Never heard that. The Army Special was considered to be a .38 Special gun. It might be the symantics or what "else" it could fire. Their ads are certainly confusing.

 

Also, the diameter of the bore (and the bullet) of the .38 Special and the .38 Long Colt are both .357. The .38 LC started out as a black powder round with larger diameter in the 1890s, then in 1903 the Army changed to smokeless powder and changed the revolver's bore to .357.

You can fit a .38 LC in a .38 Special chambered Army Special. That seems to be what the ads were saying too, back when the guns were made.

 

I have to disagree with you on bore and groove diameter. While thr nominal groove diameter of Colt's 38/357 revolvers made for inside lubricated bullets was .357, the actual bore and groove diameters of the Army Special, the Official Police, the Officers Model, the Trooper, and the Python were narrower. My Python's groove diameter is .354, for example.

 

Welcome to the COLT Forum from the Cradle Of Liberty...Pennsylvania !!

Enjoy Our Community Sir... and what I found more interesting than your findings and subsequent reply from Colts engineers was your choice of name...a quick search was even more enlightening...Zebulon Graves...both a real persons name and the name of a cemetery in North Carolina.

 

Zebulon Graves was my Great Uncle who lies buried next to my late mother. Because of our significantly different ages I never met him but we are related by blood.

 

I really appreciate your posting those images. They would seem to be straight forward and definitive. Do you by any chance know the years they were published? The only other thing I forgot to mention is all the Colt Factory Letters I've seen posted on this forum on particular Army Specials, all seem to list the caliber of the thirty-eight models as ".38/c" which I've always taken to mean ".38 Colt", an expression the factory reserved for the 38 Long Colt and .38 Short Colt.
If the Colt people who called me had been desk clerks, in the face of the ads and Kuhnhausen, I'd have to agree they (the Colt employees) were just ignorant. However, my letterhead at the time I wrote indicated I was an attorney with an AV Martindale-Hubbell rating (or, if I'd emailed them, they could easily have and almost certainly did look my name up in Martindale). I think that's why Colt responded so quickly and why there were two of them. I spoke with them at some length and was and am sure (a) they were pretty senior people and (b) neither had fallen off a watermelon truck. Although we never discussed law, I've always suspected one of them was from Colt's General Counsel's office, meaning my correspondence had been seen as a potential shot across their bow, although I assured them otherwise more than once. The one that did most of the talking was clearly (to me) an engineer. I've never satisfied myself whether they were just being overcautious or were giving me the true dope on the AS.

Kuhnhausen's Colt Double Action textbook would seem to be a very trustworthy source, maybe more so than Colt's advertising department, since back then product liability law was not what it was in 2003 and early 20th Century marketing claims could get pretty wild and wooly. Nevertheless, they are persuasive.

I was hoping somebody had access to the design and production specs. I wouldn't even have written this post if I hadn't just seen a much earlier one by somebody who was firing 38/44 factory loads in his Army Special. I think all Colts are hell for stout but that worried me. In the recent past Brian Pearce wrote an article published in Handloader magazine and asserted there had been no "official" pressures for the 38/44 but some recently tested vintage factory ammo generated breech pressures in the high thirties - 357 magnum territory and well above the 20,000 MAP that SAAMI allows for the Plus P Special.

I'm no expert and I really do thank you for posting those vintage ads, which are compelling and important to help me understand why the information given me by Colt's was not necessarily right.

 

I really appreciate your posting those images. They would seem to be straight forward and definitive. Do you by any chance know the years they were published? The only other thing I forgot to mention is all the Colt Factory Letters I've seen posted on this forum on particular Army Specials, all seem to list the caliber of the thirty-eight models as ".38/c" which I've always taken to mean ".38 Colt", an expression the factory reserved for the 38 Long Colt and .38 Short Colt.
If the Colt people who called me had been desk clerks, in the face of the ads and Kuhnhausen, I'd have to agree they (the Colt employees) were just ignorant. However, my letterhead at the time I wrote indicated I was an attorney with an AV Martindale-Hubbell rating (or, if I'd emailed them, they could easily have and almost certainly did look my name up in Martindale). I think that's why Colt responded so quickly and why there were two of them. I spoke with them at some length and was and am sure (a) they were pretty senior people and (b) neither had fallen off a watermelon truck. Although we never discussed law, I've always suspected one of them was from Colt's General Counsel's office, meaning my correspondence had been seen as a potential shot across their bow, although I assured them otherwise more than once. The one that did most of the talking was clearly (to me) an engineer. I've never satisfied myself whether they were just being overcautious or were giving me the true dope on the AS.

Kuhnhausen's Colt Double Action textbook would seem to be a very trustworthy source, maybe more so than Colt's advertising department, since back then product liability law was not what it was in 2003 and early 20th Century marketing claims could get pretty wild and wooly. Nevertheless, they are persuasive.

I was hoping somebody had access to the design and production specs. I wouldn't even have written this post if I hadn't just seen a much earlier one by somebody who was firing 38/44 factory loads in his Army Special. I think all Colts are hell for stout but that worried me. In the recent past Brian Pearce wrote an article published in Handloader magazine and asserted there had been no "official" pressures for the 38/44 but some recently tested vintage factory ammo generated breech pressures in the high thirties - 357 magnum territory and well above the 20,000 MAP that SAAMI allows for the Plus P Special.

I'm no expert and I really do thank you for posting those vintage ads, which are compelling and important to help me understand why the information given me by Colt's was not necessarily right.

Bold mine. So you are a lawyer. It sounds like you are building a law suit or a case against someone. Maybe you're not...

 

After buying an Army Special (1918 mfg) I went to the LGS to buy ammo.
They told me 38Special and sold me a box.
I left and went out the "pit" . Shot a few cyl's. Felt pretty potent.
Maybe 40 years ago. Last time I shot it. No harm

 

Someone in 2003 may not be totally up on what was available in 1903, so err on the side of caution - You may want to look in the chambers. If there is a shoulder it is for the .38 Colt/S&W Special; if bored straight through it is for the earlier heeled .38 L/S Colt. The .38 Special seems to show up around 1903/05 in Colt catalogs therefore a simple check would answer the question of chambering.

Also, I would agree that it is not wise to shoot .38 Specials in an arm expressly chambered for the obsolete .38 L/S Colt (ex: M-1889, 1892/94) made before the turn of the century.

 

Good point. [This reply is being made on Sunday morning, several days after your post, and after some more reading and input from other members.] The 1920 Army Special .38 in question was one I sold a couple of years ago, so I don't have it to examine now. However, after a lot of queries, I was finally able to locate my original 2003 letter to Colt's customer service department, which refreshed my memory. I'm going to put up jpegs of the letter in a minute. (As you will see, I didn't know the difference between "E" and "I" frames in 2003.)

What I had forgotten was I put down in my letter a lot of information about the particular revolver, which included noting that it DID have bullet seats in the charge holes that would allow a Special cartridge to fully chamber but not a .357 magnum cartridge. Because the Army Special was introduced by Colt in 1908 and the .38 Special cartridge began showing up in Colt catalogs circa 1903-05, it would have been strange indeed if by 1920 the Army Special hadn't been offered in that caliber. And, of course, as Azshot has shown with his images of Colt literature, indeed it was, although whether initially or later I don't know. But the length of the bullet seats in my revolver are clear proof; there would have been no other reason for them to be there, that I can think of.

Something further. I still have another Army Special, this one serialized in 1918, 5" barrel, chambered in .41 Colt. I think we can consider it a contemporary of my former 1920 .38 and this .41 Colt example has no bullet seats; it's bored straight through. Considering the caliber, there would have been no reason to mill the charge holes for bullet seats. There was no .41 Special to be concerned about (more's the pity.)

What I still don't know is whether some early .38 caliber Army Specials were bored straight through or not, although the Colt people who called me certainly thought so. However, it's apparent that they didn't know everything there is to know about the Army Special and some of what they said was clearly wrong.

So much for tilting at windmills, although I still don't think I would shoot any vintage 38/44 stuff in an Army Special. Not that it would lift the top strap but it would probably make it go out of time sooner and maybe stretch the frame's cylinder window a bit.

Thanks to everybody for helping,
Bill

 

Good info. I would not expect to own an Army Special. If I did, I would like to think that I would fully confirm and understand the chambering. But I could see how a less knowledgeable person could make the assumption that a pistol in this caliber was a 38 Special. Thanks for sharing!

 

There are a number of threads about shooting .38 Special cartridges in a Colt Army Special revolver but no threads I can find that are reasonably current. For what it's worth, the following is not my opinion but rather advice I received in a telephone call from two, currently employed engineers of Colt's, in response to a letter or an email (I disremember which) I sent to the company asking for official information. All this occurred some time ago, in 2003, but I made notes about it.

... I do not recall whether the cylinder charge holes were milled with bullet seats - that is to say, whether the cylinder was bored straight through, but the cylinder was long enough to fully chamber a .38 Special length cartridge but not a .357 magnum cartridge...

To my surprise, several weeks after I wrote, I got a telephone call from Colt's, with not just one but TWO engineers on the line, to answer the questions I had posed. Here is what they told me...

This advice obviously contradicts what some other sources have said ...

There seems to be some logical thinking errors here.

You say you find no threads that are "reasonably current" on the Army Special and the .38 Special. But then you talk about a phone call you took over 20 years ago from some supposed Colt employees that told you something, that you've kept notes on. Isn't that information also "not reasonably current", as well as said by no one verifiable? A Colt employee in 2003 is probably retired now. Your source is hearsay, dated, and not documentation.

You wrote Colt asking about chambering for your gun. I believe 20 years ago they may have had good enough customer service to answer you. But their answer would have been "you can shoot .38 Special". I would be surprised if they delved into a deep conversation about diminsions and symantics of caliber names.

It helps when you join a forum to tell a little bit about yourself and your purpose when you start with an obiously "against all current knowledge" hypothesis. Did you join this forum just to initiate a debate or are you considering getting another Army Special to shoot? Or some other reason?

The people on this forum are often experts, more so than any Colt employee, about historic guns, reloading, gun ephermera. But asking a forum of experts to disprove a very novel hypotheisis or a 20 year old phone conversation, can cause a wild goose chase.

 

There seems to be some logical thinking errors here.

You say you find no threads that are "reasonably current" on the Army Special and the .38 Special. But then you talk about a phone call you took over 20 years ago from some supposed Colt employees that told you something, that you've kept notes on. Isn't that information also "not reasonably current", as well as said by no one verifiable? A Colt employee in 2003 is probably retired now. Your source is hearsay, dated, and not documentation.

You wrote Colt asking about chambering for your gun. I believe 20 years ago they may have had good enough customer service to answer you. But their answer would have been "you can shoot .38 Special". They would not have been engineers, and I would be surprised if they delved into a deep conversation about diminsions and symantics of caliber names.

It helps when you join a forum to tell a little bit about yourself and your purpose when you start with an obiously "against all current knowledge" hypothesis. Did you join this forum just to initiate a debate or are you considering getting another Army Special to shoot? Or some other reason?

You say you are or were a lawyer; "...I wrote indicated I was an attorney." Is this research you are doing now related to a legal case?

The people on this forum are often experts, more so than any Colt employee, about historic guns, reloading, gun ephermera. But asking a forum of experts to disprove a very novel hypotheisis or a 20 year old phone conversation, is a wild goose chase.

Well, I'm not trying to argue with anyone and I will agree that the Colt people who called me may not have seen the elephant and heard the owl. To my mind, however, they had something at their command nobody else I knew of had-- access to original documents. Nor were they customer service people.

My purpose in putting up this post was to say what I had been told and test it against the forum's collective knowledge base. Which produced a gratifying result -- including your Colt vintage ads I'd never seen and for which I'm grateful.

My purpose in joining this forum is benign. I am and have been for.years a modest collector and student of Winchester, Browning, Colt, and Smith & Wesson arms and history. Since I retired in 2006, and because of age and, more recently, a debilitating injury, I've become progressively less able to hunt seriously. So I've devoted more time to my firearm studies. Last year I joined WACA and my fellow members have been a fount of helpful knowledge and I've made interesting friends. I expect to have the same experience here.

I am sure I'm right about the actual groove diameters of the Colt models we were discussing. You can prove it to your own satisfaction by slugging the barrels and reading off the two diameters with a micrometer or dial indicator.

Best regards,
Bill

 

I had a Colt New Line that was chambered in .38 Colt. The frame was marked with a C indicating it was centerfire, not rimfire. Perhaps that’s what the .38/c was referring to.

 

Good point and it could be. Thanks

 

Here's an article by Mike Venturino that might be helpful. .38 LONG COLT

 

Thank you

 

I have never heard or seen of an army special 38 being only chambered for 38 long colt. They will certainly fire 38 long colt being chambered for the longer 38;special. I sold my 1909-10 army special 38 that was clearly chambered for 38 special. Of which a friend of mine owns and currently shoots 38 special in it. It’s my understanding that when reading the caliber designation on colt factory letters the 38C stands for 38 caliber. Depending on the model in question, that could be 38 special ( army special) 38 colt new police ( police positive) 38 long colt ( colt DA 38).

 

Yes, the Army Special I had would certainly chamber a
38 Special. The Colt people told me some early AS production had chambers bored straight through and would fully chamber a 357 magnum round. The point they were trying to make to me was the AS was not designed to handle the increased pressure. After seeing the Colt ads posted earlier in this thread. What Colt told me is a little hard to swallow.

 

A good reference for the earlier Colt's is Haven & Belden's "A History of the Colt Revolver: 1836 To 1940".
Until the 1950's or so, this was the official history of the Colt company and their firearms.
Included are very early patents and pages on the various firearms.

In the case under discussion, the first Colt revolver made for the .38 Special, was the Colt New Army & Navy, which was originally chambered for the .38 Long Colt, but starting in 1903, in .38 Special.
The second was the small frame Police Positive Special in introduced in 1907.
This was followed in 1908 with the Army Special, made in .32-20, various .38 calibers including .38 Special, and .41 Colt.

So yes, according to Colt's own period records, the Army Special was originally chambered in the .38 Special to replace the then fast becoming obsolete black powder era .38 Long Colt.

 

Ironically I was reading the patent section in Haven & Belden earlier this evening - I bought my copy at Abercrombie & Fitch, on Wabash Ave. Chicago in 1968, and have used it ever since - of course much of the information is now outdated, but it is a great time capsule (with photos) of current Colt practices in on the eve of WWII.

 

Thank you. That is very helpful.

 

A History of The Colt Revolver From 1836 to1940 Haven & Belden 1st Edition | eBay

A History of The Colt Revolver From 1836 to1940 Haven & Belden 1st Edition

www.ebay.com

 

Bought that First Edition!! Thanks much for the heads up. Bill

UPDATE: the book came to hand safely and, if anything, its advertised condition was understated. I'm very pleased to have this important reference work on my bookshelf and I'm grateful to you for enabling me to get it. Bill

 

Thank you for clarifying you purpose.
Your notes and you are saying the bores are .346 to .347. That would be extremely tight and possibly cause over pressure problems shooting the normal .357 38 Special or 38 Long Colt in these guns, especially with jacketed bullets. The ammo industry would have had warnings and the gun community would have that knowledge to constantly warn people. But I've never heard any of that. As an example, current .22 WRF made by one company, CCI I believe, is OFTEN warned against shooting in revolvers. The reason being the bores of some Colt revolvers in that caliber are .002 or .003 under diameter of their bullets. The concern is a jacketed bullet could wedge in the bore and cause an obstruction. Surely if Colt Army Specials are .011 under, that warning would be loud.

I'll get my Army Special out sometime and check the bore diminsions. I know I shot .358 diameter bullets in it for years, and would have checked before ordering that diameter. This was 15 years ago, I haven't shot it recently, but still have it. I remember it's accuracy was very good, usually an indication that the chamber mouths and bore are exactly what is needed for that diameter.

 

I can't cite you chapter and verse this morning but I'll try to find the articles by Massad Ayoob about the narrower bore and groove diameters used by Colt's in their double action revolvers. I believe Colt's reasoning was it contributed to accuracy and those decisions were made at a time when the Colt Officers Model was king of bullseye competition. At least up through the original Python (mine is an '86 model), Colt's never saw fit to change, so it must not be hazardous. I do remember reading Elmer Keith telling Speer in the late Seventies that using half-jacketed bullets in a .38 Special with magnum primers was a bad idea and highest velocities with lowest pressures could be gotten with cast lead and standard primers. Not sure he was talking about Colts and maybe that's irrelevant; but I also recall the old .38 Special Hi-Speed a/k/a 38/44 factory loads used an all-lead 150 grain hollow point they cranked up to an alleged 1100 foot seconds in a 6" barrel. I've never shot that stuff and wonder why a lot of the bullet didn't get welded to the rifling!

I had a cup of coffee after dinner last night and finally located my old MS Word copy of the letter I sent to Colt in 2003 and redacted it to remove burglary instructions so I can post it here. I thought you might want to see what I was concerned about. Settles nothing, of course, but it's the context for my original post. As soon as I can figure out how to upload the images, I'll do that. ( If you can tell me how to get the document to you privately, I'll send you the unredacted letter.))

Hope you will work with me and we'll get this figured out,
Bill

 

There is some info about Colt bores being .354-.355 though.
"Modern (1950s to 1980s) Colt double action revolvers gave always had. 354/355 bores. "
"My Officers Model 38 (CA 1929) has a bore of about .355 ..."
"
Older Colt barrels have always measured .354-.355. The largest one I had was a 1963 vintage New Frontier (.357 Mag), that ran .356.
The cylinder throats on these sixguns tend to run larger than Smith and Wesson at .359.
In spite of these numbers the Colt Officers Model and Officers Model Match shot head to head with Smith and Wesson K-38s for many years in Bullseye competition. Some shooters preferred Smith and others Colt.
I have shot thousands and thousands of 38 Special cast bullet loads through these tight Colts with bullets sized .358 and .359. I have never had a problem and have had great accuracy.
You are worrying about something that is not a problem."

https://forum.castbulletassoc.org/thread/6548-extreemly-tight-colt-bore/

"...not all 38's and 357 Mags. have .357" diameter barrel bores (actually groove diameter). Smiths (normally, but not always) and Rugers do, but a lot (most all) of Colts have .355" bores (or smaller)."

https://www.shootersforum.com/threads/reloading-38-special-questions.235675/

 

The four barrel lengths of the Army Special, 4", 4 1/2", 5" & 6". All were chambered in these three chambering: .32-20, .38 Special & .41 Colt.



Cam

 

It seems to me that with Smith & Wesson's introduction of the .38 Special Cartridge in their M & P that Colt would market a revolver explicitly chambered for the same, or their version of the .38 Special. At the time the U.S. may have still been interested in revolvers. Army Special.

The High Velocity .38 Special round or 38/44 post dates the A. S. and the A. S. may not have been rated for that higher pressure.

 

Actually, the opposite is true. S&W developed the .38 Special to match the notional diameter of the .38 Long Colt round, so that there would be some cross-sales potential.

This video is long, but has some good history about it.

 

In a nutshell there is nothing to figure out: Colt had slightly tighter bores in their .38 Specials than S&W did. Around .355, not .357.

Unless you mean figuring out what those two men you talked to on the phone meant, 20 years ago? The crux of which was "don't shoot a .38 Special in an Army Special", correct? For that, I'll leave it to others. I believe "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." It would be up to these two gentlemen on the phone to prove what they are saying, not for me to forensically try to disprove it, years later, hearing about it 3rd party.

You hear some strange things in life, I don't worry about trying to figure out if it was accurate, when I know it was not. I've shot and studied Colts most of my life, have read most of what was written about them the past 45 years. I never stopped reading about guns since I was 9 years old. Colt made very good barrels, back in the day, and I shoot many Officers Models quite often. Along with other Colts. You can't shoot a .357 bullet out of the smaller bore you were quoting, safely.

 

In my 2006 Edition if The Standard Catalog of firearms, page 319.
Snap Shot:
The Colt Python .357
"...but its bore was laboriously tapered by a thousandth of an inch from back to front, forcing the bullet tighter into the grooves."
Masad Ayoob
There are a couple of these Snap Shots in the Colt section by Masad, and none state anything about a tighter bore other than that quote.

 

That is referring to the much debated, "magic ball" process that Colt supposedly used to create a tapered bore or "choked bore". I.E. it gets tighter from the throat to the muzzle. Another big ball of worms because many reputable sources mentioned it, people that worked at Colt on the Pythons talked about using or seeing it, etc. But some insist it's a myth. Tapered bores are not a myth or impossible to make, they are common on some target guns.

That is totally different than talking about the nominal bore diameters of Colt .38s. All companies bored their barrels however they wanted. SAAMI dictates the ammo specifications, which relate to the chamber specs, but not the bore.

 

Tapered bores run the cost up but it can be and has been done, and not necessarily by hand lapping, which would be very tedious. A good toolmaker working with a skilled machinist can solve the problem Of course, anybody with a star gauge or even a set of pin gauges could test it on a Python, etc. and see but, except for the 5 minutes of notoriety the tester would get, it wouldn't mean much. The bullseye competitors have long since gone to automatics, although I don't think it was necessarily for reasons of more intrinsic accuracy.

 

Don't know if I missed it, but the .45/c refers to .45 caliber and not Colt. A Colt letter on .45 ACP or a .45 Colt caliber will both show the same marking.

I have a letter on the Colt Official Police with .38/c, and a 1988 letter on a Government Model that indicates .45 ACP.

 

Thanks for your help. I think I understand but check me on this: You're saying Colt letters on a .45 Colt revolver and a .45 ACP GM would both say ".45/c" in the caliber field? By extension, would that mean a .38 Colt revolver and a .38 Special revolver would get the same ".38/c" in the caliber field? I'm a little slow, occasionally, and its late. Bill

 

caliber makes sense. If it was supposed to be Colt I think they would use a capital C instead of lower case.

 

Agree. So I think we can conclude a Colt Letter can't be relied on to state definitively the exact cartridge for which the particular pistol is chambered.