.38 S&W reamed to .38 Special?

dekeshooter · Dec 8, 2012

I am looking at what I think is a Lend-Lease M&P. The barrel is Marked .38 S&W, but the cylinder carries British proof marks and is inscribed .38 Special. I do not see any import marks on this gun.

Does anybody know what this is and what should I pay for it. Seller is asking $375.

Since the .38 S$W case is .007" more in diameter than the .38 Special case, are split cases going to be a problem? Or, were new .38 Special cylinders fitted to some of these guns while in England?

Art Doc · Dec 8, 2012

Common butchering... er, modification. Too high in price, IMO. If nothing else is done to it, you can still shoot proper 38 S&W but if you don't load your own ammo it is pricey. Yes, cases bulge and can split.

dekeshooter · Dec 8, 2012

SaxonPig said:
Common butchering... er, modification. Too high in price, IMO. If nothing else is done to it, you can still shoot proper 38 S&W but if you don't load your own ammo it is pricey. Yes, cases bulge and can split.

That's what I thought. I am going to mic the chambers just on the off chance the cylinder has been replaced. If it has been, my offer will be significantly less.

DWalt · Dec 8, 2012

You often see cautions about splitting of .38 Special cases when fired in reamed-out .38 S&W chambers. I cannot say splits will or will not occur, but I have fired thousands of .38 Special rounds in one with nary a split. The .38 S&W bore is also slightly larger than the .38 Special bullet, and you may (or may not) get sloppy grouping with .38 Special ammunition. You can always fire .38 S&W ammunition if you can find some.

If you purchase it, go ahead and fire some standard .38 Special to see what happens. Even if you get a case split, it won't do any damage to the gun. If this one has been reamed, I'd be reluctant to go much over $200 for it. $375 is way over its worth. You can get a much newer K-model for that or less. One of the local gun shops now has a fine-condition 10-5 for the same asking price, and would be a much better buy than a butchered and mutilated WWII veteran, even at the asking price.

Actually, I have understood there have been some vary good chamber conversions done in England by sleeving and reboring the chambers instead of reaming the original chambers. But I have not seen one myself.

H Richard · Dec 8, 2012

As DWalt mentioned, there were some quality conversions made, but I have never sen one. The .007" difference in the case dimension can split a case and cause a possibly dangerous situation. See the attached picture of what had been a mild 38Special WC target load. Note the bulge in the center section of the case. If this had been a full power load it most probably would have split and shot hot gasses out both ends of the case. I could not recommend you fire any 38 Special in a reamed cylinder chamber of a 38 S&W.

Waidmann · Dec 8, 2012

The serial number should be found on the cylinder, under the barrel and of course on the butt. A sleeved post war conversion is extremely uncommon. With the exception of Cogswell & Harrison and Parker-Hale which draw some interest, such "conservations" go for $200 and less.

Hollow base wadcutter .38 Specials help a little with that .357 to .360 difference

Hondo44 · Dec 9, 2012

dekeshooter,

If the cylinder is just reamed for 38 Special, once you shoot the 38 Spl cases in your gun, they will be properly re-sized for the chambers. Just discard any that split and if you reload, use 38 S&W dies. Simply use the larger .360 bullets in your 38 Spl cases to match the bore and for maximum accuracy. 38 S&W dies are available on e-bay for a song, or you can still buy them new; I use Lyman dies exclusively.

There's been much to do about the 38 spl case splitting in reamed 38/200 chambers, but truth be told, it doesn't happen that often. And if it does, so what? Cases of the proper caliber for their chambers have also been known to split on occasion. If a case splits and gases escapes from the rear of the cylinder, how is that any more dangerous than the gases escaping from the front of the cylinder at the barrel gap which is routine anyway? Normal safety precautions demand no one be to the immediate sides of anyone shooting a revolver period.

longranger · Dec 9, 2012

All of this discussion of shooting .38 Special out of .38 S&W chambers has other issues besides an occasionally splitting a case. The .38 Special works at a much higher pressure than the .38 S&W. Heat treating was done very differently for such guns as Colt P.P.,S&W Terrier's and Victory models and most certainly the top breaks.Even those revolvers were eventually chambered for the Special the cylinders were treated differently.Colt did this extensively,i.e, Official Police,Officers Match(.38 Special) and 3 5 7's Pythons,.(357 Mag.) same frames different heat treating to handle the higher pressures in the cylinders.S&W did this Mdl 19 and Mdl 10, same frame different cylinders other than cartridge length.Colt even made the Police Positive "Special" to designate the difference in cylinder length and stronger to accept the higher pressures.They simply did not punch .38 Special cylinders in a cylinder designed for.38 S&W for a reason.

DWalt · Dec 9, 2012

"Heat treating was done very differently for such guns as Colt P.P.,S&W Terrier's and Victory models and most certainly the top breaks... Even those revolvers were eventually chambered for the Special the cylinders were treated differently"

That topic seems to come up frequently. But no one has produced any evidence, only unsubstantiated statements such as this one presented as fact, regarding manufacturer's heat treating practices. Several times in the past I have invited anyone with actual knowledge regarding heat treatment performed on different guns and different calibers at different times to come forward. So far, nary a peep to be heard.

" Simply use the larger .360 bullets in your 38 Spl cases to match the bore and for maximum accuracy. 38 S&W dies are available on e-bay for a song, or you can still buy them new"

I have always used .38 Super dies for loading .38 S&W. Works fine.

Pisgah · Dec 9, 2012

To put it bluntly, $375 is at least twice what the gun is worth, IMO, and the .38 S&W-to-.38 Spec. conversion, while not necessarily dangerous in any significant way, was and remains a half-a***d idea.

DWalt · Dec 9, 2012

"the .38 S&W-to-.38 Spec. conversion, while not necessarily dangerous in any significant way, was and remains a half-a***d idea"

Not so from an economic perspective. If one had available hundreds of thousands of perfectly usable revolvers, but in a caliber that was not likely to sell that well, what would make more sense than conversion to a more popular caliber?

Waidmann · Dec 9, 2012

^what he said.

Hondo44 · Dec 9, 2012

Whatever heat treating Colt provided, real or imagined is really irrelevant to S&W guns.

Smith 1st heat treated it's 1917 cylinders at government request because they were chambered for the 45 ACP used in the 1911 Auto which required a 21,000 psi operating pressure to operate the slide reliably. That was 6,000 psi higher that any of the other N frame chambered cartridges of the time.

By the early 1920s S&W had implemented heat treating of cylinders on all of their models. The Victory models were chambered in both 38 Spl and 38 S&W (actually the English 38/200 cartridge, the American version known as the 38 S&W Super Police) with the same heat treating. The 38/200 has higher chamber pressure than the American 38 S&W cartridge because of the 200 grain bullet. The only cartridge specific heat treating was on the Registered 357 Magnums in 1935.

So again any difference in strength/heat treating or imagined danger between the cylinders of the 38 Spl and 38/200 is purely speculative.

DWalt · Dec 9, 2012

As a matter of manufacturing economics and quality control, it does not make much sense to have several different levels of components heat treatment for essentially the same revolvers as it complicates operations. Whether it was done that way is unknown. It is also unknown why the metallurgical technology used by the gun manufacturers seems to be such a secret.

Waidmann · Dec 10, 2012

If you letter the gun S&W will sort of pooh-whoo the practice but only disclaims the use of +P's. I have fired the several I have owned and experienced no problems. Yes, .360 bullets perform a bit better as you would expect. Yes, you can continue to fire .38 S&W cases. But make no mistake the British Service ammo was not top-break fodder. I too can not imagine there were multiple manufacturing standards for Victories.

This bears no comparison to really stupid stuff like shaving old Webleys to accept .45 ACP or cutting the forward locks off in "snubbing" Victories.

I have seen more than a few modern .38 Specials that will chamber .38 S&W cartridges.

austintexas · Dec 10, 2012

I have had and still have a few converted 38 S&W pistols. I haven't had any problems shooting eather cartridge in them. I had a sleeved version of Parker-Hales' when I was stationed in Lybia and I didn't see any real differnce in accuracy at close pistol ranges. I have a prewar S&W M&P target that was sent to England and there it was converted to 38 S&W. It shoots fine. I picked it up about two years ago at Cabelas for &165.00.

SWCA892

DWalt · Dec 10, 2012

I no longer have a converted V-model. But when I did, it seem to shoot OK with the .357 bullets. I have loaded and used .357-.358 lead bullets in .38 S&W for my old breaktops and they shoot fine, certainly as well as I can hold. As I have noted previously, I have pulled and measured quite a few lead bullets from antique .38 S&W dud rounds, and they typically have a diameter of .357-.358, not the .360-.361 often stated.

Hondo44 · Dec 10, 2012

That sure makes me want to slug a Victory barrel.

traveller11 · Nov 22, 2017

H Richard said:
As DWalt mentioned, there were some quality conversions made, but I have never sen one. The .007" difference in the case dimension can split a case and cause a possibly dangerous situation. See the attached picture of what had been a mild 38Special WC target load. Note the bulge in the center section of the case. If this had been a full power load it most probably would have split and shot hot gasses out both ends of the case. I could not recommend you fire any 38 Special in a reamed cylinder chamber of a 38 S&W.

Thank you for posting the photo of the empty .38 Special casing, fired in a converted .38 S&W revolver. I'm hoping you will be able to help me with something that has puzzled me for some time now.

Below is a link to a photo of four empty .38 Special casings that were also fired in a converted "Victory" model .38 S&W.

http://www.jfkfiles.com/jfk/images/news/120310/FIG03_120310.jpg

You may recognize these as the four empty casings from the rounds fired by Lee Harvey Oswald into Officer J.D. Tippit on November 22, 1963, shortly after the assassination of JFK. Oswald's revolver began life as a .38 S&W "Victory" model revolver, sold to Britain in WW II under the Lend-Lease Program, and it had been converted to .38 Special some time after WW II.

These casings display the same bulge near the centre you pointed out in your photo, and this is the part that has puzzled me.

As you likely know, the shorter .38 S&W casing is .3855" in diameter at the neck, and gets gradually wider toward the base, where it is .3865" in diameter. With the .38 Special casing being a uniform .379" in diameter, and longer than the .38 S&W casing, I would imagine the reaming of the chamber only involved reaming that part of the chamber forward of the neck of the .38 S&W casing.

My question is, with the rear part of the converted chamber being .3855-.3865" on a uniform taper, why are the empty casings only bulged in the middle? Why do we not see an empty casing uniformly bulged right to the base (rim) of the casing? Was something added to the base of the chamber to stabilize the narrow .379" casing in the wider .3865" chamber? Is this why the .38 Special casings were difficult to extract after being fired in these Victory conversions?

Thank you in advance.

DWalt · Nov 22, 2017

The solid interior base of the .38 Special (and similar) cases extends somewhat forward of the rim. Therefore it does not expand diametrically upon firing. In my experience with firing .38 Special cartridges in the reamed .38 S&W chambers I have never seen a split case result. Longitudinally split cases do not create a hazard. I have experienced many longitudinal case splits in many different revolvers without incident. Circumferential splitting near the base just does not happen in handgun rounds, but under some conditions of excessive chamber headspace, it can occur with some bottlenecked rifle cases, especially those of the belted variety, after several reloadings. The case usually show signs of incipient head separation (in the form of a bright ring appearing) before it actually happens. Those case failures can be very bad.

.38 S&W reamed to .38 Special?

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