Do people still load and shoot the old 38 splc?
Never seem to hear much talk about it anymore.
I have a mountain of 38 brass and never seem to shoot it much myself either.

My wife and I shoot alot of it with cheap plated bullets.
Keeps costs down vs shooting the .357 mag.

I use .38's in my .38's and .357's all the time.

Perfect carrier for my cast bullets.... fun and cheap!

Indeed, for the cast bullets + the brass.

This cartridge is far from dead. I have two dedicated progressive reloaders for the .38 Special cartridge.
I shoot a M1911 pistol .38 AMU in my matches and .38 Special out of my .357 Magnum revolver for target shooting that is easy on the wrist.
There are many newly made revolvers in this caliber and finding loaded ammo is almost impossible out here.

Never fear if you reload with cast and gather brass.

I have 4 .38's and shoot 'em all often as I can.

3 SAW cans of reloads on hand now. Need to get

out and pop a bunch of caps. Doubt a good search

could find even one factory load other than

rimfire on the place. That's by design!

George

My favorite round.

I found magic, for accuracy, that .358" 158 grain cast bullets over 4 grains of W231 in the 38Spcl. I think if a shooter could hold steady, it would stack bullets at 40 yds. in my Taurus model 66.

Interesting, I've never heard of anyone using 231. I have over 10# of the stuff, should try it myself.

it works great on top of a 158gr. swc for target shooting.

I generally use it [231] under a 125gr flat point bullet for ground squirrels out to about 50yds. in the Dan Wesson.

I load and shoot thousands of rounds of it each year.

I load the same charge with Red Dot.

George

Over the years I have burnt nearly a dozen pounds of Win 231 in my 38 spl guns. I shoot a lot of 148 hollowbase wadcutters and 3.2 gr of 231 with stellar accuracy especially in my Python. And of course it's my go to powder for 45 acp 200 swc's.

Steve.......

40
231 is a great powder in the. 38 special. I have been loading 5.0 grains with a 125 grain bullet for my wife and she can shoot it all day comfortably and with great accuracy.

Read the link below, Skeeter used 38 special cases with some of his loads.


My Friend, The .357
by Skeeter Skelton

Shooting Times Magazine
June 1988
http://www.darkcanyon.net/MyFriend_The357.htm

I also load 231 or HP38 in my 38Special and shoot it by far WAY more than any cartridge/gun that I own and it's been that way for 5 decades of shooting now.

Like other s said, "far from dead"

Zeke

Excellent article by skeeter by the way.

To answer the OP's question directly - yes, I still load lots of it. In fact, there are a few hundred cases in my tumbler as I type this. Have to get ready for the warm weather shooting season!

Great article by Mr. Skelton and still as relevant today as it was then. I'll digress slightly and express my personal preference for the 38/357 platform. Can be dressed up or down and handle most anything one would want to do with a handgun. It's my EDC and my backup EDC cartridge.

I've had excellent results with a lot of different powders when reloading; trying some of the relative newcomers to the market. American Select and CFE Pistol both give great, consistent results with a variety of bullet weights while still remaining very clean-burning.

One of my favorite loads to goof around with is the ancient Bullseye and 148gr HBWC round. For me 2.7gr of the powder cuts a nice, precisely round hole at 25 yards with about zero recoil.

Apart from the 22 rim fire, the 38 Special, 357 Magnum and 44 magnum are the most used pistols here.

We mainly cast bullets made here, and almost exclusively recovered powders from other items.

Shotgun shells that have become corroded, we recovered the powder from them and use it.

Works great, regardless of type.

We were given a large drum with naval flares, which have expired years ago.

The gentleman who brought them here said they were going to destroy them, then thought I might have some use for them.

He laughed when I said I will open them up, and see what powder they have.

They were 4 different size/types.

They all had smokeless powder, of different type.

Regardless, we mixed the lot and got several kilos of it.

As I was going to load some to test, he said "I think I might go up and get a coffee!"

I said "We have a coffee machine right here, so stop being a wimp and watch"

He got on the phone and called a friend of his "I am at Saeed's. You know those expired naval flares we wanted to destroy? Well he opened them up. Mixed all the gun powder, and he is going to shoot it now. If you don't hear from me in the next half an hour you know what happened!"

I loaded a 357 case with 2.5 grains of this powder, and fired it in a Colt revolver.

The bullet got stuck in the barrel!

Loaded 7 grains in a case, and without seating a bullet, used that to get the bullet out of the barrel.

Then tried 5.5 grains, with a 148 cast bullet.

890 fps and shoots very well!

That is it.

Works like a charm!

He called his friend again and said "well, we are all alive. Our friend is not as mad as we thought.

He got it all working without blowing us up. Wait until I tell the Boss!"

Saeed
Excellent story!
The .38/.357 will be around for a very long time to come because it simply works as it should.

Good story indeed saeed. I have always been very strict about using published data (even after we quit using Copper units of Pressure) I loaded using that data for years so your experimentation is not so far out of line. The old Lyman manuals that worked with CUP that we loaded + shot regularly is strictly taboo in the new PSI manuals. And yes the 38/357 will be with us for a while. (I hope).

Yes I use Vihtavouri N310 in my S&W k38.