Howdy
I have no idea where that web page got its information .
This is a reprint from a Colt catalog sometime early in the 20th Century. Sorry, I do not have an exact date. I scanned it from Jerry Kuhnhausen's
The Colt Double Action Revolvers, A Shop Manual, Vol. 1. (Part of the reason I keep pushing Kunhhausen's books, they are so thorough.)
So there is a list of the cartridges the revolver was chambered for. If you look at the information in the parentheses by .38 Colt, there are a whole lot of cartridges listed. They all had the same basic diameters, some were longer and some were shorter. Notice it lists both 38 Colt Special and 38 S&W Special. They are the same cartridge with different names. No mention at all of 38 Smith and Wesson.
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However another book of mine lists 32-20, 38 Colt, 38 Smith and Wesson, and 41 Colt as the cartridges the Army Special was chambered for.
38/200 is the name of the 38 S&W cartridge that the Victory Models S&W sent to England that I mentioned yesterday, were chambered for.
The standard bullet for the 38 S&W cartridge weighed 145 - 146 grains. If you look at the boxes I posted yesterday, you will see that. Those are modern 38 S&W loads.
Here are some old boxes of 38 S&W. The style of the box on the left dates from anywhere from 1946 to 1960. The box of Winchester ammo on the right has a small notation of 5-14, which I take to mean it was made in May of 1914. That would fit with the style of the box and the revolver pictured on the box. Notice the Remington box calls out 146 grain bullets. A bit tough to read the grain weight on the old Winchester box, but it looks like it could be 146 to me.
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Anyway, the 38/200 ammunition the British Victory Models were chambered for had a bit more punch than a load with a 145 grain bullet.
According to Barnes, in
Cartridges of the World, 38 Super Police or 380/200 (they are the same) was found to have about the same knockdown power as the old .455 Military cartridge, but it could be fired in a lighter gun, such as a S&W Victory Model. Barnes does not state specifically when the 38/200 cartridge was first used, he only states it was prior to World War II.
I found this website, which states that Britain began using the 38/200 round in 1922, which overlaps the period when the Colt Army Special was produced.
https://military.wikia.org/wiki/.38-200
This is the caliber marking on my Colt Army Special. It simply says 38.
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Here it is with some 38 Short Colt, 38 Long Colt, and 38 Special cartridges. It chambers them all, just like the old catalog says. It does not chamber any 38 S&W rounds, not the old ones nor the new ones. If the Army Special truly was chambered for any form of 38 S&W, the chambering had to be different than on mine.
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