Dumb ammo question, .38sw & .38sp

[Shorts]

This has been on my mind since I read a post somewhere saying that .38sw shouldn't be used in a .38sp gun. I got to thinking, wondering why that comment bothered me. So ran upstairs and checked my .38 ammo....the boxes say ".38sw". Hmmm. I ordered my ammo from Sportsmans Guide and the online list said ".38sp", so I know I didn't screw that up. My invoice says ".38sp". So why did I get 5 boxes of .38sw?

Is there any risk to finishing up those boxes of ammo in my revolver? What is the difference in .38sw and .38sp? I have already shot through one box last week at the range, I just can't believe I didn't catch that earlier. The gun functioned fine and the only thing I noticed different was the punch of going to 158gr.

Can anyone shed some light for me please?

 

[Matthew]

Hi Shorts. The bullets designed for the .38 SW cartridge typically have a slightly larger bullet diameter(closer to .360) as opposed to the .38 Spl with a lead bullet of .358. Though one thing you said got me curious. The .38 SW cartridge is not loaded with 158gr. bullets, they should usually be 146gr. But, me personally, I wouldn't shoot them in the Spl gun. Are they shorter than a .38 spl? If they are .38 SW they should be.

 

[Jim Watson]

Because SG screwed up?

.38 S&W was brought out in 1876. It is shorter than most centerfires so as to work in their topbreak revolvers. But it is larger in bullet and brass diameter than .38 Special which is descended from .38 Long Colt.

SOME .38 S&W ammo will chamber and fire in SOME .38 Special revolvers, it just depends on manufacturing tolerances. If it goes in and the cylinder revolves freely, it isn't going to hurt anything on a sound Special gun, but it may not be very accurate and it sure won't be very powerful.

Call 'em up and make them do the exchange at their expense.

But first double check the label. What does it SAY? There might be somebody out there still using the full name of .38 Smith & Wesson Special.
LOOK at the cartridges. Are they shorter than what you had been buying?

 

[Shorts]

Whoa Jim, why so patronizing? LOOK vs look??? What else would I do? LOOK or look, they mean the same thing to me

Like I said, I fired them last week without problem. If they were the wrong size or didn't fit properly I wouldn't have shot them, nor forced them. I'm not that retarded

Ok, the box says:

FIOCCHI

50 CARTUCCE
PALLA BLINDATA
FULL METAL JACKET 158 gr

38 S&W SPECIAL

The bullets are FMJ and I don't have any other Winchester rounds in the house to compare them too, only my Hydrashoks. The Hydrashok is shorter (JHP vs FMJ). The casing is the same height. The bottom of the bullet also says "G.F.L. 38 SPECIAL".

So I guess Fiocchi is still using "SW" in their labels? Anyway, seems like my kitchen fire is extinguished

 

[44-40]

The word special is the giveaway,had they really been 38 s&w you would have noticed just by looking and handling them,blaze um up..

 

[Matthew]

Don't feel bad, Shorts. I know a 30yr. professional gunsmith that didn't know a .32 Winchester Centerfire was a .32-20 cartidge. The .38 Special is the same thing as the .38 S&W Special. The shorter .38 S&W cartridge will never use the word "Special". S&W guns will also use the S&W initials for their .38 revolvers when describing the .38 Special but they are just plain old .38 Special guns. Comparing the two cartridges would be like comparing a .22 Long rifle and a .22 short. A vast difference in case length. Good Shooting!!

 

[Jim Watson]

Shorts,

I wasn't patronizing, I was yelling at you.
"LOOK" doesn't mean the same as "look", all caps on the internet is taken as a shout.
You did not quote the label completely or accurately to start with, how the devil was I supposed to know what you had?

Apparently the Eyetalians are still going by the old name used from 1899 until pretty well up into the 20th century.

Not to patronize, but to supply some history that is hard to dig out one question at a time on the internet...

In the late 19th century, S&W made top break double action revolvers in .38 S&W and Colt made swing out double action revolvers in .38 Long Colt which had a 150 grain bullet and about 18 grains of black powder. Colt sold their guns to the War Department as a modern improvement over the old .45 Single Action Army.
The .38 Long Colt was not very powerful, and S&W thought they would do something about it. So they brought out their own swing out ("Hand Ejector") revolver in .38 S&W Special, which increased the load to 158 grains of lead and 21 grains of powder. Whee!
They based it on the .38 Long Colt instead of the .38 S&W because they wanted their guns to be able to shoot the .38 Long Colt as then used by the military. They only sold a thousand guns each to the Army and Navy, though, and I have not seen anything about the services bothering to get any .38 Special ammo at that time.

It didn't matter, the Philippine Insurrection convinced the Army to go back to .45 and so it did, from 1909 til 1983.

But .38 S&W Specials did sell commercially and Colt wanted a share of the business. So they had the ammo companies make up .38 Colt Special to go with their new guns. A .38 S&W Special had a roundnose bullet, a .38 Colt Special had a flatpointed bullet; there was no other difference, it was all just marketing.

Colt also realized that .38 S&W ammo was technically superior to their .38 Short and Long Colt cartridges and changed their small frame guns to match. Of course Colt wouldn't put "Smith & Wesson" on these guns, either, so they called them .38 Police Positive or New Police, depending on the model and the year. The bullets had flat points but they were otherwise no different from .38 S&W. (They did the same thing in .32, too.)

This happens all the time. The first .30-30 was made by Marlin. Because they didn't want to put .30 WCF (Winchester Center Fire) on their guns. Same cartridge, different advertising. You won't find .40 S&W on a Glock, either.

 

[Shorts]

Jim, I know all caps means yelling. Even then, why are you yelling at me? Why are you angry enough to yell? Even if you aren't angry, what kind of teaching is yelling? Now, I'm just poking back at you. As for not quoting the label accurately or completely to start with, I posted this post offhand. I do not have my ammo boxes sitting here in front of me. All I recalled from the box was ".38SW". Hence the end of my other post "referring to a kitchen fire". See, everything is cleared up. How about that?

Thanks for the history. I just got back from the range and I put another box through (the revolver, for the beretta 2 went out)

All was well, even got the typical thumb web stingers from holding the revolver high

 

[donkee]

For future reference

.38 S&W on the left, .38 Special on the right.....

L8TR

 

[Shorts]

Wow, that's one heck of a difference between the two. Thanks for the pics donkee.

 

[Doug.38PR]

So the .38 SW is weaker than the .38 special

According to what I've read, the .38 S&W is weaker than the .38 special. According to the picture posted by Donkee the .38 S&W looks right about the same size as a 9mm automatic cartridge.

Tell me this, how is it that (so I've been told) that a 9mm has more stopping power than a .38 special when the catridge is only half the size of the 9mm?

Doug

 

[Japle]

If you have one of the S&W WWII "Victory" revolvers, (it's the same as the M&P .38 Spl) chambered in .38 S&W, it will take much more pressure than the old break-top guns. Factory .38 S&W is loaded very light because many of the 19th century break-tops were built with low-pressure black powder loads in mind. A "Victory" will take loads that would destroy one of the old break-tops.
The .38 S&W is longer than the 9mm. It can be loaded to exceed 9mm revolver performance, but ONLY IN THE RIGHT GUN!!

John
Cape Canaveral

 

[Shorts]

Jalpe, by "right gun", does that have to do with barrel length overall?

 

[Matthew]

The .38 Spl case was designed to hold 21gr. of black powder, not 5gr. of modern smokeless powder. The 9mm was designed exclusively for modern smokeless powder. Whichever bullet from either is the first to hit the aorta is the winner in stopping power.

 

[donkee]

No problem amigo!

 

[Bass Man]

Shorts,

What did you pay for the .38 specials you bought? I'd like to know how much I am saving. The Fiocchi plant is just 5-10 miles away from me in Ozark, MO. My dealer (417guns.com) sells them at $8.99 I believe is the in-store price buy the box. He saves on the shipping and goes and picks them up. He has a heck of a deal at a case for $7.75 a box.

 

[BillCA]

According to what I've read, the .38 S&W is weaker than the .38 special. According to the picture posted by Donkee the .38 S&W looks right about the same size as a 9mm automatic cartridge.

Tell me this, how is it that (so I've been told) that a 9mm has more stopping power than a .38 special when the catridge is only half the size of the 9mm?

The so-called "stopping power" of a cartridge is something of a misnomer. But the effectiveness of the .38 Special vs. the 9mm is a slim margin IMO. Both are about .36 caliber (.355 vs .358) and have similar weight projectiles (between 110 and 158 grains). The 9mm is usually a higher velocity round because it's loaded with a 115gr FMJ or HP up to a 124gr. The .38's that are most effective tend to be in the 125gr to 145gr arena.

So how does the pint-sized 9mm fling the projectile faster than a standard .38 special? Simple. Pressure. The 9mm runs to higher pressures than the older .38 special and it uses faster powders (generally speaking). The 9mm was created for a modern steel autopistol along with the then new smokeless powders. The .38 Special started life as a higher powered black powder cartridge but quickly gave up BP for smokeless.

Today you can obtain 125gr JHP's that have about the same ballistic performance as a 124gr 9mm. But older guns, like 1920's-30's Colt, S&W and H&R revolvers would strain to contain the extra pressures (hence the +P markings on these cartridges). If you really hot-rod up the .38 Special, you end up with the .357 Magnum (but you knew that already, right?)

The .38 S&W was a competitor to the .38 Long Colt cartridge on which the .38 Special was created. Both fired a nominally 148gr bullet between 750~780fps. The .38 Colt cartridge was really obsolete by 1905 (when we started seeing .38 Special revolvers). During the Philippines Insurrection the .38 Colt was a dismal failure against the Muslim Moros, requring officers to make multiple hits to stop them. Newly arriving officers sometimes brought SAA .45 Colt revolvers which tended to anchor the Moros on the spot. This led to the re-issuance of the SAA and a commission to study a replacement cartridge. The result of that R&D commission was the adoption of the Pistol, U.S. Army Model 1911. As they say, the rest is history!

 

[Doug.38PR]

Today you can obtain 125gr JHP's that have about the same ballistic performance as a 124gr 9mm. But older guns, like 1920's-30's Colt, S&W and H&R revolvers would strain to contain the extra pressures (hence the +P markings on these cartridges).

Well, I'm told that even most modern guns (that is, guns still around made up until 15 years or 20 years ago between the early 40s and early 80s) won't even handle the extra pressures. My mother bought a S&W Model 10-7 2 inch barrel made in 1982 recently and was told specifically that the gun would ONLY take .38 special. My father owns a S&W Military & Police Model 10 (light barrel) like new with the box (the schematics say 1971 I think) and it is not recommended to use anything other than .38 special.

I own two Colt Official Police .38s one from 1944 the other from 1961. I have had dealers try to sell me .38+p saying upon seeing those guns "that's a good large frame and that could handle .38+P easily."
The 1961 OP has a fractured recoil plate depressed into the gun. It's just a guess but I have a feeling someone tried using .38+P in the gun

 

[Shorts]

Bass Man, I believe it was $6.50 per box(bought 5 boxes). But I also had to pay shipping with my $75 order so it ended up about $89 total for 11 boxes of ammo.

 

[Matthew]

I read an official officer's report from archives regarding the .38 Long Colt performance in the Phillipines. Let me tell you the synopsys and see if anyone can see the "shot placement" discretion used to determine how the .45 Colt was "better" than the .38 LC.

One insurgent took a documented 31 (thirty-one) .30-40 Krag rifle hits to the torso, 9(nine) .38 LC rounds in the torso. Finally, the agressor was stopped by a .45 round through "both ears". It was escapades like this that the .38 LC got a bad reputation. Maybe if the .38 LC was the one used through both ears they may have kept them. Who knows. Personally, having had a hole in my heart the size of a quarter, I think there is very little difference in handgun rounds.