Found an old box of Remington .38 S&W ammo in the back of my gun safe. I should know this but can I shoot .38 S&W in a .38 Spl or .357 Mag revolver? I know the reverse is not possible... thx, TW

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TMW
ExFed

I understand that the 38 S&W is a fatter cartridge than 38 spcl or 357, so the answer is no.

No, not interchangeable.

And to verify that statement I took a 38 S&W factory round, that chambers just fine in an old 38 S&W top break , and tried to chamber it in the following 38 specials : model 64 S&W , Colt Police Positive and I tried it in a Ruger Blackhawk 38/357 . The 38 S&W would not fully chamber in any of them , goes in about half way and stops. You might get one to chamber with a mallet...but that doesn't count.

Perfect excuse to buy a 38 S&W I say !
Gary

I wagered with a REALLY knowledgeable gun guy that a .38 S&W round would not fit in a .38 Special's chambers. I lost.

Here's the deal - some of those .38 Special chambers are actually wide enough to accommodate .38 S&W cartridges even though we were all told that it couldn't be done. Once I saw it with my own eyes, and lost a bet, I'm very careful to warn folks that, yes, it can be done, despite what everyone says to the contrary.

I'm not so sure firing a .38 S&W in a .38 Special would have much negative impact except for some excess leading but I refrain from the practice anyway.

The exercise that Gary describes above is what we did using a S&W M 642 IIRC and every chamber accepted a .38 S&W round. We might have tried another gun, too, with the same result. They fit. I was stunned. Never mind chagrined and humiliated.

I would definitely lost that bet as well. I have half a dozen S&W .38 Specials and a couple of Colts. I intend to try the .38 S&W in them. I wonder if the brand of .38 S&W makes any difference or is it all dependent on the charge holes specs on the Special?

Here's the interesting thing and explains how I learned the "facts" that I had to unlearn. In the early 1980s I bought my first revolver, a 4" barreled Model 19, and I also bought a box of ammunition to go with it. I asked the counter guy for .38s, he sold me .38s, I got home and could NOT, repeat - NOT load the ammunition into the gun. So I went back to the store the next day, saw the same guy, explained the problem I was having, he looked at the ammunition, hit himself upside the head and said, and I quote: "What was a I thinking?"

He switched the ammunition and that was that. I never gave it another though, always going along with the conventional wisdom that .38 S&W doesn't fit .38 Special or .357 Magnum revolvers. The incident above that proved that to be incorrect was probably in 2014 - I never tried it with my other guns at home but one of these days I will and we shall see when it fits and when it doesn't - but I'm not going to shoot them.

The brand or the charge hole specifications might very well matter significantly but the point is that to make the flat claim that .38 S&W won't ever fit into the chambers of a .38 Special is incorrect.

Well you're all right and wrong!! Remington brand 38 S&W will chamber and fire in just about all of my 38 Spl revolvers (chambers), while only some Win. 38S&W will and, as I remember, Fed. 38 S&W won't fit. That's the way its been for many years. I don't believe (my own experience) shooting the very soft, slightly oversize, 38S&W bullets in a 38 Spl. (American/modern)could do any harm. The 38 S&W is a very low pressure cartridge. Leading yes and expensive yes. In the 50's after WWII there was a lot of cheap 38S&W ammunition shot in 38 Spl revolvers when they chambered.

I had two M-19's in the early 1970's that'd take .38 S&W CASES fired in a .38-200 revolver, a six-inch barreled one, if you're interested.

S&W has done some sloppy chambering work over the years.

I was just curious to see if the cases would fit. Of course, loaded ammo did, too, but I knew not to fire any.

Those guns gave hard extraction with .357 ammo, and I suspected loose chambers. Yup.

Wow... All great info, think I'm gonna see if they chamber just for grins and then I'll probably give 'em to somebody... Done

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TMW
ExFed

Everyone who has never tried is always absolutely certain that .38 S&W cannot be fired in .38 Special/.357 magnum revolvers. The odds that they are absolutely wrong are something like 3-2.

This is an old question easily answered, just try it! It depends on the particular .38 S&W ammunition! I have at least a dozen revolvers in .38 Spl/.357. I also have a bunch of older .38 S&W ammunition. In all my guns some .38 S&W would fit in most of them, and all .38 S&W would fit in some of them!

Object lesson, don't be dogmatic about things like this, especially if you have never tried it yourself, you will be proven wrong more often than you care to find out!

It has been reported here frequently in the past that some .38 Special chambers are sloppy enough to accept factory .38 S&W cartridges. None of mine will.

I have noticed a similar thing about .38 Super ammo in a .38 Special/.357 revolver. Some brands of .38 Super will chamber, others will not. So maybe the same applies to the .38 S&W ammo. And yes, I have fired .38 Super ammo in both .38 Special and .357 revolvers. If they fit, it works. I do not do it as a regular thing nor do I recommended doing it.

In the early 1960s (1962 ?) My Mother had a new S&W Chiefs Special 2" RB .38spl that a .38 S&W cartridge would chamber. I thought that possible the revolver left the factory with chambers that were maximum width