difference between 38 special and the 357 magnum

[joe2004]

i want to know whats the main difference between 38 special and the 357 magnum.

and why is the 38 CHEAPER ??

thanks

 

[AStone]

Hmmm. Let's see.

To start, they're both the same caliber.
One can shoot a .38 in a .357,
even if not the converse.

The .357 cartridge is longer,
meaning extra pow(d)er,
which explains why
one cannot fire
a .357 in a .38.

Effect?

If a .38 is a "hammer wallop",
then a .357 is a "lightning bolt".

PS: I own, and love, both.

 

[ugaarguy]

The 357 Magnum has a 1/10" longer case to prevent it being chambered in .38 special revolvers, but you can of course chamber .38s in a 357 Magnum. The .357 Magnum operates at nearly twice the pressure of the .38 Special, which is why you don't want magnum loads in a gun made only for 38 Specials.

Why is .357 Mag more expensive? It's really not. It's just that most folks use .38 Specials for target shooting in their .357 Magnums, while true .357 Mag target and cowboy loads are more a niche. Hence, much more .38 target ammo is made than .357, so production volume lowers the price. Also most of the .357 Mag ammo you see is premium defensive or hunting ammo. In defensive loadings there's very little price difference in the two rounds. Hunting loads again are a relatively small volume item, and the specialized bullets used in them further increase cost.

I'm sure someone else will be along shortly to give you a detailed history of how the .38 special spawned the .357 Magnum.

 

[AStone]

I'm sure someone else will be along shortly
to give you a detailed history of how
the .38 special spawned the .357 Magnum.

At your request, sir.

357 Magnum
Choosing the .357 Magnum as top revolver cartridge of the 20th century was not as difficult as selecting the 9mm for auto pistols, and it will probably provoke a bit less objection or criticism. As they say of Yellowstone National Park, the .357 is “first and still best” in many handgunners’ eyes when it comes to magnum revolvers.

It was almost exactly 65 years ago, on April 8, 1935, that the very first “.357 Magnum” revolver was completed by Smith & Wesson and presented to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. It was a seminal moment. The .357 Magnum was the first American cartridge of any kind—handgun, rifle, or shotgun—to bear the label “Magnum.” It was the first of many-to-come, extra-power cartridges to be based on a slightly lengthened version of a previously standard load. For more than two decades after its introduction—until eclipsed by the .44 Magnum—it was the most powerful handgun cartridge produced anywhere in the world, and even today it is still the largest selling and most widely used of all the many handgun cartridges to bear that evocative “Magnum” label.

The .357 had its origins in the roaring days of the 1920s, when Prohibition Era gangsters like the Dillinger bunch and Bonnie and Clyde confronted law enforcement agencies with a new situation in history: highway vehicle pursuit. Police departments began pressuring handgun and ammunition companies for a revolver cartridge that would have more power and penetration than the standard .38 Special that was then the near-universal “major” police round. So in 1930 S&W introduced a new .38/44 Heavy Duty .38 Special revolver built on the company’s .44-size N-Frame, and Remington and Winchester began loading a special high-velocity .38 Special cartridge called the .38/44 S&W Special. This load was contained in an ordinary .38 Special case but was about one-third more powerful than a standard 158-grain roundnose lead .38 Special load. It was recommended for use only in the heavy-frame S&W .38 Special revolvers.

After these products appeared, one of the renowned firearms authorities of the day, Philip B. Sharpe, began working on even more powerful .38 Special handloads and repeatedly urged S&W to develop a special revolver to handle them. Sharpe’s loads were fine to shoot in the big N-Frame S&W but could damage or substantially shorten the use-life of typical smaller frame .38 Special revolvers. The solution, reached by Sharpe and S&W’s Major Douglas B. Wesson, was to slightly lengthen the standard .38 Special case and make a new revolver specially for it. The new gun would be able to chamber both the longer, more powerful loads as well as the shorter, standard-length .38 Special, while regular .38 Special revolvers would not be able to chamber the new, longer load.

By mid-1934 Winchester had completed specifications for the cartridge, which had a case length 1/8 inch longer than the .38 Special and powered a 158-grain semiwadcutter lead bullet to a muzzle velocity of 1515 fps—nearly twice the velocity of the same-weight bullet from an ordinary .38 Special. It was called the .357 Magnum. The name is interesting. Why .357 instead of .38? Actually, .357 inch is the true caliber diameter of nearly all cartridges commonly called .38s, and Doug Wesson and the Winchester designers felt that using the .357 designation would make it easier to keep people from reaming out their .38 Special revolver chambers so it would fit. And why are .38s actually closer to .36s instead of real .38s in the first place? Primarily because when people first started loading .36-caliber lead balls into self-contained metallic cartridges in the 19th century, the result could be chambered in bored-through .38-caliber cap and ball revolver cylinders. So the .38 designation actually refers more to chamber diameter than bore diameter, and a .38 Special is actually a .36 Special.

And where did the Magnum come from? Again, it was Doug Wesson who made the call. The Major was a renowned connoisseur of fine champagne, and in the vintner’s world the term “magnum” refers to a slightly larger than standard bottle. When Wesson went out to dine, he never ordered anything less than a magnum bottle, and it seemed to him a natural extension of the term to the slightly larger than standard case of the new cartridge. And so was coined one of the most enduring—and misunderstood—labels in firearms and ammunition history.

The .357 Magnum cartridge (and S&W gun) was an instant runaway success. S&W had originally conceived a very limited demand, with individual registered revolvers being individually built to individual customer’s specifications. That lasted for only about two years. Not only did every cop in the nation want one, but Major Wesson also made the new revolver a sportsman’s choice by setting out on a highly publicized hunting trip to take nearly every major species of big game in North America with an eight-inch version of the new revolver. And he did it. For the next 20 years, until Elmer Keith’s heavy-loaded .44 Specials became the second ammo recipe to be poured from a magnum bottle, the .357 was the cartridge that every serious handgun shooter had to have. Even today, nearly three generations later, the .357 Magnum remains second to none in popularity for general-purpose sport, hunting, and law enforcement/personal-defense use in a revolver.

 

[Ala Dan]

Main Difference Between A .38 Special Cartridge, And That Of A .357 Magnum

is exactly 1/16th of an inch; as the magnum case is that much longer~!

 

[antediluvianist]

If you fire a .38 special inside a room, it's loud but bearable.

If you fire a .357 inside a room,

 

[YodaVader]

Looking at my Midway catalog at some of the "Big Name" 38s/357s with the exact same bullet used:

Hornady 158 XTP 25 rounds
38 - $15.49
357-$16.99

Remington 125 Golden Saber 25 rds
38 - $19.49
357 - $21.99

Speer 125 Gold Dot 20 rounds
38- $17.29
357 - $18.49

Winchester 125 Super-X 50 rounds
38 - $33.99
357-$36.99

When you start to compare 38 lead loads to JHP 357s then you are talking major price difference in factory ammo.

Still , when using the same exact bullet the 357 does costs me more to reload over the 38 when I am loading the 357 to duplicate factory magnum ammo.

As a recent example, loading the Hornady 125XTP in my 38 Special cases used 5 grains of a relatively fast burning powder. When I loaded up the same bullet in my 357 cases I used 20 grains of a slower burning "magnum" powder. The price of the powder per pound is not significantly different , the fact that the magnum load took a charge 4X greater than the 38 is the main difference in price for me as a reloader when using the same bullet.

The factory ammo , for the most part, undoubtedly uses fast powder charges for the 38s and a stouter charge of slower burning powders for the magnums , which to me explains some of the price difference.

 

[armoredman]

Bang and BOOM.