Little advice 38/200

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rustynut1

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An older fellow I know has decided I need to buy his Webley 38/200. There is a .22LR in the deal, some odd ball brand revolver Armascus, something like that?? I have not seen either gun yet. Man is local to me. This man owns lots of guns and is a bit older, lots of prohibs. So what range of price would one want to be in for a gun like this? What features would be more desirable, what less desirable? I own a Spanish contract WW1 Webley in .455.

Thanks EH!
 
The Webley would be somewhere in the $400 range and the Arminius would be at best $200 used. All this is +- depending on condition. BTW 38/200 is the same as 38 S&W, NOT 38S&W Special (more commonly known as 38 Special).

Cheers
Moe
 
Yea. What Moe is saying is ammo is going to be a problem. You'll have to either make your own or get a trusted someone to make it for you, and components are going to be an on-going and expensive problem.
 
A person on here had some FS, I offered to buy it, brass and dies. No response back yet. Jet hunter makes projectiles. I mentioned $200 to my friend about the .22LR and he agreed with that value.
 
Starline makes low cost brass and you can get by with standard 38special bullets. It’s not really any more expensive than any other pistol cartridge to reload for.
 
In a pinch you can re-load with 9mm brass. 38S&W is 9mm rimmed.....
xJVFPLV.jpg


BUT, this is dangerous because if you accidently load real 9mm ammo, you are doubling the chamber pressure.

Empties are poked out with a pencil. Extractor won't work, but you can make good plinker ammo with 9mm brass and 38SPl bullets. the hollow base wad cutters are excellent. I load the 158 SWC in my 38s.
 
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The Arminius are not bad guns, I had a few, all steel guns.
Trade Ex had a bunch about 3-4 yrs ago.
But I have never been inside one
 
Ganderite said:
In a pinch you can re-load with 9mm brass. 38S&W is 9mm rimmed.....
xJVFPLV.jpg


BUT, this is dangerous because if you accidently load real 9mm ammo, you are doubling the chamber pressure.

Empires are poked out with a pencil. Extractor won't work, but you can make good plinker ammo with 9mm brass and 38SPl bullets. the hollow base wad cutters are excellent. I load the 158 SWC in my 38s.
Click to expand...

Incredible! I never knew that!? Thanks for this information.
 
Just a few of my thoughts. I do have a S&W Victory revolver in 38 S&W. I load for it using just regular .357 projectiles meant for a 38 special or 357. The accuracy is as good with them as any of my 38's or 357's would shoot them. As stated reloading for 38 S&W is no more expensive than 38 Special. Just need the specific brass. Unless you use 9mm as posted. Something I never new. Now I have to try that with reduced loads LOL.

I have an Arminius 22 revolver. It will work fine. It shoots in single action quite accurate. It will not hold a candle to my S&W 17 in 22lr when shooting double action. It is more like a heavy double action in an Alfa Proj. It works but just a bull in double action.

Cheers
Moe
 
dan belisle said:
RCBS makes 38 S&W dies, you can likely just order from them. Brass, keep an eye out at gun shows (well, until the Libs make those illegal), maybe put a WTB ad in the EE. - dan
Click to expand...

Lee has made dies for 38 S&W...don't know if they still do. I have a Webley MK IV and a S&W Victory model and have been slowly getting all the parts needed to roll my own. One of my local gunshops gets in factory ammo once in a while but at $50/box, I only buy it once in a while.
 
Many years after WW1 the British government wanted to distance themselves from their Webley & Scott .455 large frame revolvers, the MK IV's, V's, VI. IMHO being embarrased by these obsolete revolvers compared to the superior Colt 1911's, the Browning HP's & Georg Luger's 9mm pistol, the British government tasked W&S to come up with a new sidearm.

After considerable design, revisions, tests & reconsiderations, the firm of W&S presented the British government with their new streamlined, smaller frame revolver in 38S&W. The 38S&W cartridge fired a 200 grain RNFMJ cartridge at around 725 fps. (9mm & 45acp totally outclassed this anemic cartridge) Hoping this new revision of the top break .455 revolver would garner W&S a huge military contract, the W&S team was confident of their new revolver.

While the British government liked the new W&S .455 downsized revolver in 38/200, they liked the revolver but they didn't like/want W&S to manufacture it. They pulled all the W&S contracts & ended any production. The government then sent the samples to their own gov't arsenal for production, Enfield, screwing W&S. Enfield was the prime maker for 38S&W revolvers, NOT W&S.
 
I use my 9mm dies to load my Starline 38S&W brass. I cast a 125gr .358 projectile and powder coat to .360. Accuracy is much better at .360 for me. I like bullseye powder for this as well.
 
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