firedawg60
Member
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2011
- Messages
- 137
.400 Corbon
Somewhere around here I still have a set of loading dies for The .38/.45 Clerke developed by a fellow named Bo Clerke introduced around 1963. The idea was to ream a .38 Super barrel in a 1911 frame and the cartridge was a necked down 45 ACP. With good 45 ACP brass you could get about 4 firings before the case necks split. The idea, like most bottleneck handgun cartridges was case capacity to push a small 357 bullet at high velocities. RCBS made the loading dies and i have no clue if anyone else manufactured the dies. A few manufacturers even made the drop in barrels for the then popular Colt 1911 frames. I think it may have been Walkalong I had some conversation with several years ago about the cartridge. The cartridge fed well from standard 45 ACP 1911 magazines. The intent was a mild to shoot target cartridge.
Ron
Wiki has been known to be wrong..... According to Cartridges of the World, the round was introduced in 1902, not 1898. But other sources state that it was loaded with black.....for less than a year. So I just learned something.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.38_Special
"The .38 Special was introduced in 1898 as an improvement over the .38 Long Colt which, as a military service cartridge, was found to have inadequate stopping power against the charges of Filipino Muslim warriors during the Philippine–American War.[9] Upon its introduction, the .38 Special was originally loaded with black powder, but the cartridge's popularity caused manufacturers to offer smokeless powder loadings within a year of its introduction."
Thought experiment. Don't think of a bottle-necked rifle cartridge as a large diameter case necked down to hold a smaller diameter bullet. Think of it as a straight-walled rifle case "bottled out" to get more powder behind the bullet so that you can drive it to higher velocity. That need doesn't exist with most straight-walled pistol cartridges; there is plenty of capacity in the case to drive a handgun bullet to desired velocity without having to expand the case--other than lengthening it somewhat (.44 spl to .44 mag, etc.).