I'm not sure what I found in a junk shop today. Head stamp says 38 s&w western. Western cartridge East Alton ILL. 200 grain coated bullet on the box.Much shorter case than a 38 special. At first I thought they were 38/44 loads.DSCN1404.jpg

DSCN1406.jpg

Yup, shorter and a tad plumper than the .38 Spl. This cartridge has been around well over 100 years.

Close up and personal that 200 grain bullet is no wimp.

38 S&W cartridge with a supersized 200 grain bullet.

More completely ,that's the 200 grain jacketed load for the .38 S&W, NOT .38 Special

This is very like the .38-200 , adopted by Britain in 1927 for Enfield revolvers, meant to replace .455 Webley arms. Later, vast quantities of Webley, Colt, & S&W revolvers were also used in WW II.

This load supposedly was used by a cop in St. Louis (?) to kill a fleeing crook at some 75 yards and the bullet expanded. Wish I could recall where I read that in an old gun book.

The British load was originally lead. Germany protested, on Hague Accords grounds, and a 178 grain load with metal jacket was adopted to replace the original lead 200 grainer.

What you have is the US equivalent to that load, and the version with Lubaloy jacket may have been made mainly for export to British Commonwealth countries, where those .38 revolvers were popular.

My grandfather had a box of that ammo, but unjacketed. He bought it for an old US Revolver Co. copy of a topbreak S&W.

If this was still made, it might be a useful round for surplus .38 S&W guns. The theory was that the slow, heavy bullet would remain in a human body, releasing all of its energy.

There was also a .38 Special version. San Antonio cop and gun writer Tom Ferguson said it fared poorly against dogs.

Also see Chic Gaylord's, Handgunner's Guide, pub. about 1960. He liked the 200 grain .38 Special with that blunt bullet. But I don't know how many shootings he studied that used that round.

That is not a jacketed bullet. The Luballoy indicates that it is a plated lead bullet

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Tom
1560

Very cool find!

Technically, yes. But I meant it isn't plain lead. Whether one considers plating to be jacketing is a personal issue for most readers. I only meant to distinguish this from the non-plated bullet version.

But your post does clarify matters.

Luballoy is really not plated, more like a copper wash. It's fairly thin as compared to the heavily plated bullets of today, such as those from Ranier or Berry's, and definitely not comparable to FMJ. However Winchester and Western also called their jacketed rifle bullets "Luballoy". I think the idea was that both are "Lubricating Alloys."

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Correct, Skeetr57, TexasStar, & DWalt:
A copper/alloy wash for lubrication.
Think older .22 caliber bullets.
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This from the internet:
Non-jacketed Bullets- The most common material used in the manufacture of non-jacketed bullets is lead. Lead bullets are usually an alloy of lead and antimony which is added to give the bullet some additional hardness. Variations are the norm when it comes to the materials used in bullets and it's not uncommon to find lead bullets with a thin coating of copper or brass plating. Bullets having this thin coating is sometimes referred to as a copper-washed or "Lubaloy" bullet. This thin coating can be easily scratched away from the surface of the lead causing problems for firearm examiners when these bullets are damaged. Another example of a coated bullet is the Federal "Nyclad" bullet that is designed to reduce lead emissions.

Attached Images

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