38 spl cases that take large primers, what?

[wheelgun28]

OK, so Ive been buying some old ammo and using it as plinking fun stuff. I wound up with a box of Remington green box 38 spl 158 RNL bullets, perhaps the box was not original. The box was nice, the bullets some fail to fire some seem weak. Any how tonight I am loading some wadcutters and needed a few more cases. I grab some of these . I find that I cant prime them, then I realize that the hole if for a large primer. The cases are marked "Peters 38 S&W SPL" Its a nice nickel case, I never heard of something like this.

What purpose and how old are these?

[epj]

Purely a guess, but could they have been .38/.44 loads?

[Kelly Green]

How old is that .38 brass. Once upon a time LP primers in .38 brass could be found but not anymore. Are those "Peters" brass by chance. There were also some early .357 Magnum brass with LP primers. Save them, they could be collectables.

[wyo-man]

I had almost 50 nickeled .38 spl. brass that was used for firing wax bullets for practice. LP primers were needed to provide enough power to "fire" the wax plug out of them.

wyo-man

[Rule3]

There is some info online from another forum that there was a time 50 years or so ago, that the Peters used large primers.

The 357 also did.

[David Sinko]

Since the cases are nickel plated it should be easy to tell if they were reamed for the larger primer size. I have some .38 Special cases that I load with rubber bullets and I had to enlarge the flash hole but they still work with small primers.

For years I have been scavenging every piece of .38 Special brass that I find at ranges. But I never saw anything like this yet.

Dave Sinko

[TSQUARED]

Years ago (ca. the 1960's)I remember seeing some 357 Magnum brass and I believe 38 Special brass with large pistol primers. I do not believe it was common even then since we used small pistol primers for reloading 38 Special.

[oldRoger]

I have a couple of Military .38 spl. cases dated 53, they are for SP primers. I started reloading 38 spl either 57 or 58. My old mixed brass includes some from years previous to that time.
So I have seen a lot of old 38 spl brass but I have not seen any made for LP primers.
There is always something new to learn, and I for one would be delighted to see a LP 38 case, if only a photo.

[Nightowl]

From earlier discussions here on the forum I think you might have some old pre war 38/44 brass. These were pretty hot loads back then and suitable only for the N frame smiths and Colt large frames. Is the box marked Hi Speed or some such designation indicating 38/44 loads?

[minconrevo]

I have a small number of Peters marked .357 Magnum brass cases with LP primers. No box or anything other to help date them.

[wheelgun28]

Well I got around to looking at the box, seems these were added to the box as some were just regular R-P marked 38 special RNL. So I dont know who or where these came from. Heres a few pics just for fun.



Heres two shown with a regular case for comparison.



As for copyright, I am the owner of this material.

I guess this will be one of the mysteries of the past.

[oldRoger]

Wheelgun28.......Thank you for posting the photo, interesting that they are all Peters. Without a box we will not know how old they are, interesting that minconrevo has Peters .357 LP cases.
The speculation that they might be 38/44 is a good one. One way to check that speculation would be to chronograph the load to see if it is hot.
The old standard round nose load was I think a 200gr, and slow.

[old turtle]

These could be Hi Way Masters I have some with 158gr. fmj. They were
the frist A.P. load for a handgun the S&W .38/.44. In their day they were a very hot load.

[wheelgun28]

I had tried to shoot some of this stuff. It didnt go so well, lots of ftf and then some that were so weak that I had to check to see if the barrel was clear, kind of a puff not a bang.

Interesting thought, a few weeks before I got a Hi-Way Master box with mixed odd stuff in it from the same shop... You might be onto something?

[retired2006]

I have one of the 38 Spl cases with the large primer, it is the same as "wheelgun28" cases above, except it is a brass case.
I also have two other unusual cases, they are marked "REM-UMC 38 AMU". They are 38 spl cases, but with a rim like a 38 super. These were used in the early 38 spl conversions, where they rechambered a 38 super 1911 to 38 spl (wadcutter only) to be used as a target gun for the centerfire bullseye matches. If I remember correctly, I believe this conversion was done by the Army Marksman Unit (AMU) for their team members to use in competition.