My friend has a cartridge we cannot identify. It looks like a 9mm parabellum, but a couple milimeters longer. The headstamp is 356 TSW.

Can anyone tell us about this?

Thanks, this is my first time posting to this (cartridge collecting) forum.

TSW stand for Team Smith & Wesson. They came out with a somewhat proprietary cartridge to have a safe 'Major' 9mm load for competition. I think.

Welcome aboard N'gagi.



Your cartridge is the 356 Team Smith and Wesson as T D-m states. Brandts Manual of Pistol and Revolver Cartridges gives us a velocity of 1220.5 per second and an energy figure of 486.1 ft/lbs.



Designed for the newly formed Team Smith and Wesson shooting team in the early nineties , the cartridge was developed by elongating the 9 x 21mm case to a length of 21.5mm to gain case volume.