Skip to main content
Help Center Community Shop

Questions about .38-55 Winchester

Snellstrom
Is the Cartridge .38-55 Winchester simply a .30-30 necked up or is it something else? Case head, rim size same as 30-30? Case length same?
Thanks in advance
0

Comments

5 comments

Date Votes
  • 1KYDSTR
    I believe it predates the 30-30 by some many years so it would not have evloved from it; perhaps the other way around. The 38-55 was originally a target cartridge from black powder days. Dimensions are similar, but will have to consult the books to determine the lineage.

    "When I cease learning...I'm dead"(Me)
    "When I was 14 I used to marvel at how ignorant my old man was...by the time I was 21 I was truelly amazed at how much the old bugger had learned in the intervening 7 years!" Samuel Clemens
    "History is written by winners"(Patton)
    "You get a lot farther with a kind word and a gun than you do with a kind word alone!"(Al Capone)
    "There is nothing lower than the human race...except the French" (Samuel Clemens)
    0
  • tlen
    Look it up here....http://www.reloadbench.com/cart.html
    0
  • Xracer
    Actually, .30-30 is a .38-55 necked down to 30 caliber.

    According to COTW: "The 225 Winchester, 22 Savage High Power, 25-35 Winchester, 32-40 Winchester, 30-30 Winchester, 32 Winchester Special, 375 Winchester and a host of wildcat cartridges are based on this (the .38-55) case."

    You can make .38-55 cases by expanding .30-30 brass up to .392.
    0
  • Bert H.
    Hello...

    This is a better link for comparing cartridge specifications - http://www.reloadbench.com/cartspec.html

    Xracer... COTW is off the mark just a bit when they say that the 32-40 was based on the 38-55... both cartridges were were jointly introduced in 1884 by Ballard, and they were promptly adopted by Winchester in 1885 (for the high-wall single shot).

    Due to the superb accuracy of both the 32-40 and 38-55 cartridges, when John M Browning invented/patented what became the Winchester Model 1894, those two cartridges were selected for use. Winchester did indeed develope several new smokeless powder cartridges from the 32-40/38-55... the 25-35 WCF, 30 WCF, 32 WS, 219 Zipper, and .375 Winchester, but the 225 Winchester is not one of them (another error in COTW).



    Bert H.

    Real Men use a SINGLE-SHOT!
    0
  • Snellstrom
    Hey Bert thanks for that link, and thanks to everybody else for the information. I've been looking at taking a post 64 Model 94 and rebarreling to 38-55 and am trying to figure out the ins and outs of the project before I move forward with it. Thanks again.
    0

Please sign in to leave a comment.

Recent Activity