Anyone know what this round is?

G

Gambani

Inactive
Found this in a box with my recently passed grandfathers 1955 S&W .38, but its bigger than a .38 and I can't find anything similar except the winchester made henry .44 rimfire. And this is definitely not a .44. These pics are a comparison between my .357 ammo and the antique bullet. You guys got any ideas what it may be?

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What is the case diameter? It certainly looks like a .38 Rimfire, a very common cartridge in the old days. That one was made by Winchester.

Jim
 
Bigger than a .38? .41 Rimfire, .41 Swiss, or .42 Allen?
Click to expand...

.41 Swiss would be larger and has a bottle necked case so thats out. Im also pretty sure that the .41 rimfire round is about half the length of the one pictured if I remember correctly. I'm going to go with Jim and assume its a .38RF.
 
If it is the .38 Long RF, the case and rim diameters are the same (within tolerances) as the .38 Special/.357 Magnum. When Colt went to CF cartridges, they just made their CF .32 and .38 the same size as the RF rounds, saving the cost of changing their barrel and cylinder tooling. The .38 size carried over from the .38 Short Colt to the .38 Long Colt to the .38 Army service round to the .38 Special. While the .38 Special was an S&W development, they used the same case diameter as the service cartridge because they wanted to sell their gun to the Army.

Jim
 
looks like it might have a heel-based bullet, if that makes a difference?

I'm not familiar with any of the rimfires, other than I've seen one type of .41, and like mentioned earlier, it was considerably shorter than that one. I've never seen a .41 long rf. I need to study more...:rolleyes:
 
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