Just out of curiosity, does anyone know what the correct charge of black powder for .38-40 WCF was back when it was new? Was it 40 grains, or 38 grains?
Or would this question be better asked in a new thread?
Howdy
Rather than starting a new thread, which would belong in either the Black Powder section, because 38-40 was originally a Black Powder cartridge, or in the rifle section because it was originally a rifle cartridge, I will simply answer you here.
38-40 followed the naming convention for many Black Powder cartridges, such as 45-70, 38-55, and 44-40 to name just a few, the first number representing the caliber, and the second number representing the charge in grains of Black Powder. Why is 38-40 actually a 40 caliber cartridge? Why wasn't it named 40-40, nobody really knows. Except perhaps Oliver Winchester, and he is long gone.
And thereby hangs a tale.
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Left to right in this photo the cartridges are 44 Henry Rimfire, 44-40, 38-40, and 32-20. The three on the right are also known as 44 WCF, 38 WCF, and 44 WCF. WCF stood for Winchester Center Fire, or Winchester Central Fire.
Let's jump into the Way Back Machine for a minute. Oliver Winchester, a shirt manufacturer from New Haven Connecticut, had taken over the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company in 1857. Volcanic had been started by an enterprising pair of firearms designers named Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson. Mssrs Smith and Wesson had developed a repeating rifle and handgun based on the earlier works of Jennings and Hunt. These firearms had a tubular magazine under the barrel and were operated by rotating a lever forward and back to chamber a new round and cock the hammer for the next shot. The problem with the Volcanic design was the cartridge, known as the Rocket Ball, was under powered. The round consisted of nothing more than a hollow bullet filled with gunpowder with a primer stuck on the rear. Powder capacity was simply not enough to develop enough energy to do much more than punch holes in paper.
Winchester was an entrepreneur who saw that repeating firearms were the future of firearm design. So he paid off Smith and Wesson, which included buying all the patents, and they went on to start a new company for producing revolvers. One of the employees at the Volcanic plant was Benjamin Tyler Henry, a brilliant gun designer. Winchester put Henry in charge as plant superintendent, and charged him with coming up with a better rifle than the Volcanic. The first thing Henry did was design a new cartridge. This cartridge was a 44 caliber, copper cased, rimfire cartridge, containing 26 grains of Black Powder and a 216 grain bullet. The cartridge all the way on the left in the photo above is a 44 Henry RImfire. Once Henry had perfected his cartridge, he designed a new rifle to fire it. Much bigger than the Volcanic, because the cartridge was much bigger, the Henry rifle had a 24" barrel and a bronze (sometimes mistakenly called brass) frame. The barrel and magazine were machined out of one solid bar of iron, making the rifle very heavy. The new rifle was patented in Henry's name, although Winchester actually held the patent rights. Patented in 1860, Henry rifle production began in 1862.
Here is a photo of my Uberti replica 'Iron Frame' Henry. Notice the lack of a forend,
One of the things about Black Powder cartridges is one can get a rough idea of their relative power just by seeing how big they are. Unlike modern Smokeless powder cartridges, there is no air space in a Black Powder cartridge. It is completely filled with powder.
In 1866, after a bitter disagreement with Henry, Winchester renamed the company after himself. Henry was out, and the first 'Winchester' rifle was the model 1866. This one used the newly patented King's loading gate. The 1866 model retained the bronze frame and still fired the old 44 Henry Rimfire cartridge.
Although 26 grains of powder was much more than the old Rocket Ball ammo carried, it still was not a very powerful cartridge. So in 1873 Winchester came out with a new model and a new cartridge. This was a centerfire cartridge with a brass case. It carried a 200 grain bullet and it contained 40 grains of powder. Although the old Henry cartridge had a straight case, the new round had a very slight taper below the bullet. Experience had shown the engineers at Winchester that a slight taper allows a cartridge to feed more reliably than a straight case. It is obvious in the first photo how much more powder the new cartridge contained than the old Henry round. The new rifle had an iron frame rather than the old bronze frame because the cartridge was more powerful.The cartridge was known as the 44 WCF. Other companies such as Marlin started calling it the 44-40 because they did not want to stamp WCF (Winchester) on their barrels.
Now, it is interesting to note that the 44-40 is not a true 44 caliber. Bullet diameter was actually .427. The old Henry round carried a heeled bullet. A heeled bullet had a 'heel' at the rear that was the same diameter as the
inside of the case. The heel slipped
inside the case, while the main bullet diameter was the same as the outside of the case. Examine a modern 22 rimfire if you thought you have never seen a heeled bullet before. The new 44-40 round had a modern style bullet, all one diameter, that slid
inside the cartridge case. Thus the smaller diameter.
Anyway, early 44-40 rifle groove diameters varied all over the place, but .427 was the standard. Why was it not called 43-40 instead of 44-40? My guess is because 44 was already a well established number from Cap & Ball days as well as Henry days. This was not the only example of a bullet not being the diameter 'advertised' by the name. The S&W 44 Russian round, as well as its descendants the 44 Special and 44 Magnum have .429 groove diameters. We all know that a 38 Special uses a .357 diameter bullet. The changeover from earlier cartridges with heeled bullets to inside lubricated bullets is largely responsible for this. Indeed, 45 Colt is relatively unusual in that it is a true 45, with .451 groove diameter.
It is also interesting to note that in CAS we call cartridges like this 'pistol caliber' cartridges. Even though 44-40 started out as a rifle cartridge, it was about the same overall length as the 45 Colt cartridge, and Colt first chambered their Single Action Army revolver for 44-40 in 1878. 44-40 was the second most popular chambering for the SAA, behind 45 Colt.
In 1879 Winchester introduced a new chambering for the Model 1873. The thought was to boost sales by offering an alternative to the 44 caliber cartridge. The 38 WCF cartridge was actually nothing more than the 44 WCF necked down to 40 caliber. Bullet diameter was .401, bullet weight was 180 grains, powder capacity was still 40 grains. The photo above shows how the 44-40 has a very slight taper, while the 38-40 has a more severe taper. Interestingly enough, sales of 38-40 Model 1873s never reached the numbers that the 44-40 rifles did. Customers seemed to prefer the slightly heavier cartridge. In 1884 Colt chambered the SAA for 38-40. It was the 3rd most popular chambering for the SAA, behind 45 Colt and 44-40.
Why was the new cartridge not called 40-40? Nobody knows. Nothing authoritative has been written, at least I have never seen anything authoritative written about it. I have seen speculation that old Oliver thought 38-40 rolled off the tongue better than 40-40. But nobody knows.
This Model 1873 WInchester was made in 1887, the Bisley Colt was made in 1909. Both are chambered for 38-40.
While I'm on the subject, one more thing. Numbers such as 40 grains of Black Powder get tossed around very easily. The fact is, since Black Powder cartridges require all the air to be removed and the powder compressed, it is easy to stuff a few more grains in just by compressing the powder a bit more. Black Powder is not as energetic as Smokeless and a couple of more grains does not make much difference. The next photo shows two pieces of 45 Colt brass that I sectioned. The one on the left is an old Balloon Head case, the one on the right is a modern Solid Head Case. Notice how much more powder capacity there is in the Balloon Head case. The same would be true with old Balloon Head 44-40 cases vs modern Solid Head cases. Somewhere I have a photo of both but this photo was handy. So while the factory could stuff 40 grains of Black Powder into the old Balloon Head cases, I only get about 35 grains of FFg into my 44-40 rounds with modern Starline brass. I don't load 38-40 very often, but my reloading notebook says I am putting about the same amount into them. Could I stuff 40 grains into modern cases? Absolutely. I would just need to compress the powder more. But there is really no point, 35 grains of FFg does all I need it to do.
What about 32-20? Winchester chambered the 1873 model for 32-20 (32WCF) in 1882. Sales of the 32-20 were better than the 38-40 model.
566,487 Winchester Model 1873 rifles were chambered for 44-40.
109,558 were chambered for 32-20.
only 24,826 were chambered for 38-40.
19,738 were chambered for 22 short.
Colt chambered the SAA for 32-20 in 1884. The fourth most popular chambering for the SAA behind 45 Colt, 44-40, and 38-40.
One more thing. John Wayne's favorite revolver was a Colt SAA chambered for 38-40. He often carried it in his movies.