It's a standard Colt Police Positive; however it's chambered in .38 S&W rather than the ubiquitous .38 special. It also appears to be LNIB. Which is interesting, given that the serial number places its date of manufacture to sometime in the 1920s...I just loves me the old wheelguns. One of these days I'm going to scrounge up a box of .38 S&W and see how she shoots. If it's anything like, oh, every other Colt in the armory, I'll be in for a treat...
6 comments:
Dude... do NOT go to a major chain for that ammo! The local Gander Mtn tried selling me .38 spl (oh, it's the same stuff!). Anticipating such problems, I had brought the cylinder from my Enfield with me...
I still have a couple boxes lying around, and am working on getting dies. Let me know if you need help... ;)
strings,
You must be forgetting that I'm in Massa-fucking-chusetts. What you call "major chain" stores don't exist around here - no Cabellas, no Gander Mountain, heck, not even a Bass Pro.
I guess you could count Dick's, if you want a sporting goods store with a little bit of hunting stuff tossed in the back...
Fortunately, .38 special will NOT load in a .38 S&W chambered revolver (much like .357 Magnum will not load in a .38 special).
That's why I had the cylinder with me: told Mr "There're the same as .38spl" to snag a box, and hand me a round. Dropped it in the cylinder, and WOW!: it didn't drop all the way in...
Found a couple boxes at a local hole-in-the-wall, later that day...
I wound up reloading for this cartridge. I found that using bullets from a .38 Spl mold 'as cast', don't size and lube with Lee Liquid Alox, works beautifully.
Also, Lyman makes a mold for a 200-grain round-nose bullet that lets you duplicate the old 200-grain 'police' load. Also the Brit .380/200 for the Webley(which is what I'm loading for).
firehand,
Reloading is in my future, but in the distant future. I need to clean out my attic, then get it wired, then finish it off first.
Estimated time to completion: About as long as it takes my kids to graduate high school (they're 4 and 6)...
Mine was made in 1923, and looks like it's only a few years old.
Get an old Winchester mold in .38 S&W for it - works great. Makes those nice, old orginal style bullets. I bought a couple boxes of Winchester Super-X cartridges to shoot and reload, which have nickel-plated cases. Lee makes .38 S&W dies.
The Colt PP in .38 S&W, or as Colt would have called it, .38 Colt New Police, is a really neat, compact .38. It's very diminutive compared to my S&W 64, .38 Special, which seems oversized by comparison.
It's a very fine, little gun, but still a .38 six-shooter.
Post a Comment