[Combat-wombat]

What's the difference between .38 special and .38 S&W special?

[Tamara]

Nothing. :)

Although there is a difference between .38 S&W and .38 S&W Special (a.k.a. just plain ".38 Special"): the former is a less powerful round that uses a shorter case.

[LWCmdr45]

To my knowledge, the only guns you'll see marked ".38 S&W Special" are those made by--- you guessed it!--- Smith & Wesson. Other manucturers would be loathe to stamp their gun with a competitor's name. A similar situation exists with the semi-auto .40 S&W cartridge.

Harking back to the days of the .38 Smith & Wesson (NOT the .38 S&W Special), competitors found another way. Since there were other ".38" calibers and, again, the other major manufacturers didn't want Smith's name on the gun, the cartridge marking was changed to ".38 Colt New Police" for Colt-made guns and ".380 Webley" for Webleys. On the other side of the coin, cheaper guns would sometimes actually spell out the name to capitailize on the S&W reputation.

Steve

[Mike Irwin]

.38 S&W Special = .38 Special = .38 Spl. = .38 Colt Special

[russlate]

Mike: move to Nevada and you can park and go into Frontier Liquors in Fallon to get all three.

No drive up service though, ( sorry bout that ) and you'll need a CCW to skip the background check.

Also, the open container law ( in cars ) went away some time back, so you'll need to be on private property to pop a can open after shooting.

You can still smoke in your own car here, though.
:evil: :evil: :evil: