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

38 special vs 357 mag

I my experience, I have found that indeed I have trouble using 38's then 357's.
However, when I fire 357's first then 38's I don't have the trouble you describe.
My good friend explained that the slightly longer casing of the 357 is what made the difference( I hope I got this right).
I hope this helps.
 
The only down side to 38s I have ever had was that my Coonan will only feed the heavier bullets such as 158 grain if its not +P it feeds +P very well with the 10LBS spring.
 
I have never had trouble, but I always scrub out the chambers carefully after every shooting session.

I did once purchase a used 32 H&R magnum that someone had apparently fired a lot of shorter ammo through without cleaning it properly. The magnums stuck in it the first time I took it to the range. It was fine after I spent some time scrubbing it.
 
I've never had much issue with it and I've fired nothing but 38's in any of my 357's for years. Almost all of them were lead bullets too. I don't make any special efforts toward cleaning either. Just your normal couple of passes with a brush and patch.

Now I don't shoot a lot of 357's but when I have, I've never had any issue with them.
 
had that issue long ago, when I 1st started shooting ( I had a stainless GP-100 ) & FIL was loading practice ammo for me... warmer loaded soft swaged lead bullets in 38 Special cases, loaded with Unique powder... they made 357 hard to chamber... I've not really noticed it since I started loading myself, using hard cast bullets, & a powder that meters better than the flake powders like unique...

I suspect the rings while normally called "carbon rings" are probably a combination of lead, lube residue, & carbon from dirtier powders like Unique...

I've shot a whole season ( well over 1000 rounds ) of CAS loading 38 special ( hard cast 138 grain bullets in front of Trailboss ) in a pair of Vaqueros & a Rossi lever action, with only superficial cleaning, & been able to chamber 357's without having to scrub the chambers... so I suspect it's more a combination of your components, than a blanket statement about the 38 special rounds
 
I've had at least one 357/38 since I started shooting as a 14 year old kid. I can't remember any times where this has been a problem. I mix and match 38s and 357s in guns quite a bit.

Not saying is doesn't happen. I've helped a guy that was having the issue. He had been shooting "gun show reloads" which used cast lead bullets. He was having issues putting factory 357 in one of the chambers. (He was FREAKING out, I loaned him a pistol rod and a bronze brush, fixed the problem with a couple of strokes) But, I shoot cast lead bullets all the time - no observed problems.

I can't, for the life of me, figure out why if someone was having an issue loading a live round, they wouldn't stop and look to see what was going on.

As far as people, the internet and statistics go... 98% of all numbers quoted on the internet are made up. :D
 
that reminded me... I have a buddy I was teaching to reload, & we were working on 357 loads... went out to test them, & couldn't get any of them in his Taurus revolver... turned out all he had been shooting in that gun for the last year was store bought 38 special cowboy loads... not sure what brand, but we had to clean all the chambers before we could even get one case in 357 to insert fully

... & 9 out of 7 people today have trouble with fractions
 
jimbob86 said:
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 .....
Click to expand...

I keep a couple of belled .357 cases in my cleaning box; they work like a charm popping crud rings out of chambers.
 
There isn't a gun out there that won't give you problems when it needs to be cleaned.

Not one.

Crud from .38s making .357 stick? Congratulations, you just discovered the point that your gun needs to be cleaned. That's all.

Never personally had it happen with anything other than a .22RF in over 45 years of shooting. But I know of cases where it has happened. Rare cases, and every one simply needed cleaning and the issue went away.

It can happen, and sometimes, does, but the real issue is the people who think that it will happen every time you shoot .38s in a .357.

It might actually have been an issue back in the days when virtually all factory .38s had lead bullets. Soft lead bullets, usually. Might have been an issues when ammo loaded with black powder was still reasonably common. I can't say.
 
I've been shooting 38s in 357 revolvers, with cast bullets, since 1978. Many tens of thousands. And never ever had any trouble chambering 357s afterwards.

But you see, I do clean my guns. :eek:
 
If this little window of experience reporting is representative of the larger group, it seems at this point to be more of an old wives tale than a genuine problem -- perhaps having some truth at it's earliest days and that truth seems less and less relevant here in the year 2015.

That handloaders avoid this planet chock full of fine .38 Special brass and only wish to use .357 brass no matter the strength of their load simply because of that is... well, amusing, I guess.
 
I shoot both cartridges in a Colt Trooper MK III and a S & W Model 327 performance center. I have never encountered such a problem.
 
Despite reading about it for years,,,

Despite reading about it for years,,,
I've never experienced it myself.

I've never had the problem with .22 shorts & .22 LR either.

Do you think it's because I clean my guns after every outing?

Aarond

.
 
Chuck a brush dipped in solvent into a drill and hit each chamber for 5 seconds. Mirror bright and clean.

And yes, I clean my gun after EVERY session. 1 round or 500. The gun gets cleaned.
 
it seems at this point to be more of an old wives tale than a genuine problem -- perhaps having some truth at it's earliest days and that truth seems less and less relevant here in the year 2015.
Click to expand...

I'd say that pretty much covers it.

Nobody is saying it can't happen, but when you get a couple dozen guys with something like a above a couple hundred years of shooting experience between them, and they have rarely seen it, I'd say its not a serious problem.

If you are shooting anything that leaves enough crud so that ammo sticks, its not a flaw or a defect, its just time to clean the gun.
 
All I can relate is my own experience.

I shoot mostly .357 & just download to a .38 power level to get a milder round mostly. But I did get a bunch of mixed .38 Spl, some jacketed, some plated & some lead. I fired them off as I had them & just cleaned normally. I had no problems. Total round count was probably 1,000 or so.

My normal cleaning is not really heavy duty, just solvent, brush & patch out & oik for storage. I remove the oil from the chambers before use.
 
I've never had the problem with .22 shorts & .22 LR either.

Do you think it's because I clean my guns after every outing?
Click to expand...
Cleaning, if not done in an overzealous manner -- is always going to help that kind of thing. However, in the case of .22 S,L,LR it is definitely at least a bit different than centerfire because of the heeled bullet cartridge design. The bearing surface of the bullet in each of those is the same as the cartridge case itself.

On the other hand...
My shooting buddy has a Model 18 from 1958 and he has DETAIL cleaned and scrubbed the chambers and continues to have some chambering issues with certain different brands of ammo. I suspect this is because rimfire fodder has evolved and changed over time and these chambers were cut at the short end of tolerance back in the 50's. Some modern brands and versions have a slug that pushes the ogive further forward than what was being shipped back in the middle of the century.
 
Since the subj. is 38's in 357 Mag guns I can say in over 50 years of doing this I've had no problems. I clean after every session. Do this and you'll have no problems. Chamber crud, whether powder/primer residue and/or bullet lube or all the above is caused by not doing this.
 
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