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38-55 - Rifle Makers 1, Reloading Industry 0.

5K views 19 replies 13 participants last post by  hpdrifter 
#1 ·
This is my first controversial post and while I don't intend to make a regular habit of it, I hope someone reloading industry reads it, even if at my expense I am proven less than correct.

There has never been much rhyme or reason to cartridge naming. With some exceptions in Europe, very few caliber names correctly describe the cartridge in question.

Take for example the .38-55. The rifle makers obviously treat it as a true 38. I have owned 3 rifles chambered for this caliber, an antique Winchester 94 .381", A Marlin 336 Cowboy .379" and an Oliver F Winchester 94 Commemorative .380". Average = .380. Now if that isn't 38 caliber than what is?

So you would think that as an enterprising die, bullet (Beartooth excepted with thanks) or chamber reamer maker that I would produce my equipment to suit the bore?
No!
Somewhere along the line a group of people decided that the .38-55 should be between .375 - .377" and have produced their gear to suit. So we end up with .379" bore rifles which will not chamber a case loaded with a .380" sized cast bullet. And if we fire a manufactured .375" Dia bullet through the rifle, while it will feed, it will certainly not achieve the fine accuracy that this original bench rest caliber is capable of.

This leaves the owner and shooter of a rifle chambered like this for a third time ,having to modify one or more of the following: 1. Chamber neck and throat 2. Bullet mould 3. Sizing die neck and expander ball 4. Seating die neck and 5. Lube sizer die.

Is it any wonder that there are few owners of this caliber and they are easily identified as either fanatical zealots or highly stressed gibbering idiots? (I fall into the latter category)

Yours in ranting.

Snow.
 
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#2 ·
Pretty well nailed the 38-55.

Am sure you looked up some of the discussions in the archives, but just in case there are any readers that are wondering, found my solution by fire forming 30-30 cases. Cases come out with brass about .001" thinner...which is about .002" total. This allows the use of .379-380" bullets without any problems (other than the fire formed 30-30 brass being just a tiny bit short).
 
#3 ·
Maroontoad, thanks for explaining why my .381 diameter bullets will not work without resizing them. And, also to Ribbonstone for explaining why the only brass I can get for now (fire formed 30-30) works with the resized .379 cast I am reloading. I am using the Lee "crimping" die after seating the bullet. I am also using Remington brass, which may be a bit thicker than the Winchester (which I will try next). Riley
 
#5 ·
Indeed, you gentlemen have called this one right on the head! I get supremely frustrated when working with somewhat novice customers and this chambering in modern rifles, as the groove dimensions dictate a minimum of .379" diameter bullets to as large as .381" just to adequately accommodate the generous groove diameters of these guns, be they Win 94's, Marlin Cowboy 336's, Brownchester 1885's or even some of the semi-custom falling block replicas out there.

Try explaining to your customer why his rifle won't shoot, and why, when loaded with a proper diameter bullet the ammo won't chamber! Then tell that same person (who may be very new to handloading) to fire-form .30-30 brass so that he can actually shoot his .38-55! He figures you are some shade-tree hick unworthy not only of his business, but that you're working up recipes that would make the Uni-Bomber proud!

Then, when you explain how the best approach is to use a chamber/throating reamer to open up his factory chamber to accept your suggested loading concoction, when he's spent considerable coin on his latest levergun, the conversation quickly becomes strained.... at best! :(

Is it any wonder that even before their demise, Winchester discontinued the M94 variants in this chambering, and that Marlin discontinued the .38-55 Cowboy? I'd say the firearms manufacturing industry quite effectively shot themselves in the foot with this one, and in the process killed a very capable and efficient cartridge, yet once again!

I do share your frustrations... but perhaps from a different perspective.

God bless,
 
#6 ·
I'd like to think that the old cases (like pre-1920's ) was thinner...that would expalin the good reviews of the 38/55 from the old literture. Using today's compenets, doubt the writtings would have been so positive. 38-55 isn't alone in this, many of the original rifles chmbered in 40/60 and the like tend towards the same modern case/bullet diameter problem.

Loaded with black and a soft lead bullet, they all would probably work just fine...the immediate "whump" of black tends to upset the bullet to fill the grooves.

I had considered the chamber alteration...but as the 30-30 cases were working for me left well enough alone.
 
#7 ·
ribbonstone said:
I'd like to think that the old cases (like pre-1920's ) was thinner...that would expalin the good reviews of the 38/55 from the old literture. Using today's compenets, doubt the writtings would have been so positive. 38-55 isn't alone in this, many of the original rifles chmbered in 40/60 and the like tend towards the same modern case/bullet diameter problem.

Loaded with black and a soft lead bullet, they all would probably work just fine...the immediate "whump" of black tends to upset the bullet to fill the grooves.

I had considered the chamber alteration...but as the 30-30 cases were working for me left well enough alone.
Hi ribbonstone,

That makes a lot of sense. How much life do you get out of the reformed .30-30 cases? They are already thin in .30-30 and would have to be thinner when fire formed. I remember crunching the occasional .30-30 if I was distracted when loading them, especially with cast bullets.

I had the chamber of other two rifles altered by gunsmiths and will get this one done as well. I will definitely put my hunting loads in .30-30 cases though.

Snow.
 
#8 · (Edited by Moderator)
Sectioning samples, the 30-30 cases are the same as the 38/55's at the rear, but do have a slightly thinner neck (and are shorter once fire formed and trimmed to even). With cast bullet loads, case life seemed as good as with any other...they don't get worked much in standard 38/55 dies, the standard expander in my ld Lyman die set just barely touches the inside after sizing. That lack of bras work-hardening might be one reason they seemed to last well.

Never did shoot enough jacketed rounds to check case life...standard 38/55's work with the .377" WW factory loads. Guess I'd shoot 10 or 20 jacketed loads a jear at most. If I wanted jacketed loads, would generally pull WW factory loads and load those cases/primers/bullets with the powder charge of choice.
 
#9 ·
Lest we forget that many of the original cases were "roll formed" and not "drawn" as is today's standard. Basically, the head was drawn and the rest of the case was rolled between a mandrell and wheel to stretch it to it's final length by thinning the walls. End result is much thinner wall cases than is the norm today.

There are a few companies still producing rolled brass, most are limited to .45 cases longer than the standard .45-70 (2.1") and .50 cal's longer than the standard .50-70 size. The end result is you get 45-90 through .45-120 (3.25") with much thinner walls than the old .45-70 cases.

This gripe is not limited to strait wall cases either. Different brands of brass vary in thickness, thus you find a number of neck turning tooling available to serious reloaders. The problem lies when you have a chamber sized to accept thicker neck cases and try using thinner neck cased in them, sure they flop in easy but accuracy and case life suffer. The problem lies in that we have standards for overall case/chamber dimensions based only the outside measurements and nothing on bores, throats or internal case dimensions. Thus you can easily note the variables in case volume from brand to brand and even lot to lot of the same brand. The .45 colt being one of my major gripes since some brass is made with an internal taper and other brass is a true strait wall and still other brass is the old balloon head design. If you don't sort your cases properly for the given loading, you can drive yourself to near insanity trying to figure out what in the heck is going on. For standard loads, the internal may not matter but when you start loading BP and find that if you do everthing right, ten rounds group well and three are way off kilter.... closer inspection reveals that the only difference is in the case volume, minor reduction in volume means a change in the compression factor of the powder resulting is a major change in the performance of the round when fired.

Button and broach rifled bores are also the offenders here too. Both pieces of tooling are made over-size and are allowed to wear to a minimum spec before being replaced. A broach or button for the .45-70 may start out at .460" when new and as it gets used, it wears down and is usually not replaced until it gets below .458" This means, depending upon when the bore was made during the life span of the broach/button, will dictate the exact bore size you happen to get. With cast bullets, this is not a big deal for the bore itself but when the chamber is sized at .458" and the groove diameter is .4595", you're starting off at a disadvantage right from the get go!

Back to the .45 colt, original groove diameter on these was .454" but the advent of the .45acp prompted most mfg's to go with the more standardized .452" groove diameter. I don't know of any reloading die mfg that even makes a .454" die set for the .45 colt as standard, special order maybe? This means if you buy an original gun built for the .454" cases and bullets, unless you lapp out your dies or have custom ones made, you will never get any decent accuracy from the gun.

I think part of the problem lies in that mfg's often follow the production manifests of cost cutting. From the gun mfg's standpoint, they can use a bigger groove diameter for the old low pressure rounds like the .38-55 but they must hold tigher tolerances for higher pressure chamberings like the .375 H&H mag. This being the case, if they make their broach/buttons at .380", they can be used on the .38-55 barrels until they wear down to produce barrels for the .375 H&H and the like, this gives them double the tool life and reduces costs. Since it's perfectly safe to fire a .357" bullet through a .380" groove barrel, there is no liability issue for the mfg so it's not a problem for them, only for the reloader trying to make a gun shoot accurately. I've seen this on many chamberings, usually more exagerated on military weapons where first run barrels can be well oversized and late run barrels can fall down into the tight side. I got a great deal on some new 91/30 barrels so I bought the whole lot. Every one had a slightly different sized bore, the biggest coming in at .3121" and the smallest being .3098". When I cast the chambers, the throats were sized from .3105" to .3115" with the latter being on the .3121" bore. Had I not checked this prior to installing the barrels, I would have never been able to get the .3121 bore to shoot as well as it was capable of with cast bullets. I lapped the throat to .3122", chamber was fine but I have to pay attention to the nech thickness on the cases. The .3121" bore shoots excellent with the properly sized cast bullets. The .3098" bore is a super shooter with .310" jacketed bullets.

Now, I'll jump on the bullet mfg's too. Many of the jacketed bullets hold fairly tight tolerances but some do not. I bought some bulk packs of .308" 180gr spitzers figuring for the price, they were good enough for plinking but I didn't expect a whole lot from them. I pulled 50 at random from the 500 count lot. All 50 came in with really decent tolerances, fully acceptable for all but precision bench & long distance work. Likewise, I got a few boxes of what are considered "better quality" and these had much wider tolerance spreads than the el'cheapo bulk packed bullets! Price is not indicative of quality either because a couple years back I purchased some "premuim" bullets at a "premium" price and found them to be worse than the bulk pack cheapies as well.
 
#10 ·
The old remington brass is thinner if you can find some, as no current production for the big green.

Buffalo arms has brass that is the WW stretched to the proper length clear to 2.240 as a basic case. They also have small primer pocketed 38-55 cases the proper length. 38-55s while I agree are a pain, for the reloader and very few choices for the non handloader. Visit the annual Schueztenfest and you'll see 32-40s and 38-55 hitting the X ring with consistancy. I'm sure these fellows have custom guns and bbls, for this event. Me I got a Marlin CB and it shoots well with cast or jacketed. I had multiple problems finding bullets for either until I done my research online. Jacketed, Boar Bullets, Stone Fence, Barnes Originals all work well in my CB groove dia .3785 guess I was lucky. .377 and .379 castwork well with no alteration to chamber or brass. If I had tight chamber the problem, I do believe I would see if RCBS still makes custom boring bar style dies. If not I would make a setup for my outside neck turner. This before altering my chamber. Far as marlin is concerned I've heard of a few sending their rifles back to be re bbled.
 
#11 ·
I tried fire-forming some Federal 30-30 brass without success and have gone back to Remington brass. Markkw, how involved is the chamber work on a Win. 94? And, in your estimation is it worth it, or do you agree with others on this post that using 30-30 fire-formed brass is not only the simplist solution but the best? Thanks - Riley
 
#12 ·
If you have lee dies, try using a .375 H&H expander which is long and tapered. Lube the inside of the 30-30 cases neck and one pass. If you lose a few, you lose a few. I've never had a problem getting enough 30-30 once fired at my local range. My first attempt at necking them up was by making a long tapered expander plug for my Lee expander die, it worked well. My next attempt works well also, it resides in Stone Fences possession. Far as fire forming, I've done it with my 38-55 and 30-30s didn't have any more splits than using dies.
 
#13 ·
Gee fellers, what a wealth of knowledge in one place. The best thing to be said about shooting and handloading is that along with the frustrations come little and big enlightenment's and true personal achievements. For years we had to do a lot of self teaching and the answers that we found were not often 100 percent correct.

This forum idea really kicks things along and the occasion that you get shot down in flames is worth it for mountain of stepping stones that you are given to get back up there.

Thanks very much

Snow.
 
#14 ·
Well...they do make a 38/55 that has more uniform dimentions and a stdardized bore size....but it runs at higher pressure and is called the 375 Winchester.


Don't think that one took a lot of brain power to come up with fo Winchester...it's what the 38/55 would have been if born in the days of smokless powder and jacketed bullets.
 
#15 · (Edited)
My experience with my three Marlin's chambered in 375 has been that it is just as big a PITA as it's sister cartridge. Three rifles, three bore sizes; .377", .378", and .379" for a .375" rifle. I'm going to need to work on my bullet seating die so that it doesn't interfere with the boolits dropped from my Lee SO mold :(

My guess is that Marlin starts running scared when they think of a handloader taking their rifle up to 52.0K CUP so they give it a big bore that will dump the pressure.

There is all kind of challenges in life, fortunately these are the best!!!
 
#16 ·
I will testify that Swany's expander does indeed work for making slightly short .38-55 cases out of .30-30 or .32 Spl.

Just last week I bought a big lot of virgin .32 Spl. brass and converted them, and didn't lose a single one!
Thanks Swany!

I guess I got lucky on my Marlin .375, cause it shoots jacketed Winchester .377 or lead gas checked .378" that I make in my swage press brilliantly. I have had 3 shot groups at 50 yards with the holes touching, and MOA groups at 100.

-Stone
_____________________________________________________
 
#17 ·
38-55

I own an shoot a Win 94 rifle in 38-55, made in 1899.
Have shot old time ammo and new stuff with no problems.
The new is Win 255 Gr jacketed SP. I reload the brass with
cast bullets RNFP, sized to 377. They shoot just fine.

The barrel of my rifle is bright and shiny with good rifling. Bullets I buy here on Vancouver Island. The old time brass
measures 2.131" and the new stuff 2.081" .

A box of Win 38-55 is double the money of 30 WCF; but
once you have enough brass to reload, shooting is reasonable.

I enjoy shooting the 38-55 more than the 30 WCF. :)
 
#20 ·
In the ABC's of Reloading, page 82; inside column, this situation is addressed.

The authors state that this chamber/bore relationship was designed for blackpowder shooting and the use of soft lead/alloy bullets. They bump up to fill the available rifling.

Also state that if you have one of these rifle to try 20-1 or 30-1 alloy.

But, I do find this kinda distressing meself.
 
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