.38 Special shims for .357 revolvers - anyone ever see these?

[JNewell]

These came out of a .357 Security Six. They're made of spring steel and were installed in the charging holes, apparently to prevent chambering .357 Magnum cases. I don't recall seeing or reading about these before. Does anyone know anything about 'em? It doesn't seem like there'd be a big market for these -- security guards, maybe?

 

[Erich]

Wow. Darndest thing. I've never seen one.

 

[G. I. Gold]

These spacers are issued with .38 Special Simunitions paintgun ammo used in LEO training. The Simunition ammo is shorter than regular .38 Special and the spacers are used to assure that live ammo won't be fired during training exercises. Probably aren't a lot of revolvers used in LEO training these days.
- Jim

 

[ChristopherG]

Welcome aboard, G.I. Gold, and thanks for a solid answer right out of the gate! I'm glad you knew that, too, cause all I knew was that those are WAY too long to just make the difference between .38 and .357--which is only .145", I think.

How do you come by that little esoteric gem, if I may ask?

 

[Ohen Cepel]

Good info!

I was stumped

 

[G. I. Gold]

ChrisG -
A while back I worked about 5 years part-time as a role player at the FBI Academy at Quantico. The New Agents used modified Sigs, then Glocks firing 9mm Simunitions. We bad guys used old S&W M10's with those little spacers and .38 Special Simunitions. Later, the FBI fitted the revolvers with stainless, short-chambered cylinders to assure that no .38 Special would fit. I never tried it, but wouldn't be surprised if a .38 Short Colt could be chambered.
- Jim

 

[ted murphy]

.38 short colt can be chambered in those guns. When we used the wheelguns for FX we had to police each and every one of the cases, for fear someone would reload them (they were real .38 cases, just cut down for the FX)


Now we mostly use the Fx for the autos, but the bad guys still use wheelies but with Code Eagle instead.