I just got this from the UPS man today:



It wasn't cheap - with shipping it came to about 43 bucks for this box of 50, but I wanted to try some 200 grainers in my little Terrier and my Brit Victory.

They are pretty funky looking. I expected a more rounded shape, but I got these. They look like the Coneheads from Saturday Night Live.



That's a Fiocchi 145 grain lead round nose next to it for comparison.

No headstamps:



I didn't think they would fit into my trusty Terrier, but they did, with not a lot of room to spare.



They came after I got home from the range. I'll try to shoot some tomorrow, but I don't have a chronograph so I may have to time them with a stopwatch as they meander down to the 50 foot line.

Has anyone chronographed these? I suspect 650 fps tops, maybe less out of deference to the old breaktops out there.

__________________
“What you got, ain’t new.”

The bottom pic really shows how bizarre this round looks.
Conehead, hah!

Interesting load and info - Thanks! I don't have a Terrier but I did the poor-man's version of this with .38 Short Colt. I still haven't been out to fire any of them but I'm thinking they should be pretty mild - with 125-g bullets. The 200-grainers in your rounds should make that Terrier rear up a little bit. Hopefully you go to an outdoor range and can shoot a gallon jug of water with one ...

I wish I had good news to report after a trip to the range, but I'm afraid not.

My initial reaction to firing them from my little Terrier was - WHOA! My usually mild mannered gun bucked and reared like never before. OK, says I - these are more stout than the milquetoast loads I've been using up to now.

I fired five at the 50' range, the longest available at the indoor range. When I wheeled the target back I saw only three holes in the head of the target, though I had held center mass. The other two went over the top. I suspected they would shoot high, but not that high.

I moved the target to 21 feet, and let off five more. This was with a solid two hand hold dead center on a standard silhouette. The rounds landed in the neck area.



Sorry for the quality of the photos.

Of more pressing concern was the excessive recoil and the difficult extraction. I'm a fan of 200 grain loads, and shoot the .38 Special variety in my Detective Special. These loads were noticeably more stout. They were hard to punch out, and the primers looked flattened.



I quit at 14 rounds. On that cylinder the gun locked up before the last shot. I thought I had broken the gun, but it turned out the last round had crept forward and kept the cylinder from turning.



I pushed it back in and packed up my stuff. Here it is and this is after I pushed it in enough to get it out, next to one from the box.



I'll shoot the rest out of my Enfield. I wish they would have worked out better, but for now I'm back to the old LRN Fiocchis.

__________________
“What you got, ain’t new.”

You might want to pull one and check bullet diameter. Does not say in your pic. They could be .360 or .361. Not sure, but Fiocchi are .357 or .358.

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"from my cold dead hands" C.H.

Way back when, we were encouraged to carry 200 gr loads in our model 36 because they tended to tumble (I think you call it keyholing) from short barrels therefore possibly hitting the target (thug) sideways and possibly causing more damage. Didn't know if the theory behind it was true, but I tested it. They did hit the target sideways quite a lot so if the theory is true, why not. I'm sure with today's short barrel ammo there is a better chance of expansion, but not always guaranteed.

I want to try the loading from Matt's Bullets- a proper 200 gr hemispherical roundnose.

Oh my, $43/50 rounds is a big number...

I load my own 38/200 ammo and they cost me only $10.50/50 rounds at current component prices. I'm using the correct 200gr bullet used in the original 38/200 British ammo, before they were forced to go to a 170gr FMJ bullet.

__________________
Freedom is never free!!
SWCA #3437

I use a 180 grain semi wadcutter made for me by a local bullet caster and sized to 0.361. POA at 7-10 metres out of Enfields, Webley Mk IVs and SW M&Ps with 5" barrels (the revolver that became the prototype for the UK). Dave_n

Expensive, over pressure and jump crimp... I think I'd pass on buying any more.

Thanks for the report...as you may remember, I have a couple of Terriers and several other guns, including a Colts Banker's Special that will use that round. Maybe I'll try to find the plain bullets and try loading my own versions. Very interesting!!! Thanks also for the photos....

Best Regards, Les

__________________
SWCA 3084, SWHF 495, PGCA 3064

I'd call them. Any company can have problems and maybe you'll get an extra box of ammo out of it

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

What powder are you using and what charge ?

Gentlemen , I believe this is correct to say that using a std size (.358) cast bullet is too small . You need about .361 or a bit more , depending on the groove diameter of your barrel to shoot with any accuracy . I have read that the 38sw , (not the 38spl) is a larger size barrel , approx .360. You might have to go to a custom mold maker to get the weight and diameter that you need .

Apart from technicalities of reloading and pressures, just a historical note:

While the original British military .38/200 load was dimensionally identical to the .38 S&W, it would not occur to me to buy ammo purporting to be loaded as such for shooting in small-frame revolvers designed for US commercial loads in .38 S&W, like a Terrier, or even worse, an older topbreak.

Of course, S&W didn’t help things when they labeled the BSR barrels “38 S&W CTG”, but just like with the .38 Long Colt and the .38 Special, interchangeability does not mean they are the same cartridges, and I would not expect a box labeled “38-200 British” to be loaded mildly “in deference to the old breaktops”.

I am somewhat surprised that the OP would be surprised to find the load “stout” when fired from a Terrier.

Attached Images

9C7FE3E2-10C0-4FD1-9182-BABC356C7D9E.jpg (53.3 KB, 51 views)

Let us know how that load shoots in the Enfield .38. But as that bullet crept forward under recoil, I wouldn't use that ammo for carry needs.

I'm surprised that you are surprised that I was surprised.

Is the British .38/200 load hotter than the .38 S&W Super Police 200 grain load? The Terrier was advertised as being suitable for that load, which I thought was ballistically identical to the British .38/200.



I've fired the .38 Special Super Police 200 grain load, which should be hotter than the .38 S&W 200 grain load. This .38/200 was waaaaay more stout than that.

It wasn't the recoil that concerned me, though I admit it did take me by surprise. It was the other signs of high pressure - the hard ejection and flattened primers.

T-Star, I won't be carrying this in my Terrier. I think I'll try some Matt's Bullets next, or just load my own.

We are supposed to get pounded by a snowstorm tomorrow, though it is currently a sunny 75 degrees here in Colorful Colorado. If I can get to the range I'll try to bang the rest of these off in my BSR and Enfield, but if I keep getting high pressure signals I'll just write these off.

__________________
“What you got, ain’t new.”

My one-and-only experience with OWS ammunition was similar to that of the OP... but with .351 W.S.L. for a Winchester Model '07. When .351 ammo was finally discontinued and shelf-stock dried up, I ordered a box from OWS and could not wait to head out to the range. Immediately I noticed, in comparison to the Winchester and Remington factory ammo an uncomfortable increase in muzzle blast from the OWS ammo, sharper recoil, and very definite signs of over-pressure (swollen cases, poor extraction, flattened primers). I only fired a couple of rounds out of the box of 50, and relegated the remaining rounds to spending the remainder of their days simply sitting in the colorful box... with a note placed inside the box warning that I consider the rounds to be unsafe to fire.

I seem to recall (this was almost 30 years ago) scattered reports of suspected over-pressure incidents - none of a catastrophic nature - involving OWS ammo.

Perhaps some day I'll break the rounds down and salvage the cases and bullets for future reloading. But that experience pretty much ended my desire for OWS ammo.

Sorry about the following sermon; please do not take it personally :

The problem is that post-war American gun writers have talked themselves and others into the myth of the “weak” .38 which the foolish British adopted instead of the wonderful .455 which knocked everybody for a loop if you hit them in the finger.

However, nobody else that I’m aware of has been documented, in the entire British Commonwealth and elsewhere, as seeing this as an issue through WW II and the following decades.

There seems to be little available in chronograph data (believe me, I’ve searched), when it comes to actual pre-war loads of the .38-200. But the British Army seems to have been satisfied based on penetration tests and such that the .38 load was an adequate load, and beyond snarky remarks by US gun writers, backed up by no knowledge or evidence, I have found nothing to contradict that impression.

The inevitable conclusion is that a realistic .38-200 British load would be of quite a bit higher pressure than the relatively tame .38 S&W commercial load. For the .380 Mk IIz, the wartime 178 grain version, I’ve read about pressures of 50% more than a standard .38 S&W load.

Now the caveat: I have no idea whether there are standards for the military load anywhere, and what individual manufacturers have in mind when they label a box “.38-200 British”. Maybe some just stick a 200 grain bullet on top of a regular .38 S&W load. I’ve found an old chronograph report where a guy tested a post-war FN load labeled .380 Mk IIz which actually came out weaker than a .38 S&W.

So basically, people don’t seem to know what they really mean. My default assumption would therefore be that .38-200, properly loaded, is hotter than .38 S&W, and I would limit its use to mid-size guns specifically built for it, like Enfields, Webleys, and S&W BSRs.

With the BSR being the obvious exception (and that was just vanity on the part of S&W ), ammo for a gun labeled .38 S&W should probably come in a box labeled .38 S&W. If THAT causes problems, you’ve got reason to complain.

PS: None of this, btw., is meant to suggest that OWS couldn’t have screwed up and that you and the other contributors couldn’t be correct with your suspicions that this box of yours is defective and was mis-loaded.

I came around to the same conclusion quite some time ago.

They did the same thing to the .38 Special; not to mention the 9mm too.

Absalom, you have hit the mark.
I have been shooting the .38 S&W for some time, and reload a conservatively hotter than factory load for Webley and Enfield pistols. I would not want to play catch with them.
Though not a .45, the .38S&W was used around the world by military and police to stop the bad guy.

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"from my cold dead hands" C.H.

I have nothing of value to add to this thread, but I love this picture. Love seeing big hunks of lead peeking out from a revolver cylinder like that.

I braved a little snow and made it to the range today.

On the assumption ammo marked .38-200 British would be just the ticket for my two revolvers intended for them, I brought along my British Service Revolver and my Enfield.

First up was the Smith. The recoil was comparable to .38 Special +P rounds from a Model 10. They grouped just left of the point of aim (the head of the silhouette). The empties were hard to eject and the primers were flattened.



As Forrest Gump would say, I am not a smart man.

I loaded five into the Enfield and let fly. At the fourth round the trigger on the old Enfield did not return forward. I broke it open and called it quits.

After I cycled it a few times, the Enfield began to work again. I have no idea what happened, other than it decided to take its fate into its own hands and go on strike. It seems to be fine now, other than the grips are loose.



It looks like one of the rounds keyholed and hit sideways.

The primers look bad.





I have five .38 S&W revolvers - the three in this thread as well as a Safety Hammerless and a 4" H&R Auto Eject. I like the round because it is pleasant to shoot. These were decidedly not pleasant to shoot.

Thus endeth my Old Western Scrounger adventure. I'm keeping this nice blue box and chucking the rest in the river. I can't take a chance on one of my kids loading these into one of the older guns after I croak.

I'll let OWS know, but I consider my $43 a cheap lesson.

__________________
“What you got, ain’t new.”

Absalom-

I respect your posts, and you often have useful info not often seen here.

But in the sole case where I read of an actual shooting with a .38-200, an Italian fleeing a battle in N. Africa was shot in the back by a British officer. He lingered for hours, begging for a surgeon, who never came. (The Briton was also wounded and aid took forever to arrive.) Now, this Italian was FLEEING. He was not a determined attacker, possibly fueled by drugs or religious fervor making him hard to stop.

I think Churchill also distrusted the .38. This may be part of why he insisted on buying Colt .45 autos for his newly formed Commando regiments. He was out of political power in 1927, when the .38-200 was adopted. He personally bought a Colt .45 auto in 1915, before going to war in France. He knew the advantages of that arm.

I read in a BRITISH gun magazine that RAF shooting teams had trouble with jacketed bullets sticking in the bores of S&W revolvers. I feel that some S&W .38-200 barrels were bored a bit on the tight side. That, combined with jacketed bullets, is not a good combination. And some lots of wartime ammo may have been under-loaded.

I've seen photos of original .38-200 ammo, and it looked very like the Western .38 S&W Super Police 200 grain lead loads that my grandfather had for a break-top S&W copy. Later bullets for the UK guns had more tapered bullets. I think all jacketed loads had that profile, probably to induce tumbling in the body of a foe.

Chic Gaylord advised using 200 grain .38 SPECIAL in guns used by NYC cops in the 1960's. I guess they could buy that round and not violate dept. rules. HP ammo was then forbidden. But Tom Ferguson, a San Antonio cop and gun writer, found that round inadequate for dogs! I only met Ferguson once, and never discussed that matter with him. But he favored the .41 Magnum when SAPD adopted it. The poor factory loads in that caliber for police use may have dampened his enthusiasm. But the .41 is a different story.

Personally, I don't want to carry a .38 S&W for any real defense or field use,

In 1974, Dallas PD was adopting a lead Plus P HP round, the W-W 158 grain lead one used by FBI. The Dallas Morning News assigned me a story on this, to run my story counter to one written by a well known "community leader." Anyone living here for the past 40 years would know his name, but I'd rather not state that here. He is now deceased. Race was a key issue.

Among my research on handgun stopping power and why I felt the police needed the new load, I interviewed Dr. Vincent DiMaio, an authority on wound ballistics and a consultant to the DPD, I believe.

Dr. DiMaio told me that his tests in gelatin showed that basic .38 SPECOIAL load, 158 grain RN, deposited just 74 FP of energy in the block. The new lead HP load deposited well over 200 FP! I don't recall the exact figure, but certainly, well over 200 foot pounds.

My article was rejected and the project cancelled. I asked the assigning editor why, and he complained that my article was so authoritative and complete that it put the other fellow's to shame and made it plain that he was more interested in being in the news and inciting racial unrest than he was in getting a real answer as to whether the new load was justified. That so disgusted me that I never saw American journalism the same way again. They didn't want the truth: they wanted controversy, in hopes of selling more newspapers and coddling agitators for PC reasons.

NOTE: I've tried THREE times now to correct the typing errors in the latter part of this post. I have frequent problems on this board. Just figure out what I was saying. The corrections aren't "taking."

The point is, if the .38 SPECIAL was found wanting until HP ammo was available, just think how weak a performance the .38 S&W/.38-200 offers. I disliked the Terrier because for every one made, they could have made a Chief Special at a time when revolvers were in short supply, due to the Viet war.

Well, for what it's worth, I found this comparison photo showing some of the variations of this cartridge:



The one that we are interested in is the MK I.

Best Regards, Les

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SWCA 3084, SWHF 495, PGCA 3064

les-

Thanks.That makes it pretty clear what the original .38-200 load looked like.

And it was lead, giving less bore friction than later jacketed rounds.

T-Star, I have a couple of books by Dr. Vincent DiMaio, I think he was the lead forensic pathologist for San Antonio for many years. I can't remember, and the books are in my office. I remember reading them many years ago, and incorporating some of the information into my classes. I'll look him up tomorrow. (Note...one of the books was "Gunshot Wounds: Practical Aspects of Firearms, Ballistics and
Forensic Techniques")

Best Regards, Les

__________________
SWCA 3084, SWHF 495, PGCA 3064

Yes, that's him. The info he gave me on the amount of energy actually deposited in a body by various ammo has not appeared elsewhere, to my knowledge.

That alone greatly helped my case that the Dallas police were entirely justified in adopting better .38 ammo.

Circa 1958, Jeff Cooper recommended the Super Police 200 gr in snub revolvers. The man always went for heavy bullets.

I remember an early 1970’s article in the FBI Bulletin using the method of comparing the velocity before and after penetration of gelatin blocks, computing the energy difference, and assigning that as the energy acting upon the target. Then and now, I thought the method failed to account for (subtract) the energy acting on the bullet. How much energy does it take to expand a hollow point? It might be inconsequential, but maybe not.

Ok, prof. Les, time to get out the old lesson plans and fire up the blackboard. I can clean the erasers as it was often my job.

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"from my cold dead hands" C.H.

Sig:

Please forgive the thread drift!!

That's funny...I'm one of the few guys left that actually still use plain old white chalk on a blackboard (well, it's actually green)....everyone else uses "whiteboard markers". I hate them because they will dry out in your hand while you're talking if you don't cap them, they stink, and they cost much more than chalk!! I made sure when they remodeled my 100 year old college building that I kept my old fashioned chalkboard. And erasers.

Here’s where I work... the lighted window is my office, I’m burning the midnight oil!! Windows to the right are in my classroom...I don’t have to walk very far!!!:



Stop by anytime..old gun guys (including retired FBI, sig), are always welcome.

Best Regards, Les

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SWCA 3084, SWHF 495, PGCA 3064

Chalk? Whiteboard markers? Sheesh ..... that’s hardcore.

I am considered a fossil at school because when they dragged me back out of retirement, I insisted that they deactivate all “smart” features of the smartboard in my classroom, so I could actually use my mouse and keyboard to project my notes, instead of waving my hands and tapping magic spots like everybody else.

Would be interesting to pull one of the bullets from the original poster and weigh the powder charge, probably hard to identify the powder.

Texas Star:

You certainly present an eloquent case for the conventional position. For the last several decades I’ve read the same stuff, and I’ve gradually come to the conclusion that the emperor’s got no clothes on. Most of the conventional wisdom on ammunition “effectiveness” appears to be based on anecdotes and celebrity opinions, as are quite a few of the points you make. Neither one to me is a valid source of authority any more.

Just to address the most blatant example, Churchill was one of the smartest men of the 20th century, but his few scrapes with an enemy as a young man hardly make his opinion relevant when it comes to something like handguns.

Given the infinite variability of human anatomy and its reaction to a gunshot wound, anecdotes don’t generalize either. Taking your story about the Italian, it is only your assumption that it was the caliber, and not the path of the bullet or the particularly healthy constitution of the shot soldier, that prolonged his suffering. I’m sure if I looked long enough, I could find you a guy who was shot in the back with a .45 and survived. BUT: Both would be anecdotes, not evidence.

I’m not arguing that the .38 S&W is a great manstopper. Certainly not. No handgun round is. But the difference to other rounds has been heavily emphasized based on no sustainable evidence.

I find user patterns much more convincing. Just like in the case of the 9mm vs. the .45: Since every major anti-terrorist unit in the world since 1970 has adopted the 9mm, not the .45, I can safely discount Jeff Cooper‘s opinion. And since the Israeli military and police, who have been killing terrorists pretty much continuously since 1948 (and even before), placed orders for .38 Webley Mk IV‘s as late as 1969, that matters and gives the round credibility, definitely trumping some American‘s gelatine tests.

I hope the above adequately explains where my thinking has evolved. I‘m not primarily arguing that the .38-200 was a great combat round. I just don‘t find the evidence convincing that it was in any way a bad one; most American commentary on this seems definitely colored by the Philippine myth about the .38 LC, rather than first hand knowledge about this round.

There were two articles. The second article tested snub nose revolvers and small automatic pistols. I still have them somewhere.

Absalom-

I do think "anecdotes" are useful, if the accounts are valid and we get enough together to form an opinion of how well things work.

Cooper was not alone in championing the .45, nor was it an American opinion alone. I read Che Guevara's book on guerrilla warfare and he also said the .45 worked better than the 9mm.

However, I know a man who shot quite a few men in Iraq with 9mm pistols, and he had no stopping power issues. And David W. Arnold, the Rhodesian cop who headed a counter-terrorism program there before coming to the USA to be an editor for Petersen, told me that he reviewed handgun loads in use and that a well placed 9mm would usually deck a terrorist. He had studied a lot of field reports. Plenty of "anecdotes." BTW, he was on the national IPSC team and personally favored a Colt .45 auto, although required to wear a P-38 on duty.

I like good "anecdotes." Churchill's account of his Mauser 7.63 mm at Omdurman is a good one. See his, "My Early Life" (1930) for that story.

I know that even a .45 can fail. I've told here before about a Dallas cop who hit a felon four times with a .44 Magnum. The man ran for over a block before dropping. The officer went to carrying a .357 M-19.

Any handgun can fail in battle. Maybe if a member here takes a .38 S&W or .38-200 and shoots a few dogs or coyotes, we'll have some good "anecdotes" about its performance. Tom Ferguson's experience with 200 grain bullets in .38 Special on dogs leads me to believe we can do better.

One final thought:

Handgun-related arguments about handguns in WW II, when the .38-200 revolvers certainly saw the widest field service, frequently lose sight of the fact that WW II simply was not a handgun war. I'm sure individual soldiers on all sides at one time or another saved their lives using their sidearms, but if aliens had descended and magically pulled up all handguns on Earth in 1939, the war wouldn't have lasted one day longer.

So the vast majority of WW II veterans simply haven't got a clue how effective their respective handgun was. Besides vague insinuations in his own writings, there has never been independent proof that even Jeff Cooper ever did any gunfighting with a .45 (or actually saw infantry combat of any kind) in WW II.

Most WWII veterans in the US I've talked to, the ones who did not end up in the gun culture and missed the memo about the "legendary manstopper", actually disliked the Colt: heavy, awkward, too much recoil, can't hit anything, etc. Effectiveness? Wouldn't know, never got a chance to shoot anyone with it.

I suspect even if the .38-200 had been deficient, you wouldn't find a lot of Commonwealth soldiers who'd had a chance to find out.

So we probably shouldn't spend too much energy re-fighting that war over a handgun caliber

Absalom-

Jeff Cooper and I corresponded for some years and met once. I asked if he'd personally used a handgun in battle. By then, I knew he was a US Marine officer who'd fought in the Pacific. He told me that he'd killed three men with handguns. Many here will want to know more.

I don't think he ever published this, but I have it in a letter. In the first case, he had a Colt SAA .45. You may have seen that gun, which had adj. sights and stag grips, in his early books. He saw a Jap rise up over a big log and fired. He meant to shoot twice, but the impact of the 250 grain bullet knocked the man off the log so violently that he didn't need to fire a second time.

The other two incidents involved the .45 auto. I'd have to get the letter out to recall one in depth, but remember that the third case was of an Asian who fired at Cooper and others in a passing Jeep. The man had a Sten gun. Cooper shot him as they fled his fire. The shot was at a fairly long distance. Jeff was a military adviser where this happened, but didn't name the country.

Another case was that of a Marine sergeant on Guadalcanal who killed an unknown number of Japanese with his .45 while running from one to another of the four machinegun positions he commanded. He kept those guns in action and significantly contributed to breaking a Japanese attack in strong force. The sgt. received the Medal of Honor. I can't immediately recall his name; some here may know. He was later KIA on another island.

In WW I, Sgt. York killed at least 8 Germans in one incident with his .45.
He killed a LOT more with a Springfield rifle,and he also received the MH.
Had the .45 not saved him to kill more with his rifle on several occasions, the enemy would have suffered many fewer casualties.

Cooper summed it up well: he said that handguns do not win wars, but sometimes save the lives of the men who do win them.

Your points were well made, but I knew Cooper better than you seem to have, so I could contradict your assumptions about his combat service.

I could do the same with Col. Charles Askins and others. But I think we've both essentially made our points. You are surely correct that not a lot of men armed with .38 revolvers actually shot enemy with them.

And the Countess of Ramonones (sp?) killed a gypsy with her Beretta .25 while an OSS agent in Spain. She said he was about to knife her. (She was American, but married into the Spanish nobility.) Look for her books under the name of Aline, Countess of Ramonones. One is, "The Spy Wore Red." She continued to work for the CIA after WW II. This was with her husband's knowledge and probably that of the Spanish govt.

So much for those who sneer at .25 automatics. Sometimes, even those suffice.