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Colt Cobras/Detective Special and +p's

2K views 7 replies 6 participants last post by  lonewolf 
Re: Colt Cobras/Detective Special and +p\'s

Dfariswheel,

I have often wondered about why Colt would rate the pre-war guns for the 38/44 when it would have been quite hot for the gun. I have a couple of conjectures and I would be interested in your insights.

1) It was a production gun, and every smith in town knew how to time one, how to fix one, and if it stretched they would tell the customer to replace it or Colt would. Maybe?

2) It was a marketing strategy. They figured few folks would actually shoot more then a cylinder full of 38/44's before they quit and the gun could take it. If they did more, then option 1 kicks in.

3) The guns were just built better than today (unlikely).

4) The 38/44 was not as hot as we think it was.

I think #4 is unlikely because I have chronoed original 38/44 high speed ammo out of my Heavy Duties and it seemed to approach what it was supposed to do. Not bad for 75 year old ammo. I found that compared to todays rounds, it was very close to "commercial" 357 magnum levels of velocity and power.

Any insights?

by the way, the 38/44 is a hobby of mine. I just bought a 1939 38/44 Outdoorsman with the original box, and factory target. It is a "gem", but now I have to reshoot my 38/44 pictures. The herd grew a bunch over the last 3 months....
 
Re: Colt Cobras/Detective Special and +p\'s

Out of my guns (5" Heavy Duty's) it basically breaks down like this (all assuming 158 lead bullets).

Original 38/44 ammo 1041 (5) (some of my older stuff only did 950+/-)
+P+ 38 special 979 (5")
+p 38 special 863(5")
38 special 757 (5")

I have chrono'ed a lot of factory now out of my HD's as I investigated the 38/44 power levels and found you could break down the levels by about 100 fps per step. Or more simply, 38 special is 750, +p is 850, +p+ is 950, 38/44 is about 1050. The next step is 357 magnum at 1150 for a 5" mild load or 1250 for a 5" HOT load.

I have thought about dope bag, but I wanted to chrono more factory 357 mag loads and my reloads so I have a coherent story. It is so much easier to write an intelligent question when you have facts vs. just saying "tell me about the 38/44?". I figure if I can say, "Tell me about the 38/44 in reference to the actual measured results of .... and what guns could this be fired out of?"

I have a long overseas job to do here next month so I will try and write up an internet "book" on the 38/44 and what I have learned. I will let you know when I get it done.
 
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