Stupid Question of the Day: 9mm & .38 Special

[Mike Irwin]

Grayfox,

The old .38-44 HD rounds were smoking, no doubt about it, but they're really in the same range as today's .38 +P+ to lower-end .357 Mag.

However, the original .357 Mag. loadings were even HOTTER; 1600 to 1700 fps with a 158-gr. bullet out of an 8" barrel is SMOKING by any standards!

 

[C.R.Sam]

Fun thread.
Bout 72, did some playin with the 9mm Luger cause the Mod 39 and the HiPow were hitten the streets with LEOs. Found some of our notes from that time, we were doin penetration and function games.

9mm, 125gr, 1300 from mod 39 and 1325 from HiPow
9mm, 158gr, 961 from mod 39 only
.38spec, 150gr, 1380 from K frame 6"
.357mag, 150gr, 1617 from K frame 6"

Current Winchester table shows .357mag, 125gr at 1800.

Currently available from Cor-Bon
9mm+P, 125gr, 1250
.38spec+P, 125gr, 1125
.357mag, 125gr, 1450
.357mag, 200gr, 1200

Timing of revolvers is important.
Timing of revolvers with hot loads is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT.
If the timing is not spot on, the pressure goes up dramaticaly.



------------------
Sam I am, grn egs n packin

Nikita Khrushchev predicted confidently in a speech in Bucharest, Rumania on June 19, 1962 that: " The United States will eventually fly the Communist Red Flag...the American people will hoist it themselves."

 

[birdman]

Kframe, do you know if the cylinders on the S&W .38's receive the same "heat treating" as the .357's? regards, birdman

 

[DerGlockenpooper]

Truth be told, the .38 Special could be packed with a whole lot more powder and go a lot faster.
But, they made the .357 Mag.

Why did they make the .357 Mag case longer? Simply because they were afraid that idiots would put it in an old .38 and blow it up.

So, they made the cartridge longer to idiot-proof it. I resent that.

A .38 special could feasably be reduced to the size of a .380 and still perform as well, out of a gun with a much shorter cylindar (aka, more concealable gun).

I hate having to deal with second rate crap just because designers have to account for the idiots in the world.

 

[birdman]

I guess we could all buy 9MM revolvers and end up with basically the same thing. This more or less proves that the guns can take the extra pressure. regards, birdman

 

[Walt Welch]

Well, yes, we did some foolish things when we were young. Like heavily loading the .38 Spl.

Initially, the .38 Spl., .38-44, and .357 all had LARGE pistol primers! Obviously, the present versions of these cartridges are very different. (Until recently I had a few boxes of old large pistol primer .357 factory loads. Although they were marked 'non mercuric primer,' it was specifically stated on the box that the cases should not be reloaded!) Further, the .38-44 CARTRIDGE was loaded to higher pressures than the .38 S&W. This cartridge was intended specifically for the S&W .38-44 Heavy Duty Police Model and the S&W .38-44 Outdoorsman Model. The Outdoorsman was introduced first, on April 1, 1930. It was chambered for the .38 S&W Special (but obviously would also take .38-44 S&W Special, which was introduced a year later). The Police Model followed soon afterward.

Here is what 'Smith and Wesson Hand Guns' by Roy McHenry and Walter Roper (my source for the information above; first published in 1945) had to say about the .38-44 cartridge (p. 223):

The high-speed .38/44 S&W Special cartridge, designed in cooperation with Elmer Keith and Major W. Earl Witsil, Chief Ballistician of Remington Arms Company, and produced in 1931, was developed for this gun. It was the fore-runner of all modern high-speed .38 Specials--High-Way Patrol, Super-X, High-Velocity, etc./

It should be noted that other, much earlier and much weaker revolvers were termed .38/44; an example is the Model No. 3, .38-44 Single Action. This was essentially a .44 Caliber Single Action, New Model which was chambered in .38 S&W (NOT the .38-44 S&W Special or .38 S&W Special).

This was a target arm, built on a frame usually employed for a larger cartridge. The extra weight was thought to help accuracy. The .38-44 Model No. 3 fired .38/44 S&W Gallery and .38/44 S&W Target Cartridges. This revolver was manufactured from 1887 to 1910. It was a top break style revolver. Obviously, to fire a .38-44 S&W Special cartridge in one of these arms, if it would even fit in the shorter cylinder, would be disastrous.

Some early loading books (ca. 1957) had an extremely powerful .38 S&W Spl. load for the Lyman cast 358156-HP gas checked bullet. This load was carefully labeled as being for .38-44 revolvers only. A 1964 loading book from the same company has this load reduced by one grain of powder, and subsequent editions since 1973 have eliminated this powder in this cartridge altogether. Let the record show that if I did indeed assemble some of these 1957 loads (I will neither confirm nor deny this), I fired them in an N frame .357 S&W Magnum, not a .38 Spl.

It is not coincidental that more accurate methods of measuring chamber pressures occured during this time, and even more accurate measurements are possible (and becoming the norm) today.

I believe that it should be obvious from the above that hot loads in the .38 Spl. are possible; some reloading manuals even give data for +P loads, which are about 2,000 psi. over standard loads. It should be equally as obvious that to go beyond that is to court disaster.

Walt Welch