.38 Special - Fired from a 357 vs a .38

[imbezol]

Interesting... so the effective 0.1" longer barrel of the 357 would possibly increase velocity and thus power.

On the other side of the coin, the 0.1" gap between where the .379 in diameter casing ends and the barrel sized for the .357 in bullet begins would possibly reduce gas pressure by allowing more space for the gas to occupy before reaching the throat.

Both of these possibly negated by the effects of the gap between the cylinder and the barrel.

I think we may indeed need to chronograph this. Anyone own both guns, a chronograph, and curious?

 

[plinker 777]

@ Paul792 Damn spell check got me again! (Learn to proof read your posts before hitting "submit" Plinker!)

 

[BCRider]

Interesting... so the effective 0.1" longer barrel of the 357 would possibly increase velocity and thus power.

On the other side of the coin, the 0.1" gap between where the .379 in diameter casing ends and the barrel sized for the .357 in bullet begins would possibly reduce gas pressure by allowing more space for the gas to occupy before reaching the throat.

Both of these possibly negated by the effects of the gap between the cylinder and the barrel.

I think we may indeed need to chronograph this. Anyone own both guns, a chronograph, and curious?

Two guns would not be enough to draw any sort of conclusions. The variations in throat diameter, cylinder gap and barrel fit on the bullet would all play a part and work towards hiding any difference you may see. Hell, it's nothing to see a 30 to 50fps difference between two guns of the same model shooting the same ammo. To get any idea at all of any performance shift one way or the other it would need to be done with a collection of .38Spl specific guns and a similar number of .357 chambered guns. And if you do that then you MIGHT see a trend developing when the numbers are all averaged if it's significant at all.

Ideally such a test would be done with a single gun with two cylinders with matching throat diameters and cylinder gap with one cylinder chambered in .357 and the other in .38Spl.