STOP Shooting 38's in your 357's!!

[gregintenn]

I just don't see the point in shooting 38's in a 357. Why make cleaning harder than it needs to be?

I'll give you my answer.

I have thousands and thousands of 38 Special brass. They costed me next to nothing. I load these with light target loads.

I only have a few hundred 357 magnum brass. I reserve them for full power loads.

I have around a dozen revolvers, pistol, and rifle chambered for either 38 Special or 357 Magnum.

If I want a light load, I grab the 38s and whatever gun I want to shoot.

If I want a heavy load, I grab the 357s.

I haven't yet found a Rossi 92 carbine or a Herter's Powermag chambered for 38 Special, but yet I sometimes enjoy plinker loads in them.

I see no need in buying a bunch of extra brass so I can load both plinking and full power loads in 357 cases, although I DO have two sets of dies so I don't have to constantly readjust.

 

[SMSgt]

And they lived happily ever after.

Wow! Sure you didn't use Spic-n-Span in those chambers?

 

[Road Rat]

Don't burn regular unleaded gasoline in your car, I might buy it one day... I only burn premium unleaded gasoline in my cars.

De Oppresso Liber

Hey, another man with too much money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Cdog]

Your firearm, feed it what you want.

What my firearm's are fed ain't anybody else's business.

 

[MrDig]

If you shoot a lot of .38's in your .357 and have a serious burn ring take an empty .357 case put a dowel through the primer opening and secure the dowel and the case together.
then take a small diagonal cutter and snip as many small slots as you can in the open end of the case.
use this with a spinning motion in the cylinders the soft brass will not gouge the cylinder wall in the least.
Of course as previously stated if you clean the gun properly the scoring in the cylinders should not need this.
I have only done this for friends who "found this old gun cleaning out a deceased family members house"

 

[k53]

I shoot mostly 38 in my model 19. Some 357, but I mostly target shoot, and it makes zero sence to beat up a nice heirloom 19-3 with a ton of 357. A quick cleaning after a range session and I'm ready to go for 38 or 357

 

[mikld]

If you shoot a lot of .38's in your .357 and have a serious burn ring take an empty .357 case put a dowel through the primer opening and secure the dowel and the case together.
then take a small diagonal cutter and snip as many small slots as you can in the open end of the case.
use this with a spinning motion in the cylinders the soft brass will not gouge the cylinder wall in the least.
Of course as previously stated if you clean the gun properly the scoring in the cylinders should not need this.
I have only done this for friends who "found this old gun cleaning out a deceased family members house"

Now, that's gotta be some serious crud ring in there!

 

[Biggfoot44]

Once upon a time I had access to free .38spl ammo.
I have gallons of .38 cases.
I have .357s AND .38s .
When I did own a big block , I didn't drive 130mph all the time.
And I do shoot .357s ( and larger also).

The problem was that it took 2hrs to clean out many thousands of rounds of cumulative crud in one sitting. As long as you clean the cylnder as part of normal cleaning, it's no big deal.

Now if you were going to debate the freebore vs velocity or absolute accuraccy, that's a different campfire discussion.

 

[Bill Sahlberg]

shooting 38 in 357

Hi all,
This is my 1st post and I have shot revolvers since 1974, starting in PPC and now in most of the Action Shooting sports.

I have 3 1997 S&W 627 357 x 8 and have won many matches and the 1999 USPSA Nationals shooting these guns with 38 Colt Shorts. I realize that this is shooting minor not major but my accuracy is still as good at 50 yds with these as my old PPC loads with 3.0 gr 231 and a 148 gr HBWC.

My load is Starline 38 Colt Short brass, Federal 100 primer, 4.6 gr of Universal Clays, a Montana Gold .356 130 gr RN at 1.100" AOL and a .0002" crimp.

One of these revos has more that 120K through it and all that was done is adding a new bbl @ 50K after I had shot a squib. These frames were designed for 357 and shooting this "mousy" 38 Colt Short rnd since 1997 has not made any troubles in these guns and they still shoot 38 & 357 just fine.

 

[rwsmith]

Direct answer

One more time. No one has answered my question. I am not knocking 38spls OK? My question is now like it has always been why in the sam hill would someone buy a 357 so they can shoot 38s' out of it?? Why the heck don't you just go buy a 38 to start with.?

The reason I didn't buy a .38 is because you can't shoot .357s through it!!!

 

[Road Rat]

The reason I didn't buy a .38 is because you can't shoot .357s through it!!!

That is the answer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[carpriver]

I own 3 686 357 Mag revolvers and a model 60in 357. I shoot 38 spl., 38spl +p and 357 mag threw them. I reload my own ammo and have a set of 38spl dies and 357 mag. dies. I clean my firearms after each trip to the range. I bought the gun, it's mine I'll shoot it the way I want too. The next person that has it get to do with what he please.

 

[TAROMAN]

I just like to keep the two rounds and the revolvers chambered for them separate. I only use .357 Magnum cases in my .357 Magnum revolvers. Not because I'm concerned about any ramifications. I clean after each use anyway.

+1 what he said.
I even load HBWC target loads in 357 cases.

 

[mkk41]

I mostly shoot .38 special in all my 357 revolvers never had an issue with it when switching to .357's. Hoppes #9 is a wonderful thing.

Yep! My Colt Python has digested several thousand .38 148gr wadcutters and even after a few hundred , .357s dropped right in.

A quick pass with a good bronze brush cleans it right out.

 

[jdh]

One more time. No one has answered my question. I am not knocking 38spls OK? My question is now like it has always been why in the sam hill would someone buy a 357 so they can shoot 38s' out of it?? Why the heck don't you just go buy a 38 to start with.? I'm crazy I'm sure but I've had a thing about 357 loads since the first time I ever shot one out of a Marlin lever action and later the handguns years ago probably before some of you were born.. To me it is a unique load in itself and I just get a little bent when folks want to take this fine weapon and turn it into a BB gun. Sorry! That's just my take on it.

Department Policy. The magnophobic replacement chief (yes I said little c) would not let us carry magnums on duty. As a new officer I did not have the means to go buy a new duty side arm every time the chief read some article in the police gazette.

 

[Jaymo]

papajohn428 posted my favorite way. It's a purpose made brass carbon scraper.
It it's really bad, I'll wrap steel wool around a brass .38 bore brush (.44 bore brush for the .44 mag) and soak the brush and chambers with Dexron 3, Kerosene, carburetor cleaner, kroil, bore solvent, or Ed's Red and run it through, with only one section of the cleaning rod screwed onto the brush at one end, and chucked into an electric drill on the other end.
Run the drill on LOW speed.
It also gets plastic wad fouling out of badly fouled shotgun bores.
Plus, it burnishes the chambers.

 

[jdh]

Now anyone have some nice plinking loads for a 500SW Mag

Yes but 500 Special brass is hard to find.

 

[TrueTexan]

I quit shooting 38s in my two 686s about a year ago I now load everything in 357 brass and depending on what I want to do is how I load the brass, from mild to wild. No carbon rings also I do the same in my SRH 44 mags only use 44 mag brass.

 

[bigmoneylewis]

Your issue may not be the carbon buildup . If the gun was missused in the past and had powerful handloads put through it , you may have a gun with bulged chambers . If the .357 cartridges drop in with ease, but
will not extract after being fired, you may need to look in to the possibility that the inside of the chambers have been bulged out by
overloaded ammo . When you fire your rounds now, the shell casing expands to the distorted shape of the inside chamber walls.
.38's won't have enough power to expand their case to that point, but
any standard .357 will, and will create ejection issues.
Closely inspect a spent .357 cartridge from this gun. You may find it to be
bulged out at some point. Now see if this spent cartridge shell will fit into any other .357 you might have laying around.
I went through this whole situation myself a while back with a model 19 . Just something to think about.

Lewis

 

[MDMarauder]

Seeing that the 38 case is 0.135" shorter than the 357 case, that puts the crud ring from a 38 case right at the end of the 357 case. When the 357 case expands upon firing, the bras is pushed into this ring of carbon. In my experience in my orginal post, this pretty much fused tow cases into the gun. Had the gun been cleaned appropriately, it wouldn't have occurred, but it wasn't. Now, lets take a gun that has been fed a steady diet of 357's and left neglected as my gun was before I took possession of it. The ring would have been farther forward and would not have acted upon the expanded case when fired as it would be just in front of the expanded case rim.

Again, I am expressing my OPINION on this subject and thank you for expressing yours. And rest assured, now that I own this mdl 28, it will be cleaned appropriately.

One thing that has caught my eye reading your first post and a few others.. I put the problem on YOU for not properly inspecting and cleaning a new gun to you. Instead you took a used gun to the range, you had a problem with it and now you are on the interweb bitching about it.