.357 Loads in .38 casings

This maY have already been mentioned, but nobody should load this sort of thing.

Put together a few hundred rounds of this without clearly labeling it as DANGEROUS could cause catastrophic failure if someone using a light gun somehow wound up with them.

It will probably happen, believe it. Everyone dies, and there are always many personal assets that wind up in the hands of others.
 
Had a guy in the LGS who had followed this practice, he had some of the ammo stolen from his truck and ended up being sued by the thief. He said he won but he had to get an attorney that I'm sure cost more than a lifetime supply of 357 brass would.
Now I never checked court records and this could have been BS, but in today's litigation happy society it wouldn't surprise me.
 
Skeeter Skelton loaded the Thompson GC bullet to low end magnum performance in Special brass. He said he could get that free from his department, use it a few times and then relegate it to light target loads.

When the .357 was new and wonderful, Phil Sharpe showed The Same loads in "heavy frame" .38s as he did for .357 Magnum. Those loads would fry the circuitry of the average Internet Reloading Expert's computer.

But we are more careful, now.
 
The only time I have seen Special brass used for Magnum loads was when the 190 grain bullets were used. When loading them in the magnum cases they were too long for the cylinder on most Magnum chambered guns. To combat this they loaded them in a Special case. Note they were way too long to go into a Special cylinder. The bullet would stick out of one end, and the rim out of the other.
 
RES 45 said:
Bullet loaded in 38 special and 357 Mag. cases.
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Back in the 70's my dad would load his 357 with his cast 150ish gr SWC's in 38Spl cases long as RES45 described. They were not quite a magnum load but they were way beyond a 38Spl max load. He only had the Security Six 357 Mag so there was no worry about his loads ending up in a 38 pistol. The Security Six was the truck gun that stayed in the glovebox in the old farm truck.

When I started driving I drove the old farm truck and started shooting that gun a lot. I continued the loading practice as the SWC's were very accurate loads. With full powered 357MAG loads the gun was not as accurate. I shot more mouse fart 100gr lead CN in that gun than anything else but we always kept SWC's in it.
 
This is why we don't like to shoot other's handloads. What happens if the loader meets his/her untimely demise & those hot loaded 38 rounds sit on the shelf? Then after a year of heavy grieving, relatives decide to liquidate some of the ammo.

Some unsuspecting chap may end up on the wrong side of a hot '38 Spcl' load. I just load cases to what the average gun in that chambering can safely support. Yes, there are a few ways to tweak around the edges. It doesn't seem that hard to use the correctly stamped cases, for MOST cartridges.
 
Mavracer, sourdough, you have the bottom line right there, imo. Loading a standard product with potentially dangerous contents is one step away from catastrophe.

When I loaded +p ammo for my .38, I used +p brass. All of these sloppy practices that some people do, for example, storing their vicodin in an aspirin bottle or Drano in a beer bottle are dangerous.

It would be my luck to have someone steal my ammo and be blinded.
 
As others have mentioned, there is a way to safely load to mid 357 levels using 38 brass and a projectile that can be seated long. It is every bit as viable as Ruger only 45 colt loads.

With that being said, I have toyed with it myself and decided against it because of the safety concerns raised by others. I do flirt with +p levels at certain times, for specific reasons. I have a notebook with simple instructions in layman's terms at my reloading bench. Should something happen to me, my guns are in my son's care to distribute and he knows to check "the instructions." It sounds silly but Ruger only 45 loads prompted me to do this.

My personal discomfort with 357 levels in 38 cases stems from how common both rounds are. 45 colt is much more obscure, and folks shooting this cartridge are much more likely to be aware of the stout loads. 38/357 is frequented by novices, is more common, and there is always that remote chance that your loads could end up somewhere else.

YMMV, but I wouldn't say its a strict taboo. Just make sure to adequately mark the rounds and seat long enough that they MIGHT would lock up an old, shorter 38 cylinder.
 
There was a guy who talked about making "self destruct" loads to kill or maim anyone who acquired his property without going through proper channels. Picture a magnum rifle with bullseye and super glue.

That seemed to be really unwise.
 
A friend did that. Left out a cheap revolver stoked with overloads. Or said he did. If so, I wonder what happened to that Iver Johnson with the compressed charges of Bullseye after he passed away.
 
I hope that the thing wasn't loaded if it was eventually passed on. You don't usually see them available with ammo inside unless it's bought by someone who only needs six rounds anyway.
 
Funny how TheLastGoodFight just dropped off the radar and never replied to my question:

The reason you weren't able to reach the crimp groove of the bullet wasn't because you were putting the powder charge weight of a .357 Magnum load into a .38 Special case, was it?
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Don
 
It happened to me.

Can't get the pic to up load.


My dad had a 3" Smith and Wesson 624, 44 special, Lew Horton. My mom and I decided to remove all ammo from the house. One year later I bought a Bulldog. ON the first outing, I was shooting his reloads. About round # 75, the gun blew into pieces. No top strap and half the cylinder left. I had found some hot reloads for the 624. I now have the 624 in beautiful shape.

Charter replaced my Bulldog free of charge even after I told them what I did.

David
 
I have about a pound or so of ammo sitting in a box, waiting for a trip to the hazmat recycle place. Anything I find loose on a range comes home and goes into it. some things that I find around the house that I can't remember or identify. I once dumped a whole box of loaded ammo that I had questions about. a friend once gave me a box of ammo that came from another friend and so forth, unidentified and mixed headstamps and bullets.

Nahh, I'm not so poor that I am willing to pick up a round of 9mm off of the ground and load it into my gun and fire it. there isn't any reason to assume that any random piece of ammo provided from an unknown source will be safe to use in any given firearm.

As I have said before, how many of you would take a drink out of that half empty bottle of tequila that you found at the bus stop? I don't think that it's all that much different from picking up a half empty box of shotshells.

A person I worked with once found a perfectly good cooler on a sidewalk near a park. "hot dog!" he shouted, and picked it up. Coolers used to cost a whole lot more than they do know.

Oh, boy, he said, something in it rolled around and thumped when he picked it up. "BEER!" he said to himself. when he opened it, there was a head in it. A big ugly dog's head. Somebody had dumped a rotting dog's head in the cooler and set it out to be found. Must have been really entertaining to watch it as it happened.
 
I have about a pound or so of ammo sitting in a box, waiting for a trip to the hazmat recycle place. Anything I find loose on a range comes home and goes into it. some things that I find around the house that I can't remember or identify. I once dumped a whole box of loaded ammo that I had questions about. a friend once gave me a box of ammo that came from another friend and so forth, unidentified and mixed headstamps and bullets.
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Jeez, briandg, they do have this new fangled contraption called a bullet puller.
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/215517/frankford-arsenal-impact-bullet-puller
You end up dumping the powder (makes great lawn fertilizer), but saving the case, primer and bullet.

Don
 
Why? It's not like I am so poor that I have to salvage the lead and brass, and getting out a kinetic puller and aggravating my shoulder isn't worth a box of brass or lead. If I had 100 rounds of .44 magnum, that would by worth it. I stripped a couple pounds of shot from a bag of mixed shells that a relative dumped on me. Just last month a couple rounds of .308 were lying under the bench where I go. It's privately owned, very few members. I usually clean up when I'm through. Pull old targets, collect trash, collect empty hulls, there are always live rounds somewhere. Pulling these things isn't worth the time just to get a few grains of melting lead and a random piece of brass from God knows where.

The time I dumped a bunch of 9mm handloaded I had a good reason. They were at least twenty years old, lead, wouldn't feed properly in my glock, and were military brass. I didn't want to shoot them, I didn't want the brass, and a pound of lead wasn't worth a half hour of work. I didn't even think that it was a good idea to salvage the primed brass for scrap.

I'm just different. I found a twelve pack of beer of unidentified age and unidentified source in a cooler a few years ago, I didnt remember buying it. I'd like to say that I left it on the street corner for the local booze hounds, but I popped the tops and put it into the recycle bin. If I had set it on the corner it would have been gone before morning.
 
Not a good idea to load 38s to Magnum levels. What if someone put one in a 38 spl gun? C'mon get the right casings for your application.
 
If you are loading 38 special cases to use in your 357 and you are certain that they won't inadvertently get used in a 38 (you don't own a 38 and don't let others use your loads) then there is no reason you cannot load 38 cases to pressures that approach 357 loads.
This is not the same as using a 357 load in the smaller 38 case as doing so will produce pressures well above 357 pressures. I have loaded a 38 case with a 115 grain bullet and 14 grains of H110 powder, This load produces pressures slightly below maximum 357 levels in the 38 case. The load is accurate from my Ruger 357 and the performance is very close to 357 level loads. At that pressure level it is possible for the rounds to ring the chamber at the case length in the cylinder if used often. Since the rounds I made are special purpose rounds they rarely get used so I have no problem with their occasional use.

To find the load I used a mid power load for the 357 and reduced it by the difference in internal volume of the two cases. There were certain assumptions made in my process. The volume considered was the volume of the case taken up by the bullet assuming that the bottom part of the two cases were close to identical. That left the additional length of the 357 case was used as the height for the volume and the area of the bullet (inside area of the case) times the height was the volume difference in powder charges I then used data for the bullet weight rounded UP to the closest bullet weight compared to the 115 grain bullet, a 125 grain bullet. Since the bullet that I had modified started out as a 125 grain bullet it would take up the same amount of space in the case when seated to the crimp groove. The two dangers I had to avoid were a charge of H110 that was too light and would cause squib loads and a charge that was too heavy and would cause over pressure. I got the 14 grains purely from the math and it turned out to be a safe load in my gun. After testing the load I kept the remaining rounds to use when they were needed. The rounds are in a special marked box and kept with my other 357 loads but separated by distinct labeling and warning label. I will say that H110 is a very good powder to use for this kind of experiment because it comes very close to filling the case with a "proper" load. Too much powder would likely cause a compressed charge which would be a signal that something was very wrong without having to fire the round. Too light a charge would also be a flag that would warn of a possible squib load. When doing this kind of "comparative" load workup you must be middle of the road conservative both in the numbers you use and your expectations of the end result. You will never get the same velocity at the same pressure with a smaller case. It doesn't hold the same amount of powder to get the same pressure/time curve required to get the same velocity.

There are many reasons not to take on this kind of loading and very few good reasons to do it. In the end it is your gun, your ammunition and your RISK. Whatever you decide do your best to use safe practices which might include tying the gun to a tree and pulling the trigger with a string from a safe distance for the first few rounds.
 
Not a good idea to load 38s to Magnum levels. What if someone put one in a 38 spl gun? C'mon get the right casings for your application.
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Yes, it does defeat the whole purpose of putting hotter loads (38 Spl vs 357 Mag) in longer cases, so Bubba cannot shoot rounds that are more than the gun design can handle.
 
Well, before I got on the web, I safely used 38 Special brass for light to medium 357 level loads, over +P 38 Special (I rarely have loads near max. If I need more power than my 357 loads, I'll go to my 44 Magnums). Yes, if you are using a bulky slow powder in the smaller case you may encounter compressed loads and higher velocities and pressures, and I don't think I'd try max. 357 loads in 38 brass' smaller capacity. I was aware of that so never went near Magnum charges in Special brass. Now since I've been on line in forums, I learned I can't do that...:confused:
 
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