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Post by ezekiel38 on Apr 25, 2022 11:04:26 GMT -5
38 Special is so versatile. As I've gotten older I've found the 44s are shot less and the 38s go with me more often. Cheaper to shoot. For years I didn't own a 22 rimfire handgun because I could load 38 target ammo for not much more than purchasing fancy rimfire. I find the 38/44 level loads in nickel are the cat's meow for small frame 357s. All other 38s are loaded in brass cases. My old pre Model 14 loves 4.5 grains of Unique and a 158gr 358156PB slug.
38s are not dead, over on the pistol forum there is a 74 page thread on Ruger LCRs.
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Joe S.
.401 Bobcat
Posts: 2,517
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Post by Joe S. on May 5, 2022 7:55:20 GMT -5
It is doing well here in MS.
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Post by bula on May 5, 2022 8:25:30 GMT -5
I inherited an Uncle's Colt P.P. 38 spec and had for awhile my FIL's 357 BH. So dies and components here. The 357 gone to FIL's grandson. The Colt doesn't get shot anymore and enough loaded rounds on hand. But friends with SP101's keep giving me brass. My wife has a 22
airweight J-frame and a 32 SP101, I have my 44spec Bulldog, I should get a 38 in one of those platforms..
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Post by taffin on May 5, 2022 12:28:18 GMT -5
My first two new .357 Magnums were purchased somewhere around the winter of 1956-1957 and at this late stage I can’t remember which came first, the Ruger 4-5/8” Blackhawk or the Smith & Wesson 4” Highway Patrolman. I do know .357 Magnum ammunition and brass was very hard to come by, however it was the heyday of Bullseye shooting with most serious competitors using either a Colt Officers Model Match or Smith & Wesson K-38 chambered in .38 Special for the slow fire matches. As a result .38 Special brass was readily available and also relatively inexpensive.
With a single cavity mold to cast bullets and a Lyman #310 Nutcracker tool for loading I slowly cranked out .38 Special loads for the pair of .357 Magnum sixguns. I started with the Lyman #358311 round-nose 158 grain bullet, however soon graduated to the Lyman #358429, a semi-wadcutter bullet designed by Elmer Keith. With its flat-nosed profile, the Keith bullet was much better for shooting varmints and small game and even when shooting paper targets made it easier to see the perfect outline of the bullets front shoulder.
Keith’s #358429 not only pre-dated the .357 Magnum of 1935 he was also one year ahead of the .38/44 Heavy Duty which arrived in 1930 as he designed his bullet in 1929. As all of his bullets it is a semi-wadcutter design with three driving bands and one deep grease groove. The three driving bands are all of equal width with one forming the base, the second one in between the grease groove and the crimping groove, and the third one a front shoulder above the grease groove. When the .357 Magnum arrived in 1935 Keith found his bullet which basically filled out the chamber of the .38/44 when loaded in .38 Special brass now was too long for the .357 Magnum cylinder which was the same length as the .38/44 cylinder. When crimped in the crimp groove of the longer .357 Magnum case his bullet would protrude from the front of the cylinder of the new Magnum Smith & Wesson.
Keith’s solution was simple and twofold. For him the best solution was simply to continue to use his bullet in .38 Special brass in the Magnum cylinder. His load at the time was his bullet, which with my alloys weigh between 168 and 173 grains, loaded in .38 Special brass with 13.5 grains of #2400. This is now known as the Keith load and is not a load to be taken lightly as it is more powerful than many factory .357 Magnum loads today.
In his book, Sixguns (1955) Keith says speaking of the .357 Magnum sixgun from Smith & Wesson: “We obtained best accuracy from the solid head Remington .38/44 cases loaded with the Keith 160 grain hollowpoint or 173 grain solid, and backed by 13.5 grains 2400 in .45 frame guns and obtained the most powerful loads with the Keith 173 grain solid crimped to barely over the front band with 14.5 grains 2400 (this was in .357 Magnum brass). In the .38/44 cases we crimped in the regular beveled crimping groove. With the Keith hollowpoint or hollow base we use 15 grains 2400 and crimped barely over the front shoulder with the Magnum case. Dick Tanker shot the long-range targets for Ed McGivern’s book with the Keith hollowpoint backed by 13.5 grains 2400 in .38 Special cases. Testing the gun for The American Rifleman story when it first came out, I found that at ranges over 125 yards we could not hit jackrabbits nearly as well with factory loads as with the homegrown loads with the 160 grain Keith bullet in .38 Special cases backed by 13.5 grains 2400 with the forward band to help true up the slug in the chamber, and which apparently greatly improved long-range accuracy.”
Keith claimed better accuracy with his bullet and heavy loads in the .38 Special cases compared to the factory .357 Magnum for accuracy. He used hard cast bullets of his own making while the factory ammunition was greatly hampered by bullets which were way too soft. With the coming of gas checked bullets (which Keith did not like) much of the problem with leading anD inaccuracy in the .357 Magnum loads was solved.
We’ve always accepted the “fact” that .38 Special loads work just fine in .357 Magnum sixguns, however I decided to set up a test to actually test this theory. To keep things as simple as possible (something which quite often escapes me) I settled on one powder charge, 5.0 grains of Unique, one bullet namely Keith’s #358429, and loaded them in both .38 Special and .357 Magnum brass. I had 16 test guns at my disposal, four Ruger Blackhawk .357 Magnums, one Colt Trooper .357 Magnum, and eleven “short-cylindered” Smith & Wesson .357s consisting of both pre-27 and 27 numbered models as well as a pre-28 6” Highway Patrolman. The Smith & Wessons consisted of a trio of 8-3/8”, a pair of 6-1/2”, and five 5” barrel lengths pe-27/27s.
With the .38 Special loads crimped in the crimping groove and the .357 Magnum loads crimped over the front shoulder of #358429 I reasoned the muzzle velocities would be close to the same with the .38 Special brass having a slight edge because of slightly less case capacity case capacity. This theory proved to be totally incorrect, almost, with 14 of the .357 Magnum loads having the higher velocity, while two of the .38 Special loads resulted in the highest velocity. Perhaps it is due to the fact that .357 Magnum brass is heavier and although it looks like it has more case capacity, the opposite may be true. The two .38 Special loads with the highest velocity were fired in Smith & Wesson 5” Model 27-5, 932 fps compared to 921 fps and an S&W 5” Model 27-2, 915 fps to 879 fps. The highest velocity recorded with .357 Magnum brass was 1,044 fps in a custom Ruger Flat-top New Model .357 with an 8-3/4” barrel and in the ..38 Special loading 987 fps in the same sixgun. The slowest muzzle velocity with .357 Magnum brass was 879 fps with a nickel-plated S&W Model 27-2 with a 5” barrel while the slowest in .38 Special brass occurred in a 5” S&W pre-27 at 888 fps.
Of the 16 test guns, eight produced the best accuracy with .357 Magnum brass, six with .38 Special brass, and two were dead even. The two best groups with .357 Magnum brass came from a custom Ruger 7-1/2” Old Model with a five-shot group of 1-1/8”at 20 yards and a muzzle velocity of 991 fps and a Smith & Wesson 6-1/2”pre-27 with a 1-3/8”group at 945 fps. Switching to .38 Special brass the best groups came from a custom Ruger 8-3/4” New Model Flat-Top with a one-inch group at 987 fps and the same size group from a S&W 5” pre-27 at 888 fps. As an aside both of these Rugers have been fitted with a custom cut Ruger .357 Maximum barrel.
Switching to the other side of the coin, the worst groups, we find in .357 Magnum brass a 5” Smith & Wesson M27-5 with a 2-5/8” group and muzzle velocity of 921 fps, and the same sixgun also produced a 3” group using .38 Special brass with a muzzle velocity of 932 fps. The other worst groups were 2-1/4” in a 6-1/2” S&W pre-27 at 971 fps in .357 Magnum brass and in .38 Special brass an S&W 8-3/8” pre-27 produced a 3” group at 886 fps.
After all this testing I wanted to see if I could somehow come up with better results with different powder charges. Using the same #358429 Lyman Bullet in .357 Magnum brass over 12.0 grains of IMR4227 the Ruger custom 8-3/4” Flat-Top New Model produced a muzzle velocity of 1,186 fps with an excellent 7/8” five-shot group at 20 yards and a Ruger 4-5/8” Flat-top New Model resulted in a 1-1/8” group at 1,072 fps. In comparing the 16 test guns with the 5.0 grains of Unique and 12.0 grains of IMR4227, I got better accuracy with 13 sixguns using the IMR4227 loads which made me at least begin to think greater velocity might be the key. Switching to 11.0 grains of #2400 things got even better. The S&W 8-3/8” nickel-plated Model 27-2 which got 2” groups with the Unique load at 915 fps and 1-1/4 groups with the IMR4227 load at 1,081 fps, now shrank the groups to an astounding 1/2” with a muzzle velocity of 1,209 fps. The Smith & Wesson 5” pre-27 with a 2-1/2” group with Unique and the same size group with IMR4227 now resulted in a 7/8” group. Muzzle velocities went from 907 fps to 1,021 fps to 1,133 fps. So it at least appears with this particular bullet muzzle velocity has a large effect on accuracy. Is this absolute? Unfortunately there are very few absolutes which is exactly why we experiment and the more we experiment the more we discover there are few absolutes. For example with the same bullet in a heavy barreled S&W Model 10 PPC sixgun, the slow load using 5.0 grains of Unique gives one-hole groups less than one-half inch in size. This is aided by the use of a red dot sight.
One absolute which remains is every sixgun is a law unto itself with its own distinct personality. So what have I learned from all this? I have learned to keep shooting, keep experimenting and to enjoy every minute of it.
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Post by mike454 on May 5, 2022 12:30:29 GMT -5
I hope it's not dead. I bought 5 in the last year or so:
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Post by 45MAN on May 5, 2022 12:43:39 GMT -5
I HAVE PLENTY OF 38 SPECIALS, PRE-WAR COLT OFFICIAL POLICE REVOLVERS, PRE-WAR AND POST-WAR S&W FIXED SIGHT REVOLVERS INCLUDING A 6.5" N FRAME HEAVY DUTY, THE COLT PYTHON TARGET, A MODEL 14 6", AND AT LEAST ONE MODEL 10 (A NICKELED 4"), BUT THEY ARE MOSTLY IN HIBERNATION. 45 COLT REVOLVERS, LOADED TO DIFFERENT LEVELS, FILL MOST OF MY NEEDS, AND MY 22lr, 32 H&R, 32-20 & 327 REVOLVERS FILL IN MOST GAPS. WITH AS MUCH AS I LIKE MY 22lr, 32 H&R, 32-20 AND 327 REVOLVERS MY 38's WILL NOT GET MUCH USE.
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Post by 45MAN on May 5, 2022 12:45:26 GMT -5
I hope it's not dead. I bought 5 in the last year or so: S&W 14-6 and rare 586 in 38 special  Bowen  Clements  WOW, QUITE A SPECIAL FOURSOME OF 38 SPECIAL REVOLVERS! |
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Post by bushog on May 5, 2022 13:40:48 GMT -5
I want that stainless Clements gun!
Is it a Single Six?
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Post by taffin on May 5, 2022 13:52:56 GMT -5
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Post by mike454 on May 5, 2022 14:46:45 GMT -5
I want that stainless Clements gun! Is it a Single Six? Unfortunately not both the Bowen and Clements guns are on mid frames. Single six didn't occur to me until after the fact. With the octagon barrel the Clements gun turned out a little heavier than I anticipated but not crazy heavy. I did change the grips out to a set of contoured walnut by Rob Rowen. |
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Post by taffin on May 5, 2022 14:49:17 GMT -5
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Post by taffin on May 5, 2022 14:52:12 GMT -5
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Post by taffin on May 5, 2022 14:56:29 GMT -5
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Post by taffin on May 5, 2022 15:08:29 GMT -5
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Post by greenchile on May 5, 2022 18:25:02 GMT -5
I was smiling reading through this topic than I ran into these 2 little hooligans...OOF! Those are fantastic! Now I've got some ideas on what's next. 38's dead...hah. Good point on the 38 carbines too. Those are zippy little poppers.   |
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