Colt Official Police in 38 S&W...

[scbair]

Slightly OT question: I once picked up a "parts" gun. It is an old Police Positive (.38 Colt New Police/.38 S&W chambering), but the barrel has been replaced with a .38 Special Detective Special 2" bbl. I picked it up for a song, and it definitely has the original cylinder.

My question: Is the .38S&W bullet, as factory swaged & loaded, dangerously oversized to squeeze through the .38 Special barrel? I've never fired it! Just stuck it in the back of the safe after purchasing on a whim.

 

[gunfan]

Dear scbair:

The .38 S&W Special employs a .357" diameter bullet. The .38 S&W uses a.361" diameter lead bullet. Using a .361" lead bullet in a .357" bore may work, (if the alloy is sufficiently soft.) It will likely be prone to lead the barrel, which is best avoided. If you load the .361" lead bullet in a .38 S&W Special case, you'll definitely see signs of excessive pressure at lower-level loads.

Either the barrel cut to accommodate the .361" slugs and learn to load for the.38 S&W round, or exchange the cylinder for one chambered in .38 S&W Special.


Scott

 

[BluesBear]

You'll find the groove diameter of most American made .38 S&W caliber revolvers will be between .359" and .361".
Factory loaded .38 S&W ammunition fired through a standard .38 Special barrel will cause no problem. If the forcing cone is smooth you shouldn't even see any excess leading.

.38 Short Colt ammunition works just fine in a .38 Special and the Winchester version used an outside lubricated bullet that was the same diameter as the case. I used to shoot a lot of it. It was accurate even in my 1976 Python that had a .3555" bore. I recently fired some in a Taurus 651 and it performed very well. Which is good considering it's 30 year old ammo.

Of course if you reload you'll probably use standard .38/.357 bullets anyway.
Just make sure your expander plug isn't oversized. All of the .38S&W die sets I have seen recently (yes I have been looking at them) have a standard .38 Special sized expander plug.

 

[SMLE]

I'm reloading for my 38 S&W Colt using .358" LRN bullets. They seem to be shooting fine even in the .361" bore, so such a load should do fine in your revolver with its .38 Spec barrel. Also, factory 38 S&W is loaded pretty light in consideration of all the old top-break revolvers out there.