Does .38 give you grief in your .357 revolvers?

S

Sevens

New member
Started with a 686 in 1989, same year I started handloading. Shot a lot of .38 Special in those days and just a bit of factory .357 Magnum. My ammo was probably half Black Hills re-man 158gr LSWC and half .38 Special handloads running Green Dot behind a 158gr swaged Speer soft lead bullet that I rolled myself. A few hundred factory .357 Magnum JSP or JHP.

That was two and a half decades in the past. Since that time I have compiled more than a handful of revolvers and in different chamberings and from different manufacturers. But the bottom line is across a -DOZEN- different .357 Magnum revolvers -- I have been happily shooting piles of both .38 Special and .357 Magnum ammo. Tens of thousands is absolutely no stretch.

I don't do a lot of cast lead these days and I don't do -ANY- soft swaged lead. A lot of plated and a lot of jacketed in both .38 Special and in .357 Magnum.

Bottom line and purpose of my post:
--I do not have problems chambering .357 Magnum ammo in any of these guns.
--I shoot -PILES- of .38 Special from all of these guns.
--I shoot a significant volume of .357 also, but not as much as .38


I have been hearing and reading for YEARS of the big annoyance of .38 crud making .357 ammo a problem to load and chamber. Reloading forums are scattered with guys who craft .38-level ammo in .357 brass because they fear the crud. I've got a new(ish) shooting buddy that JUST bought his first .357 Magnum (a 6-inch Model 686+) and he hadn't even picked it up from the FFL before work pal instructs him to avoid shooting .38 Special in it lest he be faced with the evil .38 Special chamber crud that will ruin his shooting experience.

PLEASE UNDERSTAND!
I wouldn't even half-way attempt to suggest that *ANYONE'S* negative experience and hands-on observations are not correct. Certainly -- there are many variables here. Ammo, chamber dimensions and God knows what else.

But my experience is not two kinds of ammo and 125 rounds in three weeks of gun ownership here. I'm talking a dozen or more magnum revolvers and a slew of brands. And a larger variety of ammo across many bullet weights, types, different propellents and lord knows what else. I'm talking S&W, Ruger, Colt, Taurus, Dan Wesson. And just for good measure, I'm talking over a thousand rounds of .38 Special with the 10-lb factory supplied alternate recoil spring and over a thousand rounds of full-nuts .357 Magnum through my Coonan semi-automatic.

All of this with the same bottom line:
No problem, man. No hassles. No troubles. Just a bunch of fun shooting and a POA that differs in elevation due to the radically different rounds I'm shooting.

What is your experience?
Does shooting .38 Special in your revolver make it difficult to chamber .357 ammo later?
 
My experience is similar to yours, and I never had a real problem with loading .357's. Sometimes they do require an extra push after firing a lot of .38 Special wadcutters, but they always seat. My experience has been with only a few revolvers, though, so I cannot speak for everyone or every gun.

Jim
 
No.

Like you, I've never had it happen. Then again I usually stick with jacketed ammo and clean by chambers and barrels often.
 
In short, my wife, kid's, grandkid's and I shoot a lot of .38 spl and .357 mag
through each of our guns with never a problem. We shoot loads that barely
pop in our .357 mag using 38 spl and shoot full load .357 mag again
with never a problem.
 
Shooting .38specials:

Does it make it difficult to chamber .357?

They leave carbon rings, especially when the kids shot several hundred through it.

I don't remember it being hard to chamber the .357's ..... but they were a PITA to clean off.
 
The big annoyance of .38 crud is that it's lube gunk from cast bullets, not jacketed. Factory cast/swaged usually don't use the wax/grease lube. However, there's nothing to fear about it. It comes right out with a .45 calibre brush. Loading .357 brass to .38 velocities just makes it go away altogether.
Sounds like your buddy ran into some guy who was trained on Wikipedia. Mind you, if the FNG's don't get told this kind of stuff, we'd be inundated with questions about "I can't load my .357.".
 
If you clean the chambers after shooting then no problem. However, my testing reveals a slight drop in velocity and accuracy when shooting 38s from Magnum chambers. I suspect it's the long jump the bullet makes before engaging the rifling.

I have plenty of 38s so if I want to shoot 38 ammo I use them rather than my 357s. They are fed only Magnum ammo. Just me.
 
I have had the problem, although it wasn't much of an issue at all, bit I would get a ring of lead/crud(whatever it is) that you could feel when sliding in a 357, you would have to give it a little push to het over the hump. This was only when using my own cast and aloxed bullets. I do not have the issue since starting powdercoat. It never bothered me much, being just the cylinder, I would just chuck a 40cal brush in a cordless drill and let loose on the cylinder til clean.
 
Okay, I should back-up just a tad...we do swab the cylinders now and then
with a bronze brush, but as far as shooting for accuracy...NOPE, we're just
out there for a good family time, just like my user name implies.
 
I just clean my chambers until a .357 round drops in and out easily. When shooting, don't mix the calibers, or shoot the .357 first so you don't have to worry about .38s creating a carbon deposit that the longer .357 case will contact. Same deal when shooting .44 mag and .44 spl.
 
"When shooting, don't mix the calibers, or shoot the .357 first ..."

I think the OP's point, and mine, is that there is no reason for those kinds of precautions.

Jim
 
I shoot a ton of 38s in 357 revolvers and never have a problem with the longer cases sticking. I exclusively shoot lead and run a brush through the cylinders on a regular basis.
 
The grief comes after firing lots of .38s and then firing a round of 357s. Case got stuck. Had to beat it out with a wood dowell. Only happened to me once though.
 
I have never heard anyone attribute such a badly stuck case to chamber crud; I suspect there was some other problem involved in that situation, not just firing a .38 Special in a chamber where .357 had been fired.

Jim
 
I think if you clean the gun after each use, its not an issue. Dont clean it for awhile, and it can be.

For some reason, Ive been having leading issues with shooting my .38's in my 357's, even when loaded at .38 lead velocities. I dont have the problem with the same loads in my .38's. Kind of strange. Anymore, I just shoot .357's out of the .357's, and .38's, out of the .38's. Problem solved.
 
The grief comes after firing lots of .38s and then firing a round of 357s.
Click to expand...

^^ This. ^^

I solved the problem by shooting 38's in my K-frame M67 38 Special; then if I want to shoot 357's, I reach for one of my L-frames.
 
It probably sounds worse than it was. I did have to insert a wood dowel to remove it but did not have to use a mallet. After a cleaning the same case went right in, but could not be removed by the ejector rod when it was fired. Strange situation.
 
You know, come to think of it about 30 years ago I bought a Colt Officers Model Target 22 and the previous owner apparently fired a lot of 22 Shorts in it and never cleaned the chambers. Visible ring of material in chambers prevented Long Rifle ammo from chambering. Took some scrubbing as it was really caked in there solidly.
 
One cheat to help take those carbon rings out: take a nickel plated .357 case, chamfer the case mouth, and bell it just big enough to fit the chamber tightly .....
 
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