.38 lemon squeezer date and is it safe to use modern ammo

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papasmurf59

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have had this old gun a while and havent ever shot it I do know its a 38 safety hammerless ser#129256 have read and been told to only use black powder ammo but have read certain dates can be used with smokeless I would really like to shoot this but dont want to lose any fingers. any advice
 
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Welcome to the Forum, Assuming that it's a Smith & Wesson, and not some inferior make, or a foreign copy, and is in good mechanical condition, modern .38 S&W ammo. is safe to shoot as it is not loaded to higher pressures than the original black powder loads. Close serial numbers to your gun were shipped in 1900. Ed.
 
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papasmurf59 said:
have had this old gun a while and havent ever shot it I do know its a 38 safety hammerless ser#129256 have read and been told to only use black powder ammo but have read certain dates can be used with smokeless I would really like to shoot this but dont want to lose any fingers. any advice
Click to expand...

If you will look at Cartridges of the World, I believe you will find that the .38 and .32 Lemon Squeezers were loaded with smokeless powder after the same came in common use. This reference work shows suggested loadings for the two, and most of these are smokeless powder loads, such as Unique, Bullseye, Red Dot, etc. This reference does not suggest any caveat for pistols made before year XXX or serial numbers below xxx. Black powder can have higher peak pressures than smokeless, and the main mistake seems to be in trying to load smokeless by refrence to equal weights or equal volume with the original smokeless load, rather than going from a loading manual such as Lee's.
 
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Modern factory .38 S&W loads (if you can find any) use smokeless powder, and are loaded even more mildly than the old original black powder loads. Actually, factory .38 S&W ammunition using smokeless powder has been made since the 1890s, and there are likely many revolvers such as yours which have never fired black powder loads.

The BATFE cutoff SN for being considered an"Antique" is 119900 (pre-1899) for a .38 SH. So yours is from a little later, and is considered a "Modern Firearm."
 
Bucky43 said:
If you will look at Cartridges of the World, I believe you will find that the .38 and .32 Lemon Squeezers were loaded with smokeless powder after the same came in common use. This reference work shows suggested loadings for the two, and most of these are smokeless powder loads, such as Unique, Bullseye, Red Dot, etc.
Click to expand...

Barne's book should not be considered a reloading manual by any means. It is simply an identification source, with a few stated loads as examples for comparison to original ballistics. I do agree that smokeless loads, however, are perfectly fine for all Safeties in good working order.

The confusion is valid, since even the company erred on the side of caution in the early 1900s and basically stated not to use smokeless powder for reloading for any of their revolvers. By the WWI era the factory was fully accepting of smokeless powder. Indications were that early smokeless reloading was done by matching the volume of black powder with the new smokeless powder, thereby overloading the guns by many times the pressure limits, most often with catastrophic results.
 
robertrwalsh what are the recommendations for this i have found several places for buying rounds but i really dont know what to try
 
It is not easy to find any caliber for some time, but I did a quick search online and found a couple of sources in stock.

Luckygunner has Magtech for $23.00
Ableammo Remington ammor for $29.00

Also, check the gunshows and websites like gunbroker for 32 S&W ammo. Even if the box is 30 years old, it will still function just fine.
 
I have the Magtech .38 S&W and it is very good quality. I have about 6 Smith top breaks and one WWII issue Webley top break using .38 S&W ammo.
 
I shoot bp handloads out of my breaktops. The cleaning rigamarole does add to the "pita" factor, but i like the smoke, and not having to worry about beating up my guns
 
glowe said:
Barne's book should not be considered a reloading manual by any means. It is simply an identification source, with a few stated loads as examples for comparison to original ballistics.
Click to expand...

Gary is right. This is not the right use to put the Barnes book to at all.
Moreover, you must use this book with caution anyway. I've found a ton of incorrect information in it. One example that comes to mind is the statement that the .38 Special was introduced in 1902, in the "Military and Police Model revolver." This mistake has been repeated over and over in sequential editions of the book, including the 12th (my most recent copy).
 
I'll agree. COTW is a generally good reference regarding cartridge historical background and dimensions, but as in most references, it won't be 100% accurate on everything. There are better sources of reloading data, but for some obsolete, metric, and wildcat calibers, there is little to no other reloading data available. COTW is not a reloading manual.
 
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