I have a bersa 380cc that shoots 380 ACP. This caliber is also called 38 short or 38 kurtz???? What does ACP stand for? Does it have an American origin or German since it seems to been popular with the Walther PPK? Dimension wise it is 9mm x 17 I think, Makarov is 9x18, Luger Parabellum 9x19.
In the US, the 380 Auto is also known as .380 ACP ("Automatic Colt Pistol") as a way of advertising for Colt, and as a way of separating it from the .38 ACP cartridge (the fore-runner of the .38 Super cartridge). Since European buyers wouldn't know or wouldn't care that Colt ever had anything to do with the .380 Auto cartridge, they call it the 9mm Browning Short, 9mm Kurz, 9mmK, or 9x17mm cartridge.
What is a 38 super and what gun fires it? For that matter what is just a 38 and what fires it? Any of my guns?
38 Super is like a "magnumized" 9mm Luger, roughly equivalent to several Eurpean long 9mms like the 9mm Bergmann-Bayard, 9mm Largo, 9mm Steyr, etc. In the US, this is mainly a handgun round, but there have been a few submachineguns chambered for it (it was a factory chambering in the Thompson SMG at one point.) Just why a "38" is known as a "38" takes a little bit of history; when the "38" metallic cartridge was first developed, the bullets actually DID measure .38/100s of an inch, but these were lower-pressure loads that used black powder, and the bullets were held in the thin metal cases by a "heel" on the bullet, the same way a .22 LR cartridge is today; the outside diameter of the bullet was the same as the outside diameter of the cartridge case (.38"). When smokeless powder came about, the designers realized that they could get a lot more powerful cartridge in the same size of cartridge, but that if anyone put one of those new more powerful cartridges into an older "original" "38", it would blow the older gun to pieces, so they had to find some way of telling people that this wasn't a good idea. So, the new cartridge was named the "38 Smith & Wesson Special" (in this case, S&W used its name as free advertising for themselves, the same way Colt had for the .38 ACP, .380 ACP, .45 ACP, 45 Colt, etc.). Today, 38 Smith & Wesson Special is known mainly as 38 S&W Special, 38 S&W Spl, or just 38 Special/Spl. The "Special" also shows that this is a different cartridge from the "38 Smith & Wesson" which (like the original "38"s) is a larger dimeter case. How cartridges get their names is a whole story unto themselves, and is usually some sort of compromise between letting people know precisely which is the proper ammunition to use, and advertising for the company or companies that developed that firearm or ammunition.
