Reloading .38 S&W

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I'm going to be reloading .38 S&W to fire in antique revolvers. Factory loads are a 147gr. RNL bullet at about 650fps. These are deliberately anemic because so many cheap, poor quality revolvers were made in this caliber; US Revolver, Ivor Johnson and a host of others. At the time they converted to smokeless all the revolvers, good, bad or whatever, were made to shoot black powder loads which were actually more powerful/higher pressure than modern factory loads.

I have never heard of someone blowing up even the cheapest of these guns with a factory load, but stout loads will wear them out quickly. As it happens I will not be using the loads in 'cheap guns,' but in S&W top breaks. While these are worlds and away better than the cheaper revolvers they are not as strong as a solid-frame guns; I'll still want to stick to relatively mild loads.

I will be loading for a 4" .38 DA 2nd Model (circa 1884) with a 4-1/4" barrel and a pair of .38 safety Hammerless 4th Models with 1-5/8" barrels (early 20th C.) The bore diameters of these guns are a nominal .360, and in some guns .357" bullets work fine and in others they are inaccurate. This seems to vary from maker to maker, and sometimes from gun to gun. Being that availability of .360" bullets is limited my plan has be to use the 148gr. HBWC as my 'go to' bullet; these have been used with great success in .38 S&W guns because the base of the bullet expands to engage the rifling even in over-sized bores.

Basically I have been looking at two loads- a 'General Purpose' target/SD load for the newer guns and a 'powder puff' load for those occasions when I want to shoot the older gun. Honestly I am unlikely to run more than a couple of cylinders a year through the 1884 gun, and maybe a couple hundred rounds a year through the newer guns.

So far my plans follow the conventional wisdom in terms of bullet weight etc., but am wondering if any of you have experimented with lighter bullets, in the 80-125gr range? Provided pressures are comparable lighter bullets mean less recoil impulse/less strain on the gun, and given that the newest of these guns is over a century old that can't help being a good thing. I have found some load data for 125gr. bullets but all the loads are fairly stiff loads for stouter solid frame guns or tank-like Webleys and I'd hesitate to use them in S&W top breaks. Yes, I can and probably will experiment with some lighter versions of these loads but if someone else has some experience to offer it would be appreciated.
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Re: Reloading .38 S&W

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JoelB wrote:I am always leary of loads from older sources because powders change and there is the possibility that balloon head cases were used.

I have used this starting load in Webleys designed for black powder and S&W breaktops.

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I'll definitely be using modern brass and loads and adopting a conservative approach; these are old guns after all. Thanks for the data!
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Re: Reloading .38 S&W

7
I'm always worrying about beating up the forcing cone using high speed rounds in a revolver, specially pre-war models. Metallurgy wasn't up to today's standard, the best example of a failure then being the Titanic. So if the steel was a little brittle a sharp strike may crack it. S&W had a similar problem with forcing cones cracking on .357 K frames 20 years ago, not due to metallurgy but instead due to the thinning of the barrel wall to clear the yoke. Problem only showed up with hot 125g loads hitting the forcing cone at higher speeds, the 158g loads were slower and worked fine.
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