S&w 38/44

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Those 38/44's were tough. I've seen conversions to make a 38/44 into a 45 LC or 45 acp.

By today's standards the 38/44 is a BIG gun for a 38, ditto with the New Service Colt.

The 38/44 was a stop-gap until the 357 was popularized. Same tooling, bigger gun, hotter ammo.

I'd bet somewhere there is a Colt brochure claiming the New Service could handle 38/44 loads.
 
Dr. Rob-

Certainly. Haven and Belden's, "History of the Colt Revolver, 1836-1940" reprints several Colt catalog pages, and I've seen others elsewhere.

If memory serves, ALL Colt .38's in the 1930's were "listed" for Hi-Speed ammo, but I'd hate to shoot much of it in a Detective Special!

It's generally accepted that only the Shooting Master, New Service, and SAA should be fired with this hot ammo.

Of course, when Plus P rounds were standardized in the 1970's, Colt wimped out about using it in their smaller guns, advising that the Det. Spcl. be checked after after 3,000 shots and the Cobra and Agent needed to be inspected (for such things as frame stretching) after only 1,000 shots. Plus P isn't as hot as was true .38/44 ammo. Balanced against this is that relatively few people will fire many such hot rounds in their snubs. (The Police Positive Special had longer barrels, but is otherwise the same as the Det. Spcl.)

Lone Star
 
Mike,

From John Taffin, Big Bore Sixguns, Krause, Iola, Wisconson, 1997:

After a discussion of Pop Eimer's work in the '20's...

"Colt must have been somewhat interested because in 1932, Remington ran some special loads for Colt. The boxes were marked 41 Special. Fred Moore was the factory superintendent at Colt and was interested in producing a new sixgun cartridge with a 210 grain bullet at 900 feet per second. Again, this was 1932. Three different variations on this theme were tried, with the final version chambered in a New Service, achieving 1150 feet per second."

"In these pre magnum days Colt had the cartridge and it had the sixgun to go forward and it shelved the project. The .41 Colt Special had a case length of 1.260 inches, or 1/10 inch longer than the .38 Special or .44 Special case. When the .357 Magnum arrived three years later it would utilize a cartridge case length of 1.290 inches. Colt could have chambered the Colt Single Action Army and the big New Service double action in a powderful .41 three years before the .357 Magnum brought us into the Magnum era. Colt had the ball and fumbled."

Oddly enough Suydam's U.S. Cartridges and their Handguns, an unusually comprehensive work, does not list this cartridge, though it does, show the older 41 S&W.

I don't know whether the bullet used in the .41 Colt Special was 0.386-0.388" diameter, an upgraded .41 Long Colt (D.A.), or whether it was a true .41 Calibre. The .41 Long Colt (D.A., inside lubricated), case length was 1.130, SAAMI maximum, so that the .41 Colt Special was some 0.130" longer.

The Shooting Master was a variant of the New Service Target, itself a variant of the New Service.

Bob
 
Mike, your theory that S&W and Colt had an "agreement" of some sort is interesting, in that Colt and Winchester seemed to have an identical arrangement a generation before.

From:

http://www.leverguns.com/leverguns/coltburgess_levergun.htm

colt_burgess.jpg

"Made from 1883 to 1885, this levergun was part of Colt's plan to provide a well-rounded complement of firearms to the shooting public.

Produced in caliber .44-40 in both carbine and rifle form, just a little over 6,000 were ever produced.

According to stories when Colt tooled up to produce this levergun, Winchester tooled up and made a few revolvers. Winchester then told Colt they were thinking of going into the handgun business, especially if Colt was going to go into the levergun business! Shortly thereafter Colt dropped the Burgess and Winchester made no more handguns."
 
I didn't invite you to join an anti-gun forum. I just questioned why you'd be here if you take conventional wisdom at face value.

I don't look at it as minutae. I look at it as a window into the times, the companies, and the people making the decisions. Why someone did something is so often so much more interested than what they did.

That's all.

"There. I am pretty sure I got it right at least once."

You get a Gold Dot and a cookie. :)


Jim March,

Yep, I had that scenario in mind. Supposedly Winchester's revolvers were designed by Hugo Borchardt, and when Colt got a look at them, they knew they were in SERIOUS trouble if they didn't cut a deal.

Bob,

Hum.... Very interesting... I wonder if Smith & Wesson's .41 Mag. was in any way influenced by the Colt effort? S&W turned to Remington to develop the round instead of Winchester... It would be interesting to know if the Remington people dusted off the Colt round as a starting point. The case length difference is only .03...

As for Suydam's book... Speak not to me about that... Someone swiped my copy, with all of my notes, from my office at American Rifleman when I was working for NRA. I've been looking for a replacement copy ever since, but everyone always wants way too much money for them.
 
Wow, what you'll find while doing a little research - - -

Ran across this thread while researching the .41 Mag and particularly the M58 revolver.

Great discussion, so I thought I'd just pop it to the top. :p

Best,
Johnny
 
Not Sure about Colt Nomenclature, but...

The frame size above the diminutive Detective Special/Police Positive size is often called the .41 Frame in the literature. Must be a reason...
 
Colt was well aware of the .38/44 loading and the S&W Heavy Duty/Outdoorsman revolvers. The didn't go out of their way to push a Smith & Wesson development, but they advertised that their Detective Special, Police Positive Special, Official Police and Single Action Army revolvers - as well as the New Service and Shooting Master could ALL use .... mid-range, regular, and high-speed, INCLUDING 38-44 ammunition. Smith & Wesson on the other hand did not sanction the use of .38-44 loads in their Military & Police model.

Clearly, Colt didn't have to introduce any special models to use the hotter loading, while S&W did. I'm sure that Colt's sales reps made this clear to law enforcement customers. When S&W introduced the .357 Magnum that was a different story - Colt only chambered the .357 into the New Service/Shooting Master and Single Action Army. These cost far less during the later years of the Great Depression then a "registered," custom built S&W.

By the middle-1920's Colt wanted to replace the old 1900 through 1908 series of .38 automatics, which were obviously obsolete and sales were dropping. By coming up with a .38 pistol built on the Government model design the solved a number of sales and production problems - and while at it they increased the performance of the cartridge for even more advertising clout. This left S&W without a competitive alternative - but it didn't take them long to come up with an answer.
 
From my personal M27 5" 357 or the Bisley 357 the

38/44 handloads I use, 358156 [ .358" ], 13.5gr of 2400, 38SPL brass cases, CCI 500 primers, are right at 1400FPS and are hardly a bit slower from a 4 5/8" OM Ruger or the S+W M19 6" 357MAG sixgun.
From my old M19 4" they set right at 1300FPS all day long.
PS: the 2400 is from 15lb kegs I bought in the last 1/3 of the last century.
 
Fed 168-

I assume that you AREN'T joking. Yes, a .38/44 S&W will handle the 200 grain Super Police load. In fact, Tom Ferguson (now deceased) wrote years ago in, "Gun World", that he used that load in M10's while with the San Antonio PD.

He also mentioned that it killed no better than the standard 158-grain load. What was needed was a reliably expanding bullet. The concensus seems to be that the lead HP Plus P is the best, but the Winchester 130-grain SXT, the Speer Gold Dot 125-grain, and the Federal 129-grain Hydra-Shok are also well thought of.

Velocity of that 200 grain load is pretty slow by modern standards. If memory serves, I've seen it clocked at less than 700 FPS. I'd forget it, at least for self defense.

Lone Star
 
Gun Digest Corp published a book many years ago titled "The Law Enforcement handgun Digest".

In it they were testing police handguns & ammunition on automobiles and they found that the W-W .38 spl 200gr "Super Police" load that had been touted as a great snub nosed load would simply bounce off the side windows of a car.
This led one of the shooters to quip, "Halt or I'll scratch your paint!"
 
I simply cannot express how much I love my 38/44 Outdoorsman.

5 screw gun that has likely had a pretty hard life. My grandfather had it before I did and who knows how many rounds it's had through it but in the 12 or so years that I've had it I have probably put a good 5k rounds through it. It's fairly loose now and could stand to be tightened up/retimed but if I were to ever do it I would absolutely have to have the original parts back and in unaltered condition. Still though, this gun shoots like the dickens with 130grn USA FMJ being one of it's favorite loads. I've run some HOT 148grn WC handloads through it back in the day, I wanna say it was like 11.5-12.0 grns of 2400. At the local indoor range there was a goofball that stopped shooting to look over and ask me if I was shooting a 44Magnum.


I've got an old reloading manual that was my grandfather's but I can't seem to locate the stupid thing right now, has loads for all kinds of cartridges that you don't see anymore like the 22 Zipper and a couple others.

My 45LC along side my 38/44 Outdoorsman(45LC top, 38/44 bottom).
http://home.bak.rr.com/varmintcong/nframes/m25/25&3844.jpg


Bout 2 years back I ran into a model 28-2 that had a bluing job VERY similar to my 38/44 but I was too slow to hop on it, usually 28-2s have a much more matte bluing but the one I saw had a sort of semi-polished bluing job. Was stupid for not getting it, would have been nice to have a pair of virtual twins and to have the 28-2 to take the brunt of most of my shooting while relegating the 38/44 to an occasional use gun.
 
usually 28-2s have a much more matte bluing but the one I saw had a sort of semi-poli

Yes, a local shop had two in stock recently, both original. Very different finishes. The S-numbered gun had an almost 27-like finish, the N-numbered gun was much less polished, almost as matte as the triggerguard/topstrap areas.
 
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
police were finding that the typical .38 Spl. of the day simply wouldn't get through a car body.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



The typical 38 Specials of today still won't get thru a car body, Mike.
Click to expand...

Car bodies weren't as tough back in the '20's & '30's as they are today. Rounds like the .38/44 & .38Super could cut through the traditional Model A Fords like a hot knife through butter.

Today--with safety glass, stronger alloys, & all the devices (electric window motors & locks, side impact beams, mouldings, etc) found in a modern car door--you'd need AP rifle rounds to reliably penetrate.

I'd love to find a .38/44 & work up my own "Keith loads" or even the mythical .41 Special. I might be reinventing the wheel, but that makes reloading FUN....:D
 
S&W guns of Old

Smith & Wesson 38/44 and it's sisters of bigger calibers but lets not forget the 1926 HE 44spl. this is a true gun for home or defense. I have one and bigger caliber handguns and I truely think it is the best f them all.
 
The Living Dead Thread.

I picked up a S&W Outdoorsman with a 6.5" barrel about five months ago. The factory tells me that it was shipped in August of 1953 to the Rex Gun Company in New York City. After that it is never heard from again until I came across it. It's seem some hard use in the past fifty-three years, but it still shoots true. It did require some work and it still needs some more, but it's mine.

How much did I pay? I paid $50.00 - honest.

Considering what I paid I don't mind spending more money bring it up to speed. I might even have it re-finished, but I haven't decided.

Never though that I would find one of these. I'm happy. Now I need to find some actual 38/44 HV rounds. Until then I'll just shoot some old Winchester 38 +P+ 110 grain SJHP that I've had for a few years.
 
Wow. You dug this up from over three years ago.

And Mike can argue all he wants. It is and was common kowledge that the .38/44 was S&W's response to the Colt Super. The Super came out first and S&W scrambled to match the higher velocity and penetration capabilities of the new auto cartridge by chambering the N frame for the .38 Special and then hot-rodding the loading.
 
SaxonPig
Wow. You dug this up from over three years ago.
Click to expand...

Actually this was dug up by hacker51. But it's always fun to dig up the dead.

Yeah that's how I understand it to be. The 38/44 was Smith's response to the Super 38. I alwasy figured that Colt went with the Super 38 in the 1911 because some cops were starting to use the auto and it had become one of Colt's stars along with the SAA. How many cops, young urban cops, were carrying the SAA though? Smart business.

On the other hand S&W was a revolver company. With the exception of that little 32 auto the company was all about wheelies. Just makes sense that they developed a round for the 44 frame.
 
After it came out the Super .38 Colt was tremendously popular with law enforcement officers and agents that could carry an automatic pistol. It didn't take long before Depression era gangsters caught on too. Smith & Wesson first experimented with an N-frame revolver chambered to use the .38 Super cartridge but quickly changed focus toward a hotter .38 Special.

To a degree this worked. Prior to World War Two the .38/44 revolvers far outsold any other N-frame revolvers, including the .357 Magnum. But it wasn't a perfect solution because Colt quickly chambered their New Service model to use the same round.

S&W responded again with the ultimate .357 Magnum, but again Colt chambered both their New Service and Single Action Army revolvers for the newer cartridge. Sometimes y' can't win... :(

Regarding car bodies. In those days cars were built out of real steel, not plastic, but more to the point gangsters often put heavy seel plate behind the back seat to get some extra protection. Winchester came out with a 150 grain steel-core load that would go through most any informal armor the bad guys could come up with.
 
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