.38 Smith and Wesson

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darkknight

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I was cleaning out the safe that my grandfather gave me in his will and I found some rounds in a blazer box labeled .38 Smith and Wesson. I looked at the rounds and they are about 2/3 the size of a .38 special round. can anybody tell me anything about them. any history on the round. any idea their worth.
 
The cartridge was introduced in the late 1870's, I believe, and was originally used in S&W top break revolvers, and is still loaded by Remington and Winchester today. As you noticed the case is shorter than .38 Special, it is also wider, as is the bullet, .38 S&W revolvers generally have a bore diameter of .361, .38 Special .357. The British called this round the .380 Revolver, used a 200 grain bullet in their original serive load then switched to a lighter bullet, 178grs I think, and the last version was called the .380MKIIz, its also called the .38 Colt New Police when loaded with a flatter point bullet.

I doubt there would be any collector interest in your ammo, but someone that has a revolver chambered for this round might offer you a few bucks for it. Factory .38 S&W has been going for around $30 a box locally so its not cheap ammo.
 
The British used this caliber during WW II and all those Victory Model Smiths sent to Great Britain are chambered for this round.

Being in the wrong box they are either military surplus he picked up somewhere or maybe reloads. Not knowing the history I would chuck them.
 
38 S&W/38 Colt New Police/380 revolver

As Will5A1 stated,the round has several names.The difference being only in nomenclature and bullet wieght of load.:scrutiny:
:what: 38ColtNewPolice.38SmithWesson019.jpg :uhoh:
 
Interesting Anecdote?

A late friend and mentor of mine headed up a small unit that hunted down Category 2 war criminals in Germany, after VE Day. He told me that he opted to carry a British service revolver (a S&W Victory model, chambered in .38 S&W) in place of a US-issued 1911A1, for this duty. His reasoning was that if he shot one of those guys and he still got away, the .45 ACP round would likely have gone through and through. It was known that the remnants of the SS had a network that included physicians who could treat such a wound. He figured that the weaker .38 S&W round would not be as likely to exit, requiring surgical intervention, which was not something the former-SS network would likely be able to provide, increasing the chances that the wounded quarry would turn up at a a hospital, where he could be taken into custody.
 
A friend has a 38 S&W revolver that he could not find ammo for. Its one of the old Iver johnsons i think. A top break model. He bought 38 super ammo and shot that out of it. When i saw what he was doing my hair stood up.

I tried to tell him it was way to hot for that gun. The rounds are also undersized. He shot it anyway. I watched him and his son shoot the gun empty. So i gave it a try. No problems. The cases didn't split and the gun didn't blow up. It was even semi accurate.

The super has a small rim and is loaded with .355 bullets instead of .360 diameter. I guess that smaller bullet kept the pressure down enough so that nothing bad came from the practice.

I seem to remember reading that the 9mm federal was removed because of this same thing.
 
The big problem would be that when you found out that it was too hot, you may not have a hand left. 38 S&W ammo is around if you look. I don't think I would shoot it even with the right ammo.
 
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