The Frontier Sixshooter Community Message Board - THE "OLD".38 S&W

THE "OLD".38 S&W (reply)

JT — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 18:30:45 +0000

Diamond Dot's bed headboard sixgun is a S & W M & P .38/200 from WWII.

Somewhere around 75/80 gr. (nm) (reply)

JimT — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 00:23:47 +0000

I keep..... (reply)

RayLee — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 00:12:12 +0000

blocks and chunks and rounds of stovewood length boles propped in the utility crawlspace between the domicile proper and the cellar where the raycave is located for bullet testing and refreshing carry ammo without having to travel to the range. I fire squarely and directly down into rings/grain.

Some loads surprise me. Recently, a cylinderful of "softball" 185 gr. fmj .45 at just under 800 fps. handily wrecked and split a chunk so that I could pull it apart by hand and see the bullet tracks. A very sedate italian .32 long 98 gr. fmj that did not previously perceptibly move the block at all bore 1.5" deeper than the .45s that wrecked it.

Interesting.... (reply)

Hoot — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 00:05:08 +0000

Lazy here...what's the weight of the .375 round ball?

Power Levels .38 S&W H&R "Lazarus" (reply)

JimT — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 19:48:08 +0000

All fired into a 2x4 from about 16"

95 gr. cast RN .361" 2.7 gr. Bullseye .435" to base of the bullet.

.375 pure lead round ball 3.0 gr. Bullseye .485 to base of bullet

124 gr. cast 9mm bullet 2.5 gr. Bullseye .537" to base of bullet

2x4

Update on the old H&R

JimT — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 13:33:37 +0000

I was shooting the H&R with some test loads and it locked up on me. I could not move the hammer forward or backward. Taking the gun apart I found the spring on the cylinder hand had broken and gotten into the lockworks.

While messing with it I overstressed the mainspring and then end broke off.

So I ordered a new mainspring and cylinder hand. The mainspring arrived yesterday and I installed it and it works fine. I fired the gun just to see how the spring was working. Without a cylinder hand I simply cocked the hammer, carefully rolled the cylinder around until it was against the cylinder stop and then pulled the trigger. It worked fine.

Jimmy P had sent me a cylinder hand that had a broken spring (I think it must be common with these guns) and I decided to see if I could re-spring it. Using an old Colt SAA hand spring that was broken, I finally got it put together. Now all I need to do is shorten it to the correct length.

Since I have a new hand coming, this will give me a backup. Always a good thing to have with old beat up cheap guns.

Home repaired cylinder hand

New hammer spring