.38 S&W Corto ctg. question.

Jim NNN · Apr 6, 2018

It's after 2am, but I gotta ask this. I was buying some ammo at Cabela's yesterday, and I saw that they had Fiocchi brand ammo in ".38 S&W Corto (short)" ctg. I asked myself, "Is that the same as .38 S&W"? I have a model 33 Reg. Police, so I'm interested in getting some of this stuff when I can afford it.

So I took one of the rounds out of the box, and sure enough it said ".38 S&W" on the back face so I said, "Huh...same thing" and I bought a box. But tonight I was looking at one of my model 36's, and just for fun, I thought I'd try to put one of the "Corto" rounds in it, and - low and behold - it fit! I wasn't expecting that. I thought the .38 S&W was too big to fit in a .38 Special chamber.

I went to The High Road and searched an old thread where someone said that the Corto is where Fiocchi made the casing so that it would fit in both the .38 S&W AND the .38 S&W Special. I have no idea if this is true or not, but that's what they said, and my chambering the round seemed to verify it. But if they do that, won't the bullet have to also be smaller...and therefore be too loose to work well in a model 33 or any gun chambered for .38 S&W?

Or is this cartridge still not safe to shoot in a Model 36 Chief's Special? The bullet seemed to have appropriate clearance in the forcing cone of the 36, but I didn't measure it. Hope someone can clarify this. It seems they shouldn't label the brass ".38 S&W" if it's a different diameter than other .38 S&W brass. Thanks.

murphydog · Apr 6, 2018

Hey, did you go back to sleep?

My recollection is this round is a short .38 Special diameter case intended mostly for Cowboy Action Shooting or the like, so it will extract more quickly than a standard round. And any (corrected to state “short”) .38 Special diameter case will chamber in both a .38 Special and S & W; the brass will just expand a little more in the latter

.

If the above is correct, I don't know why it is headstamped the way it is, but a call to Fiocchi should clear that up.

D Brown · Apr 6, 2018

murphydog said:
Hey, did you go back to sleep?

My recollection is this round is a short .38 Special diameter case intended mostly for Cowboy Action Shooting or the like, so it will extract more quickly than a standard round. And any .38 Special diameter case will chamber in both a .38 Special and S & W; the brass will just expand a little more in the latter .

If the above is correct, I don't know why it is headstamped the way it is, but a call to Fiocchi should clear that up.

This post jogged my memory over a couple of boxes of short .38 Specials I bought a few years ago. They're MAGTECH, and labeled on the box as ".38 CBC SPL SHORT", 125 gr. LRN.

I pulled out my one and only box of 38 S&W's, Remington 146 gr. LRN's and compared them to the MAGTECH .38 CBC SPL SHORTS. Other than a slightly larger rim diameter on the 38 S&W's, and a longer bullet as well, the cases are almost identical.

JP@AK · Apr 6, 2018

Jim NNN said:
won't the bullet have to also be smaller...and therefore be too loose to work well in a model 33 or any gun chambered for .38 S&W?

Bullet diameter (caliber) for the .38 Special is .357 to .358. Bullet diameter for the .38 S&W is .361. The difference is negligible, and lead bullets of the latter caliber will pass through a .38 Special barrel without difficulty.

On the flip side, a .357-.358 bullet passing through a .361 barrel (if there is such a thing) will still pick up rotation from the lands and grooves. I believe that, during WWII, the BSR and the U.S. Victory Model had barrels with the same bore diameter.

Incidentally, "corto" simply means "short." I don't think it says anything about the city or location where they are made.

mike campbell · Apr 6, 2018

murphydog said:
And any .38 Special diameter case will chamber in both a .38 Special and S & W; the brass will just expand a little more in the latter .
.

This is seriously flawed.

While the smaller diameter allows a 38 special case to start loosely in a 38S&W chamber, thankfully, it will only go 2/3 of the way in.

And that's a very good thing as it will never allow anyone to fire a 38spl in a 38S&W gun to see if "the brass will just expand a little more".

murphydog · Apr 6, 2018

mike campbell said:
This is seriously flawed.

While the smaller diameter allows a 38 special case to start loosely in a 38S&W chamber, thankfully, it will only go 2/3 of the way in.

And that's a very good thing as it will never allow anyone to fire a 38spl in a 38S&W gun to see if "the brass will just expand a little more".

Thanks for the post, corrected the one above. Need to stop posting at 3 am

.

NewDeparture · Apr 6, 2018

The word "corto" is spanish for short, and it is used to reinforce the fact that this is .38 S&W ammo (just as a quick way to differentiate them form their "longer" .38 cousins). IMHO, this word should have never reached the box label since it is misleading.

Its origin can be traced to Spanish speaking countries, were the 2 most popular .38 rounds were popularly known as "corto" (short) and "largo" (long) to diferentiate .38 S&W from .38 Long Colt, respectively.

When .38 S&W Special arrived, people still called it "largo", regardless of the well known differences between the .38 Long Colt and .38 S&W Special.

In addition to the improper "corto" designation, problem with both Fiocci and CBC is that their .38 S&W ctgs are just shorter versions of their .38 S&W Spl. rounds: same case diameter and same bullet diameter.

This is not the way a .38 S&W is supposed to be. When fired from a .38S&W revolver, cases might suffer from excessive expansion and bullet dia. might not be enough to obturate the bore. I would certainly not use them on topbreak frames. Solid frames might be a different thing.

NewDeparture.

Protocall_Design · Apr 6, 2018

It sounds like this is more of a .38 Short Colt than a .38 S&W. The .38 Short Colt and .38 Long Colt are just shorter versions of a .38 Special, just as .38 Special is a shorter version of .357 Magnum.

The .38 Short Colt is also essentially a rimmed 9mm, as it has very nearly identical case length and internal capacity. You can pretty much use 9mm loading data for Short Colt loads, but must pay careful attention to bullet seating depth to avoid over pressure loads in either of them. A bullet seated deeper than it should be will cause pressures to be too high.

The .38 S&W has a slightly larger case diameter than the Colt versions, so the chamber is slightly larger for the S&W accordingly.

bulletslap · Apr 6, 2018

I have a few post 4 screw S&W 38 special revolvers that will accept newly made Remington 38 S&W ammo, and a couple of other brands of 38 special revolvers that will not.

None of my pre-WW 2 S&W 38 special revolvers, regardless of make will accept the same Remington 38 S&W cartridge.

I am not certain that I have a large enough sample size to draw any meaningful conclusions, however.

TAROMAN · Apr 6, 2018

Had some of these cases.
They are, indeed, 38 Short Colt.
A local instructor uses them when starting out new shooters on .38 Special revolvers.

McShooty · Apr 7, 2018

The Fiocchi 38 S&W Corto I see in ads carries 145 gr bullets. I think it is plain ol' 38 S&W. Some 38 Special S&W revolvers will chamber certain 38 S&W ammo. I have a 14-3 and a 14-4 and both will chamber Remington "Target' 38 S&W ammo. Rather easily, actually, and they shoot it very well. Winchester 38 S&W, however, will not chamber in these revolvers.

.38 S&W Corto ctg. question.

Jim NNN

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D Brown

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mike campbell

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