The .38 Special, .357 Magnum, and .357 Maximum
Some
of the oldest and, yes, still among the most popular revolver
cartridges in existence, these can trace their origins back to the
blackpowder cap & ball revolvers that were widely-used in America's
Civil War. The two most widely-used revolvers in that conflict were the
Colt Models of 1851 and 1860 (and many copies, of course). The 1860 was
a .44 calibre arm and the 1851 was a .36 calibre piece.
How
the .36 calibre revolver eventually became the .38 Special and even the
.357 Magnum is a tale of the strange ways that firearms have been
measured and named over the years. Don't look too hard for logic here;
it doesn't play a big part in this story.
Early firearms were
generally named after the diameter of the bore of the barrel. With
smoothbore arms that was pretty straightforward. The appropriate lead
ball for a given arm was usually just a very little bit smaller that
that bore. A ball that fit the bore perfectly was also very hard to ram
down that same bore -- especially after a shot or two when the bore
became fouled with the residue from burnt blackpowder. A common
practice then was to use a ball that was a bit undersize and wrap it
with a cloth patch to make it fit itself to the bore. That worked well
for smoothbore arms. Enter rifling, stage right (or left -- it doesn't
matter).
Rifling as is widely known, even among the non-shooting
populace, is the practice of cutting shallow spiral grooves into the
bore of a firearn in order to impart spin to the projectile. This
greatly enhances the accuracy of the arm. A rifled barrel has two
different measurements for the inside diameter of the bore. There is
the so-called "land diameter" which is basically the diameter of the
bore before it has been rifled. This is often also called the "bore
diameter." There is also the "groove diameter" which is the diameter
across the bore from the bottom of one groove to the bottom of the
opposite groove. Yes, most rifled barrels use an even number of
grooves. In the few cases where an odd number of grooves are actually
used, the groove diameter is calculated rather than measured directly.
The mathematical relationship is (Groove Diameter) = (Land Diameter) +
2x(Groove Depth). Common depths for rifling grooves are in the vicinity
of .005" to .01" so that the groove diameter is usually .01" to .02"
more than the land diameter
Ok, back to the 1851 Colt Navy .36
caliber revolver. It fired a lead ball of .375" diameter. "Why did they
call it a .36 calibre then?" I can hear you asking. The revolver had a
rifled barrel that measured just about .375" for the groove diameter.
We can round that off to .38" (seeing something yet?). The ball fit
just fine. With a groove depth of .01" the land diameter (often called
the bore diameter) was only .36" and the name usually came from the
"bore diameter." So we had a ".36 calibre" revolver that fired .38"
balls. Nobody thought anything about it except fpr a few OCD gunsmiths.
The
Civil War came to a long-awaited end, but firearms development
continued at a breakneck pace. As of 1865 it was obvious that the
self-contained metallic cartridge was the way of the future. There were
plenty of perfectly serviceable revolvers left over after "The Late
Unpleasantness" as the war was called by some. Many of these were 1851
Colt Navy revolvers. A number of gunsmiths set up a thriving business
converting the old cap & ball revolvers to use the more modern
metallic cartridges. The existing revolvers couldn't easily be changed
in any major way (such as calibre) so the new cartridges were designed
around the existing guns. The new cartridge featured a .38" diameter
bullet that was about .02" smaller at the base (this is called a
"heeled" bullet and is still used in the common .22 rimfire of today)
so that it could be pressed into the brass case -- the brass case walls
were about .01" thick. Thus, the bullet diameter and the brass case
diameter were both about .38" -- everything worked. When newer
revolvers were designed and made for these cartridges, they just called
them .38s. Things went on this way pretty much until the introduction
of smokeless powder at the end of the 18th century.
One of the
things that changed about that time was that the practice of using
heeled bullets fell out of favour for a number of reasons. The new way
of doing things was to simply make the cartridge case large enough so
that the bullet would fit snugly inside the case without needing a
heeled base. When new .38s were made they used the same sized cases but
with a smaller bullet. The barrels of the new guns were made to fit
these smaller bullets. Everything worked, but the gunmakers wanted to
keep the old ".38 calibre" name and they did -- even though the bullet
fired was a .36" diameter bullet and the barrel was a .36" bore
diameter. To be more exact, the bullet and bore diameters were (and
still are) .357" but the cartridge cases measure nearly .38".
Of
course the demand for more powerful cartridges never let up. The old
.38 calibre revolvers weren't particularly powerful. There were many of
them. One was the .38 Long Colt which was adopted by the US Army and
used against the Moro insurgents in the Phillippines following the
Spanish-American War. It failed to stop the determined Moros at a very
alarming rate. The US Army went back to a .45 calibre handgun, but gun
and ammunition makers kept working on a better .38 cartridge. In 1898,
the Smith & Wesson company introduced a lengthened .38 S&W
cartridge that was loaded with smokeless powder to a significantly
higher power. The called this the ".38 Smith & Wesson Special" but
everyone was soon calling it the ".38 Special" since shooters don't
particularly like long cartridge names. It was an instant success. It
bacame the dominant police revolver round and kept that position, only
being partailly eclipsed by the .357 Magnum and later falling victim to
the shift to autoloading pistols in the 1980s. The .38 Special is still
a good choice for a defensive revolver.
In the 1930s a fellow
named Elmer Kieth (and a few other pioneers) loaded .38 Special
cartridges to much higher than normal pressures and used them in
special heavy-frame revolvers. They called these ".38-44" rounds. Elmer
worked with Smith & Wesson to get this new round standardized.
S&W lengthened the case slightly (about .1") to make it too long to
fit into a standard .38 Special chamber (there were many older .38
Special revolvers that just weren't strong enough for the new
cartridge). In a flash of marketing genius Smith & Wesson named it
after an oversize wine bottle -- the "magnum." Since it still used a
.357" diameter bullet the name settled on was the ".357 S&W Magnum"
or just ".357 Magnum"-- it was introduced in 1934. Guns chambered for
the .357 Magnum can safely fire the .38 Special ammunition, but not the
other way around. The .357 Magnum is a good, but possibly overpowered,
round for personal defense. It has been used by many law-enforcement
agencies, and with good results. It is viable for taking deer-sized
game at moderate ranges if the shooter has the discipline to wait and
make an accurate shot.
That's where things stood until 1983.
Metallic silhouette shooting was then a fast-growing and popular
shooting sport. There was a desire to have a revolver with the
knock-down power of the .44 Magnum and the flat trajectory of the .357
Magnum. Remington and Ruger came to the rescue. Ruger was willing to
make a version of their Blackhawk revolver with a longer cylinder and
Remington lengthened the .357 Magnum cartridge case by an additional
.3" and loaded it to some very impressive velocities. Remington called
it the ".357 Remington Maximum" and it certainly performed as
advertised. It was accurate and those heavy steel silhouette rams at
200 metres fell quickly with any hit from one. But it was perhaps a
case of too much performance. Recoil was heavy, but not exceptionally
so for the sport. The main perceived problem was that the Ruger
revolver soon exhibited flame-cutting of the top-strap just above the
front face of the cylinder. This was found to be primarily a cosmetic
effect, but the damage was done. The .357 Maximum soon faded into
obsolescence. I owned one of the first .357 Max Ruger Blackhawks and
sometimes I wish I still had it. The .357 Maximum is way too much for
practical defensive use. It is a great handgun hunting cartridge. I do
not know if anyone is still making ammunition for it.
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