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Old 06-07-2015, 06:32 PM
alwslate alwslate is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaedan View Post
It's funny because I have a speer manual that is brand new, and I bought one of those little booklets from cabelas that have data from numerous sources, and the data between the two is all over the place. Is one of them wrong? Is one of them being careless, or the other one being cautious? It just would be nice to know. Bummer that there are no pressure signs in such a little pressured cartridge, oh well.

Thank you for your input.
Data varies between manuals for a variety of reasons and not
because of any lack of ability to read pressures. Too many
reasons to go into here. But in general very few if any
current manuals will list data for the 38 spl that exceeds +P
levels. Back in the days of the N frame 38 spls there was
such a thing as the 38/44 38 spl cartridge available from the factories for use in heavy frame revolvers. And yes it got
used in smaller guns but that's another story. Some of the
old manuals did publish 38/44 data but you're not going to
see that happen today. However if you're really interested
in this you can order back issues of Handloader magazine
or acquire old data online I believe. There are two articles
that come to mind about loading the 38 to 38/44 levels,
one by Mike Venturnino and one by Brian Pearce. Both
actually sort of turned into experiments about seeing how
far the 38 could be pushed and went beyond factory 38/44 levels. I'm sure you would find both interesting reading. I
don't know what kind of 38 spl you own but the best
path to high performance with the .357 bore dia is just to
buy a strong 357 magnum to begin with. Lots of data around
for the magnum. There are many books available from the
publisher of Handloader magazine and one good one is
"Loading the Peacemaker" by Dave Scovill. It's a very good
read for anyone interested in loading revolvers for practical
use in the field. In it he treats the 38 spl like any other
cartridge to be used for hunting and offers loading details
and heavy handloads for field use in strong revolvers.

Last edited by alwslate; 06-08-2015 at 02:44 PM.
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