Trivia: Why is .38 Special called that?

CarbineCaleb

New member
Hi - just curious why the .38 Special is called that? My understanding is that the bullet diameter is actually the same as the .357 magnum, so, why wasn't it called the .357 Special, or .36 Special if people didn't like that many digits? :confused:
 
The 38 Special Is Called That Because All Of The Original 38 Cartridges

Were heeled bullets with the same OD as the case:ie .38+- in diameter.
The first of the cartridges with the full bullet diameter inside the case, the 44 RUSSIAN, was still called 44 though it is in truth a .43 diameter bullet.
 
Like the bullet in a .22 lr (which are still heeled), it has a reduced-circumference butt that fits into the case. On the older .38-cal rounds, that reduced 'heel' section was .357. The modern ".38" came from just extending that circumference the full length of the bullet and reducing the barrel (and chamber mouths) accordingly.

But what .38 round did this first? Weren't the .38 short and long colts already really .357's?
 
"Weren't the .38 short and long colts already really .357's?"

Maybe, maybe not.

I've at least one example of a .38 Short Colt in my collection that has a heeled bullet. I also have a .41 Short Colt and a .41 Long Colt, both of which have heeled bullets.

The .38 Long Colt, I don't know if it was ever offered with a heeled bullet, but given the time when it was introduced (around 1877), it's very possible.

Smith & Wesson was, I believe, the first manufacturer to employ non-heeled bullets in their new cartridge designs. The Russians insisted on non-heeled bullets when S&W developed what would become the .44 Russian cartridge in the late 1860s/early 1870s.

This period was one of HUGE transitions in the development of cartridges.

The best way to explain it, though, is that the naming of cartridges in the US has never been an exact science; and has always had a lot of marketing driven considerations attached to it.
 
.38 Long Colt as used by the US Government in the 1890s then had an outside lubricated heel bullet of nearly .38" diameter.
Colt realized S&W had the better design and around 1905 dropped it in new small frame guns and chambered for .38 S&W but called it .38 New Police or .38 Police Positive and had ammo loaded with flat pointed bullets for brand identity. They did the same thing for their larger guns and sold .38 Colt Special which was the same as .38 S&W Special except for bullet shape.

.38 Long Colt ammo continued in production for the old guns but was eventually converted to inside lubrication and a hollowbase bullet to expand into the rifling. Probably about the time they went to smokeless powder.
.41 Long Colt went the same way.

The .38 Special was **special** because it had an 8 grain heavier bullet and 3 grains more black powder than the .38 Long Colt when introduced as early as 1899. Woo, woo. Plus the advantage of inside lubed bullets.
 
Jim--does 'inside' lubed mean 'inside' an integrated lube groove, rather than whatever arrangement the heeled bullets had? Would they have been basically lubed around the heel?

Keith lays it out this way: Colt used the heeled bullets in both .38 and .41 in the 1877 'Lightning' and 'Thunderer'. Dan Wesson used the 'inside lubricated' (non-heeled) .36 cal bullet in the .38 S&W, which came out in 1880. (Sixguns, p. 29)
 
Inside lubed means the lube grooves are seated down inside of the case to keep the lube clean.
Outside lube, like a .22 rimfire, have the lube smeared over the entire bullet. A heeled bullet didn't have any lube grooves.
 
I saw a tshirt or bumper sticker once that said, "Nobody Ever Raped A .38".

I guess if having one on her prevented a woman from being raped, it would be mighty special to her!
 
Jim,

I'll have to look when I get home this evening (got home from vacation last night), but I have a .38 Long Colt in my collection loaded at Frankford Arsenal around 1898, and I'm about 99.5% certain it has an inside lubricated bullet.

"Colt realized S&W had the better design and around 1905 dropped it in new small frame guns and chambered for .38 S&W but called it .38 New Police or .38 Police Positive and had ammo loaded with flat pointed bullets for brand identity."

The .38 Colt New Police used a 146-gr. flat point bullet, the same as Smith & Wesson.

The .38 Colt Super Police was the .38 S&W casing, but employed a 200-gr. flat nose bullet. This loading was highly respected as a man stopper in its day, and in fact served as the inspiration for Britains .380/200 military cartridge.

Colt also copied the .32 S&W Long, renaming it the .32 Colt New Police, again with a flat-point bullet. As far as I know they never offered a .32 Super Police with a heavier bullet, as the .32 was well on its way out of favor with police.
 
As other forum writters said the .38 Special is called .38 because the old .38 Long Colt, the measurement of the .38 Long Colt was .375 and .375 with two decimals would be .38.
At that time the measurement of the holes of cylinder and barrel was the same because they used the same machine for making the holes in the cylinder and barrel.
The .38 special was an improvement of the .38 Long Colt.

Anibal.
Forgive my bad English
 
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