Ammo question

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mferruccio

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I just received a box of Remmington 38 S&W 146 gr lead nose. I'm told the ammo is many years old. It looks in good shape but the round is about half the size of my 38 spc 130 gr FMJ. Can I shoot this old stuff in my 686 and/or Sp 101? Thanks
 
Nickle said:
Yes, .38 S&W can be fired in a .38 Special or .357 Magnum.

It's just a shorter case and milder load, nothing more.
Click to expand...

NO! You cannot fire a .38 S&W in a .38 Special or .357 Magnum. You probably won't even get the round to chamber.

The .38 S&W has a .3865" case diameter, as compared to a .38 Special's .379", and uses a .361" diameter bullet, not a .357".
 
Well, I checked.

You CAN'T fire a .38 S&W in a .38 Special or .357 Magnum. Even if it does fit, it's wrong.

Base diameter is .386" vs .380". Bullet diameter in my reference (Donnelly), a really good one, just didn't have it with me at work, is .359 versus .357. Much less of an issue, but irrelevant, as the base diameter is the real show stopper here.

The minor difference (.001 to .002) in numbers in the references isn't THAT unusual, believe it or not.
 
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mferruccio said:
I just received a box of Remmington 38 S&W 146 gr lead nose. I'm told the ammo is many years old. It looks in good shape but the round is about half the size of my 38 spc 130 gr FMJ. Can I shoot this old stuff in my 686 and/or Sp 101? Thanks
Click to expand...

I am more than happy to buy that off of you given you can't fire it. I have a 38 S&W revolver stuffed in the safe somewhere. It is from the 20's. The previous owner got rid of it because it "leaked lead" when he fired 38 specials from it... [shocked] [laugh] I am surprised he still has hands. Anyhow, I can't remember right now what the revolver is but I wouldn't mind taking it out to the range one day. PM me with what you want for it.
 
terraformer said:
The previous owner got rid of it because it "leaked lead" when he fired 38 specials from it... [shocked] [laugh]
Click to expand...

I call BS on this.

The .38 Special case is more than 3/8" longer than a .38 S&W case. I've never seen a .38 S&W revolver that would even come close to chambering a .38 Special so that the cylinder would close.

What model gun do you have?
 
EddieCoyle said:
I call BS on this.

The .38 Special case is more than 3/8" longer than a .38 S&W case. I've never seen a .38 S&W revolver that would even come close to chambering a .38 Special so that the cylinder would close.

What model gun do you have?
Click to expand...

I also smell BS as well.

Unless the cylinder is long enough, and was bored to remove the end of the chamber, it's not doable.

Possible, maybe, with the right pistol, if it was altered, but not likely. And a pistol from the '20's? Not likely to be long enough. British WW2 Contract guns might have been.

And, even if it was long enough, and altered, that probably wouldn't make it "leak lead". Something else would cause that.
 
EddieCoyle said:
I call BS on this.

The .38 Special case is more than 3/8" longer than a .38 S&W case. I've never seen a .38 S&W revolver that would even come close to chambering a .38 Special so that the cylinder would close.

What model gun do you have?
Click to expand...

Oliver Johnson 38 S&W based in Fitchburg. It is your typical '20s era revolver. You can call BS all you want but measure a wad cutter 38 and you will see how he did it. He used the head space in the cylinder to shove the extra case into there and without the bulk of the round, it worked. You would think he would have figured out if all you can fit in there was a wad cutter it may have been the wrong round...

Edit: For those that don't know, a wad cutter, at least rimmed cartridges, will sit flush with the casing so if the casing is 1.24" then the completed round is about that. A typical jacketed round will include the bullet length so a complete round will be longer than the case length.
 
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Nickle said:
I also smell BS as well.

Unless the cylinder is long enough, and was bored to remove the end of the chamber, it's not doable.

Possible, maybe, with the right pistol, if it was altered, but not likely. And a pistol from the '20's? Not likely to be long enough. British WW2 Contract guns might have been.

And, even if it was long enough, and altered, that probably wouldn't make it "leak lead". Something else would cause that.
Click to expand...

I never saw him do this. I am repeating what he said but if you think about it, there is a slight gap caused by the smaller .354 (compared to the 38 S&W) which as the round goes from the cylinder to the barrel, it is very conceivable that it would get become off center and caught up and get fragments of the bullet spitting out the side. But I am just repeating what he said. Hell, I wouldn't have been stupid enough to stick around with him doing this so I was not about to ask him to demonstrate. He gave it to a friend of mine for free because he said the gun sucked. What was I going to do, tell him he was the real idiot? [laugh]
 
theGringo said:
Re you thinking of .38 Spl, .38 Spl +P and .357 mag all feeding through the same revolver? That's all I can figure out ...
Click to expand...

Well, 2 of those 3 work.

No, somehow I got it in my head that .38 S&W (yes, it is a caliber) used the same base diameter (and bore) as the .38 Special. Well, I was wrong.

The bore is real close, but I wouldn't use jacketed bullets that way, unless they were the smaller diameter. Lead bullets you could probably get away with, as a few thousandths of an inch oversize is normal for lead.

That still doesn't change the base diameter.

I guess I'm going to owe a couple of guys beers when I see them.
 
terraformer said:
Oliver Johnson 38 S&W based in Fitchburg. It is your typical '20s era revolver. You can call BS all you want but measure a wad cutter 38 and you will see how he did it. He used the head space in the cylinder to shove the extra case into there and without the bulk of the round, it worked. You would think he would have figured out if all you can fit in there was a wad cutter it may have been the wrong round...

Edit: For those that don't know, a wad cutter, at least rimmed cartridges, will sit flush with the casing so if the casing is 1.24" then the completed round is about that. A typical jacketed round will include the bullet length so a complete round will be longer than the case length.
Click to expand...

A .38 Special wadcutter bullet is seated flush with the top of the case, the diameter of which is .380", the length of which is 1.155". The headspace for a .38 S&W is .775", the chamber then reduces to the bullet diameter which is a nominal .361". In order to chamber a .38 Special wadcutter in a .38 S&W cylinder, one would have to jam .380" worth of .380" diameter lead-filled brass cartridge into a .361" hole.

I still call BS.

Prove me wrong. You bring the gun, I'll bring the .38 Special wadcutters, a hammer, and a camera (safety glasses too).

ETA: Do you mean Iver Johnson? I can't find any info on an "Oliver" Johnson.
 
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EddieCoyle said:
A .38 Special wadcutter bullet is seated flush with the top of the case, the diameter of which is .380", the length of which is 1.155". The headspace for a .38 S&W is .775", the chamber then reduces to the bullet diameter which is a nominal .361". In order to chamber a .38 Special wadcutter in a .38 S&W cylinder, one would have to jam .380" worth of .380" diameter lead-filled brass cartridge into a .361" hole.

I still call BS.

Prove me wrong. You bring the gun, I'll bring the .38 Special wadcutters, a hammer, and a camera (safety glasses too).

ETA: Do you mean Iver Johnson? I can't find any info on an "Oliver" Johnson.
Click to expand...

You are right, Iver and not Oliver. I was in bed already and was too warm and cozy to get up and check.

As for the .38. Maybe you are right, like I said, I relayed the reasons why the guy got rid of the gun as stated by him. I am not about to try and I sure as hell would not provide the gun to someone else to try and risk that liability. I may be wrong that it was .38 specials. Part of the story was relayed to me so it could have been 9mm that the guy shoved in there for all I know and someone assumed it was a revolver so transposed 9 with .38. Heck, you saw what my brain did with iver. I could have heard 9 mm and remembered it as .38. Anyhow, based on a quick check of the sizes, the .38 seemed like it may be able to work. Frankly, I just checked the 9 mm and that seems to work as well.
 
EddieCoyle said:
I call BS on this.

The .38 Special case is more than 3/8" longer than a .38 S&W case. I've never seen a .38 S&W revolver that would even come close to chambering a .38 Special so that the cylinder would close.

What model gun do you have?
Click to expand...

Went to the range Sunday and I tried this out. Pictured is an H&R arms "Great American Double Action" (I don't have it in front of me so I could be off on that a tad). It is a 38 S&W from god knows when. Anyhow, below is a picture of me placing a .38 Special blank into the revolver. I then fired it (couldn't get a picture of that and my phone doesn't do video) and it fired fine. I will not actually fire the .38 wad cutter for obvious reasons. I am not sure if this is applicable across all .38 S&Ws in the world, etc but it was possible with this particular one, which happens to be the one this guy used. The Iver Johnson came from somewhere else. I was mistaken who gave us what.

The .38 S&W live rounds fired fine, although the action is horrible and the base pin doesn't stay inserted so after 2 rounds it needs to be pushed back in. Not one of the finest revolvers around but it had a really interesting feature that you may like, given you either run or promote a website on vintage pistols. It had a primitive AD safety/transfer bar like device. Not a manual safety like a switch, but a safety where the hammer (which was a direct contact hammer) could not come all the way down without the trigger being pulled. Just behind the trigger there is something that looks just like the mechanism glock uses in their triggers (although this one is behind it, not in the trigger) where without pulling the trigger, this would block the hammer from coming all the way down. I would not trust it though, given the hammer rides the primer when all the way down, but it appears to become operational when the hammer is cocked back part way. Not sure how well it works, but kind of cool to see such an old example of it.
 

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