Anybody load .38 Long Colt... for fun?

[Mr_Flintstone]

I load a ton of .38 Special from mild to (somewhat) wild, but for some reason, I really like loading and shooting .38 Long Colt loads in my .38 Special guns. I know the comments from the nay-sayers. Why not down-load .38 Specials? Well, I do. What about those pesky carbon rings? Well, they come out pretty easy with a normal cleaning, and don’t cause a problem unless you try to shoot .38 Specials after shooting a ton of Long Colts in the same session, or you let your gun sit uncleaned for a long time. And then there’s my favorite... I only shoot rounds that my gun was designed to shoot. Well, .357 Magnums were designed to be backward compatible with .38 Special, and .38 Special was designed to be backward compatible with .38 Long Colt (at least after the standard changed in the 1890s to use hollow base .357” bullets instead of .375” heeled bullets.)

In any case, I get a great deal of satisfaction from loading and shooting the .38 Long Colt. I just wondered if there were others who enjoyed the .38 Long Colt cartridge loaded and shot from modern guns?

 

[film495]

I haven't, but it sounds kind of fun. Some of the older cartridges seem interesting as well .38 S&W, some of the .32 calibers. Haven't thought about .38 Long Colt from my .38 Special, but - maybe you have given me a way to scratch that itch without having to source another firearm.

Can you use the same dies or is crimping an issue?

 

[fxvr5]

Not yet but plan to soon. I've shot 38 Long Colt and 38 Short Colt in my 38/357 revolvers. The low recoil of the 38 Short Colt is delightful.

 

[Mr_Flintstone]

I haven't, but it sounds kind of fun. Some of the older cartridges seem interesting as well .38 S&W, some of the .32 calibers. Haven't thought about .38 Long Colt from my .38 Special, but - maybe you have given me a way to scratch that itch without having to source another firearm.

Can you use the same dies or is crimping an issue?

My dies are from Lee, and the box says .38 SC/LC, but the decapper/sizer is a .38 Special/.357, the powder through expander says .38 S&W, and the seat/crimp die says .38 S&W L (I’m not sure what that L means, but I think it is just a .38 S&W die too).

Not yet but plan to soon. I've shot 38 Long Colt and 38 Short Colt in my 38/357 revolvers. The low recoil of the 38 Short Colt is delightful.

I like the .38 SC too. I can shoot them all day.

 

[film495]

cold you use the expander and crimp dies for 9mm? I've been thinking about adding 9mm, but haven't yet - with the shortages, might be on the horizon. maybe having 2 uses for the 9mm dies would get me to bit. I think the .38 Special dies work until you get to crimping. I have a Lee universal expander die, so - think I would just get stuck on crimping.

 

[Mr_Flintstone]

cold you use the expander and crimp dies for 9mm? I've been thinking about adding 9mm, but haven't yet - with the shortages, might be on the horizon. maybe having 2 uses for the 9mm dies would get me to bit. I think the .38 Special dies work until you get to crimping. I have a Lee universal expander die, so - think I would just get stuck on crimping.

Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t reload 9mm. It’s a .355” bullet instead of .357”. Maybe someone has tried it.

 

[spencerhut]

We loaded 38LC for ICORE for a while and then someone realized we could load 38SC with what amounts to 9x19 load data. So since I have a pile of 38LC cases I've load a bunch of 38LC I use strictly for practice ammo now. It's all 120+PF ammo so I'm not sure the data would do you much good.

 

[Mr_Flintstone]

We loaded 38LC for ICORE for a while and then someone realized we could load 38SC with what amounts to 9x19 load data. So since I have a pile of 38LC cases I've load a bunch of 38LC I use strictly for practice ammo now. It's all 120+PF ammo so I'm not sure the data would do you much good.

I always suspected 38 SC and LC could be loaded much hotter in modern guns than the available data, and I played around with some hot loads once upon a time, but now I just load them to published data for fun light loads. Sometimes if I want to use a powder I don’t have data for in the Long Colts, I’ll use .38 Special 150 gr Wadcutter data in my Long Colt cases with 158 gr cast. My main objective nowadays is comfort.

 

[TTv2]

I've shot .38 Short Colt and that was like shooting .22. Only issue I have with such short cartridges is when they're already low power, the amount of gas blowing by the bullet before it hits the throat drops the velocity even further. Other than tubular magazines for for use in bandoliers, I don't like the super short cases, but something like .38 Long Colt, .32 S&W Long, .45 Schofield... I like those. If not for reducing the amount of air in the case to make light loads more reliable and safe to shoot, but if during extraction in a snub revolver the shorter cases are less likely to get hung up.

 

[Mr_Flintstone]

My latest batch that I made this morning. Mostly trimmed down .38 Special, and a few Starline .38 LC brass. I thought they deserved a box.