custom walnut "combat grips" for the revolver. I still shoot this piece very well but I have to struggle with the iron sights (I have age induced vision problems). So, I really don't exercise it as much as I should. I find myself picking up my K-32 more often as it has a scope sight on it. Scopes and dots are MUCH more user friendly due to the vision problems.

With the K-38 I mostly use HB or Dbl Ended Wadcutters ahead of 2.8 bullseye or equivalent in Win 231. My home cast wadcutters (double ended) will shoot under an inch at 25 yards off the Ransom Rest but HB wadcutters will shade that quite a bit. The old factory Remington factory wad cutters would approach 5/8" most of the time. I never could quite match their accuracy with reloads. Close but not quite. That old Remington stuff was really fine ammo.

Dale53

[Joey]

Buckshot,

Its called having an ephanany.:)

[Bucks Owin]

I don't know that it can get any better than the .38 Special for ease of shooting, inherant accuracy, simple reloading recipes, decent power level and graceful, beautiful and "ergonomic ahead of their time" revolvers...

Wayne

I'd say the K frame M19 comes pretty close to your specifications and IMO the .357 cartridge can fire a 148 gr WC at the same velocity and accuracy level as the great .38 spl and still yield the additional horsepower when desired....

(Although I'd sure love to own a nice example of the grand old K-38!)

FWIW,

Dennis :Fire:

[Uncle R.]

Way back in the '70s I was shooting center fire league with a 6" Trooper MKIII and .38 wadcutters. My average was in the 250s and I shot rapid fire DA out of pure stubborn pig-headedness. :roll: I was a "Colt" man - although I'd never owned a Smith. Ah - youth!
One day I walked into John's Sport Shop in Hartford Wisconsin (now sadly long gone) and there was a whole row of used M15 Combat Masterpiece Smiths in his display case. They were police trade-ins, all pinned and recessed, with lotsa holster wear but solid and tight.
I was a big fan of Dean Grennell and I knew he loved K-frame Smiths, so I plunked down the modest asking price and took one home. Good choice! I soon tossed the factory grips and installed a set of Pachmayer Grippers. That M15 was the gol-dangdest natural pointer ever. I shot an IPSC match with it just for grins, and discovered that on the close targets I could just shove that K-frame out in front of me and crank away on the trigger - the holes would appear in the target right where I was looking. Believe me, that didn't always happen with my 1911. :roll:
When I tried the M15 on bullseye my scores improved even though the gun was shorter and lighter than the Trooper.
Some years later I stumbled onto a used M14 in a gun shop in western Wisconsin. It too had kinda worn finish, but seemed tight. It too was pinned and recessed. I wrangled the price down a mite and I took it home. That darn thing shoots nearly ragged holes at 25 yards with factory wadcutters. :-D
I finally picked up a M19 .357 to complete the set - and by now that Trooper was feeling clumsy and cumbersome next to the old Smiths that I had come to love - so it got sold down the river.
The K-frame Smith is my favorite revolver, and it goes with the .38 special cartridge like beer goes with peanuts. I doubt I'll ever be without one.

[Wayne Dobbs]

In heaven, the Lord issues 4" Smith and Wesson K frame .38s for the cops' duty guns...they're that good!

Wayne

[wills]

What would the police do with a gun in a place where everyone is already dead?

[StarMetal]

why would heaven have to be policed?

Wills,

Whatya mean dead, thru Jesus Christ we live again forever.

Joe

[wills]

Physically?

[StarMetal]

Yes....whatya think Jesus was when he come out of his tomb, disappeared, then come back to talk to his disciples....a robot? A Ghost? Nyta...he was and still is the real McCoy. Hey just remember if the take over of evil happens in our lifetime and the anti-christ is in command..and when they confront you to give you the mark of the beast..remember..say "Jesus Is Lord". Okay enough because I get my butt in hot water with the forum.

Joe

[StarMetal]

Wills,

This is all I'm saying further on the question you asked me. I am not a Preacher or a scholar. If you want to know more, and you should, go to church and read the Bible. Jesus comes to all who seek him. About how your body is read this:

What kind of bodies will we have in Heaven? Gnostics of all kinds (Platonists, Buddhists, Hindus, Spiritualists, Manichaeans) say we will become pure spirits, angels, for they do not know the dogma of Creation. Pagans and Muslims say we will have earthly bodies and harems or happy hunting grounds.
Christians say we will have transformed bodies, but real, physical bodies, as Christ had after his resurrection. His body could be touched and could eat. Yet it could come and go as he pleased, with neither walls nor distance as an obstacle. It was the same body he had before he died, and it was recognized as such by his friends. Yet it was so different that at first they did not recognize him. I think our new resurrection body will be related to the body we have now in the same way that our current body is related to the body we had in our mothers' wombs. If a fetus saw a picture of itself at the age of twenty, it would at first not recognize itself, so unforeseen and surprisingly new would it be. Yet it is the same self, even the same body, now grown radically more mature.

[Wayne Dobbs]

Guys,

I was not attempting to spark a theological discussion! It was simply a post of mine that was using imagery to show how highly I esteem the K frame .38 Special. I believe that it's absolutely correct that no police will be needed in heaven and my faith and belief in the sacrifice that Jesus made for us all and my acceptance of that will be sufficient for me.

If we're ever going down the path of Bible discussions, there are certainly plenty of mighty warriors in the Bible to look at and their skill at arms and courage and honor. Jesus himself made a whip and went into the Temple and kicked all the crooks there in the ass to clear them out. He also told his disciples to arm themselves for defense after his leaving them in Luke 38.

There won't be any guns in heaven and we won't have a need or desire for worldy things there...

Wayne

[Baldy]

Back on Subject. I would give anything to have a old K model Smith and I had a few many years ago. But being young and dum I traded or sold them off. I did hang on to one revolver that I'll keep for ever, and that is a 1978 Colt Phyton with a 6" barrel. This gun has had thousands of rounds put through it and it's still a shooter.

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h268/4Baldy/B_Mama2.jpg

[robertbank]

You got one fine shooter that partner. The Colt snakes are great guns, wish i had one.

To the issue of bodies, if I get the same feet in heaven as I got down here on earth I'm not going! Man did the good Lord have a bad day when he put me together. Must have spilled coffee on the blueprints on the pages where the feet designs were. LOL

Take Care

Bob

[Joey]

When I shoot close (50yds) I use 158gr. LSWCGC, with 3.8 gr. Bullseye for around 945 fps. Also 2400 with 7 gr.

[Ed Barrett]

I hate to go off subject again, but I thought "the streets are guarded by United States Marines" of course they would be carrying K frames.

[eljefe]

I have a question regarding the K38...on gunbroker, I see model 14 and model 15 smiths listed as k38. Are they both considered as such?

I love classic smith revolvers; just acquired a model 37 with 3" barrel. Smith customer service indicated it was built in 1972. I have a model 28 from the
late 70s that I bought as my first centerfire handgun. I would dearly love to get a K frame with adjustable sights in 4 or 6 inch barrel.

Thanks, and good discussion!

[fecmech]

eljefe--I'm no expert on "Smiths" But as long as I've seen them advertised by S&W (since the late 60's) the Model 14 was the K-38 Masterpiece and the Model 15 was the Combat Masterpiece (not K-38 Combat Masterpiece). Nick

[robertbank]

U.S. Marines?? Heck no. PPCLI (Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry my man. We want them to be safe.:mrgreen: Armed with FAL FN's and carrying Inglis pistols.

Take Care

Bob