Whitworth
Member
.............I'd gotten this pistol from my dad, who'd bought it back in the early '60s from a Calif Highway Patrolman. It's blued and had had the barrel expertly cut to 4" at some time, with the front sight perfectly replaced. As pistol cartridges go, the 38 S&W is not very exciting to lots of people who these days even consider a 357 mag as a wimpy thing.The pistol came to me with really bad Hubley cap pistol plastic stag grips, which I quickly replaced with a spare set of target grips I had for my K38. They kind of overpower it but they're a heckuva lot nicer looking! The lanyard ring had been removed and the threaded hole plugged. The one negative I can see is that it has a .012" bbl-cyl gap! It doesn't spit lead though.
However it's very unassuming nature is appealing. It sure doesn't try to be anything it wasn't intended for. Unlike the 38 Special which has assumed airs with +P and +P+ loadings
I was aware of the 38 S&W's larger groove diameter but really had nothing correct to use in it. The chamber mouths mike .361" and as close as I can figure with the 5 groove barrel it is also .361". I had a Ly 358430 mould for the 200gr RNPB which fell from the mould in WW alloy at about .360". It got shot as cast and lubed with Lee Liq Earwax. Did, middling fair but wasn't exciting. Ditto any other slug I had moulds for. Then a friend mentioned he had a 4 cav Lyman which was giving him problems because the 158gr WC's fell at .363"+. Yes I was all over him and even paid him $10 MORE then what he asked for it (which was a good price anyway).
From WW alloy I was getting a slug almost of .364" diameter and I sized them to .363". Even seated way out to 38 Special length (same case volumns) and loading 38 Special loads nothing much was going on. Then for some reason it struck me that 38Special target WC loads use almost a pure lead slug, so why not try that? Why not indeed?
I drained and refilled the 20lb pot with pure lead and cast a ton of these bullets. Lord knows what I'd do with them if THEY didn't work! Oh yeah, in the meantime GPC had NOS Victory bbls (5" unblued) for $26 so I ordered one. While I had these slugs I also figured that if they had a hollow base they might do even better? I have a swage press for making slugs for paper patching (and even better) an 11" Logan lathe so I cranked out a set of dies to put a hollow base on some of the slugs.
The one on it's side is just lube-sized. One swaged one leaning on it shows the HB and to the right the mild hollow nose formed by leaving the ejector rod a tad high in the die.
So what happened? Almost immediate success
I reloaded a previous try using Red Dot under 50 un-swaged, and 50 with HB's. The loads ran from 2.2grs to 3.0 grs in 2/10ths increases. The hollow based slugs really took off and did very well up to the 3.0gr load where they began to show a bit more sprall. The solid bases were also better but not as good from the git-go, up to the 3.0gr load where they showed their suff. 
Seven shots into a bare inch ain't too shabby. Especially compared to the way it had been rather indescriminately spraying them before. No excuse for the 3 fliers. The bullets had not been scaled, and not even really inspected so I guess I deserve them.
A buddy told me if I put that new barrel on I was an idiot, but that .012" gap bothers me and I can always put the original barrel back on, can't I?
The little stinker before it got new grips. Ya just gotta love those!
Rick
