Can I shoot .38 Short Colt in a .38 S&W CHAMBERED revolver?

[TruthTellers]

First off I'm talking about the cartridge called .38 S&W, not a .38 Special S&W revolver. They are two different things, feel free to look them up.

Okay now that that's taken care of, I've been having this odd desire to own a .38 S&W top break revolver because top breaks are cool and .38 is the biggest caliber I can get a DA top break revolver in if we exclude the .455 Webley.

Thing is, I have a .38 Spec revolver and I wouldn't mind shooting .38 Short Colt in it from time to time, so I figure if I'm going to reload for .38 S&W or .38 Short Colt I may as well only do it for Short Colt if they will work in a .38 S&W revolver.

I've read that .38 S&W revolvers the US sold to the UK during WW2 were brought back after the war and sold in stores. Quite a few of them had the cylinders bored to chamber the longer .38 Special, which was rapidly increasing in popularity, but there are some differences between the two cases; the .38 S&W is ever so slightly larger in diameter than the .38 Special. This can lead to budged cases and tough extraction.

Since the .38 Short Colt is lower pressure, does anyone here think they'll have similar issues? Might this be worth making some sort of "sleeve" I could put over the .38 Short Colt cases to add metal and help prevent bulging?

 

[EddieCoyle]

You can shoot it, but there's a whole bunch of reasons it's a bad idea.

You might ruin the cases for reloading. They're going to expand to fill the chamber regardless of how light you load them. A sleeve won't work.

The 38 SC bullets are going to be undersized for 38 S&W, so accuracy will be poor.

With undersized bullets, you'll quickly get pretty severe barrel leading if you shoot cast lead.

There's plenty of 38 S&W brass around. Why not just load it?

 

[NavelOfficer]

Like EC says, just load the .38 S&W.
It's easy enough to purchase cast bullets sized to .361 for .38 S&W.
In fact my Lee 356-120 TC mold drops them just about at that size, so they can be run as dropped.
I've got at least 150 pieces of .38 S&W brass, so come down and we can load for the .38 S&W and forget all the other improvisations.
Firing range onsite.

 

[TruthTellers]

It's too bad nobody ever made any top break revolvers in .38 Short Colt.

I figured as much with the cases expanding, but I've been reading from other places on the internet that they've slugged their .38 S&W chambered revolvers bores and found them to be same as .38 Special- .358".

I don't plan on shooting any .38 S&W I own too often, so I guess I can swallow paying for dies, brass, and bullets to feed the gun.

Now, different question: Most of the .38 S&W revolvers I see that are top breaks look like they were made for black powder loads. Black powder is tough to get for me right now, but I have Pyrodex FFFg equivalent. Is it okay to use Pyrodex?

 

[EddieCoyle]

You can use black powder (Goex), or any of the subsitutes (Pyrodex, 777) , or Blackhorn 209 if you don't like cleaning.

Just make sure you put in enough powder so that you're compressing the powder charge when you seat the bullet. There should be no airspace at all inside a BP cartridge.

PM The Goose. He's got lots of experience loading BP cartridges.

 

[gerrycaruso]

Why do you exclude the .455 Webley? I load for a Colt New Service in that caliber and The Goose loads for Webley revolvers in that caliber. If you contact him to ask about loading black powder cartridges, ask him where he got those Webley revolvers.

 

[TruthTellers]

I excluded the .455 Webley because a lot of the Webley's here in the US were cut to use .45 ACP in clips. Could I find an uncut .455 Webley out there? Yes, but it's just easier to find a nice .38 S&W, buy dies, are reload it and if I happen to see other nice .38 S&W revolvers out there, I'm already set up for it.

Getting into .455 just doesn't have any appeal to me.

 

[tshomos]

You can shoot it, but there's a whole bunch of reasons it's a bad idea.

You might ruin the cases for reloading. They're going to expand to fill the chamber regardless of how light you load them. A sleeve won't work.

The 38 SC bullets are going to be undersized for 38 S&W, so accuracy will be poor.

With undersized bullets, you'll quickly get pretty severe barrel leading if you shoot cast lead.

There's plenty of 38 S&W brass around. Why not just load it?

I am amazed at how much knowledge you have about reloading. I've only been reloading for a few years and have to make time to go to your classes. I have made several mistakes in reloading some of my ammunition and have no idea why but have been lucky to have no injuries or damage to my firearms. Do you offer private classes or just group classes.

 

[The Goose]

I load .38 S&W, .38 Short & Long Colt. I would never shoot a .38 Short Colt in a .38 S&W revolver for all of the reasons Eddie Coyle mentioned. And I am pretty daring about antique black powder cartridge loading. Black powder and soft lead are forgiving compared to smokeless, but those two are pretty different. Stay with black powder or substitute, Pyrodex 3f should be fine. I have an old H&R breaktop .38 S&W. The particular model started production in the 1880's and ran up into the 1930's. At some point it transitioned from black powder to smokeless. My gun was made around the turn of the century and was made for black powder. However, one could easily mistake it and use a modern smokeless load which I believe could be disastrous. Be safe.

As a side note I also load for and shoot two Webley .476/.455 breaktops, a Pryse and a WG. Also a Belgian 44/40 and a .44 Russian that are copies of early S&W's. The Webleys are really good shooters, accurate and fun. The .38's are belly guns with horrific triggers and small or non existent sights. I shoot them, but they do not group they pattern. LOL.

 

[TruthTellers]

I load .38 S&W, .38 Short & Long Colt. I would never shoot a .38 Short Colt in a .38 S&W revolver for all of the reasons Eddie Coyle mentioned. And I am pretty daring about antique black powder cartridge loading. Black powder and soft lead are forgiving compared to smokeless, but those two are pretty different. Stay with black powder or substitute, Pyrodex 3f should be fine. I have an old H&R breaktop .38 S&W. The particular model started production in the 1880's and ran up into the 1930's. At some point it transitioned from black powder to smokeless. My gun was made around the turn of the century and was made for black powder. However, one could easily mistake it and use a modern smokeless load which I believe could be disastrous. Be safe.

As a side note I also load for and shoot two Webley .476/.455 breaktops, a Pryse and a WG. Also a Belgian 44/40 and a .44 Russian that are copies of early S&W's. The Webleys are really good shooters, accurate and fun. The .38's are belly guns with horrific triggers and small or non existent sights. I shoot them, but they do not group they pattern. LOL.

I've been thinking that because it's difficult to find a smokeless rated .38 top break that I'd be better off using black or a substitute black powder for reloading whether the revolver is rated for smokeless or not.

Alright, I'm fine with not using .38 Short in a .38 S&W. It really sucks that nobody back in the 1800's thought to make a top break in .38 Short Colt because they probably would have proved popular given that the .38 Colts could also be used in .38 Special chambered revolvers. It's almost as though the .38 Short Colt was created for no particular reason because almost no guns seem to have ever been chambered specifically for the Short Colt.

As for triggers, I can't speak to the .38 S&W's, but I own a .32 H&R break top and from a rested position, I can get a 1-2 inch group out to 15 yards with the skinny fixed sights and regularly hit a plate the size of a torso out to 50 yards. I don't find the trigger to be all that bad for the age and size of the revolver, but it is a 6 shot and I've noticed that the less the capacity a revolver has, the longer and heavy the trigger pull is. I want to assume that this is due to the hand having to rotate the cylinder more than if it were a 6, 7, or even 8 round cylinder.

So, not saying that the triggers are good or bad, just saying I don't find the .32 H&R to be exceptionally bad.

 

[The Goose]

It's almost as though the .38 Short Colt was created for no particular reason because almost no guns seem to have ever been chambered specifically for the Short Colt.

Actually the .38 Short Colt was produced for a particular revolver. The 1851 Colts that were converted from percussion to cartridge. The original .38 Short Colt had a heeled .375 bullet designed to fit the .36 barrel. The .38 Long Colt came along in 1875 and the .38 Special in 1898 ultimately followed by the .357 magnum. So the .38 Short Colt was the parent case of that line. At some point the .38 Short Colt began to be loaded with a conventional grease groove .358 bullet. Today with conversion cylinders readily available for 1851 repros this creates a problem as the bore of those repros is too large for the standard .38 bullet.

 

[TruthTellers]

Actually the .38 Short Colt was produced for a particular revolver. The 1851 Colts that were converted from percussion to cartridge. The original .38 Short Colt had a heeled .375 bullet designed to fit the .36 barrel. The .38 Long Colt came along in 1875 and the .38 Special in 1898 ultimately followed by the .357 magnum. So the .38 Short Colt was the parent case of that line. At some point the .38 Short Colt began to be loaded with a conventional grease groove .358 bullet. Today with conversion cylinders readily available for 1851 repros this creates a problem as the bore of those repros is too large for the standard .38 bullet.

So I take it back when the .38 Short was a heeled bullet, it was also longer than what we typically see today?

Believe me, I'm aware of the oversize bore of the 1851 Navy revolvers. The reason I said it seems the .38 Short Colt was "created for no particular reason" is that I see so many conversion cylinders for the '51 Navy repros that are chambered for .38 LONG Colt and I'm assuming that Long Colt was probably capable of fitting in the '51 conversions back in the 19th Century.

 

[The Goose]

I do not believe that the original .38 Short Colt was any longer in either case length or oal.. Despite the cylinder being capable of a longer case they went with the short. Go figure.