.38 Smith & Wesson

The full-size Model No.3 was Smith & Wesson's first top-break revolver, as distinguished from the tip-up rimfire guns on which the company had built its initial reputation. Although originally chambered for the .44 Henry rimfire cartridge, Smith was persuaded to develop a centerfire alternative, the cartridge that eventually became the .44 Russian.

The No.3 saw limited service with the U.S. Army, as well as foreign contracts with the Russians, Japanese, and others. While military contracts are always good, Smith recognized that the bulk of domestic sales would be of smaller, cheaper, more pocketable guns for the private citizen to carry.

Sales of the antiquated rimfire No.1 1/2 in .32 Rimfire Short were flagging as Smith launched a five-shooter that was initially a smaller copy of the No.3. These first .38 top-breaks are known as "Baby Russians", for their longer and more complex ejector assembly scaled down from the bigger gun. Simplified for easier production, the .38 Single Action was manufactured for more than thirty years through three major models.

.38 Single Action, 2nd Model

D.B. Wesson designed a new centerfire cartridge to go with the new gun. Utilizing a .36 caliber (well, .359) bullet that fit snugly enough in the case to minimize the need for crimping by the reloader, the new cartridge was referred to as the .38 S&W, referencing the outside diameter of the case.

Although introduced in 1876 as a black powder round, the .38 S&W is still loaded and sold as a smokeless round in the modern era, although S&W hasn't made a revolver chambered for it since the last Model 32 Terriers and Model 33 Regulation Police revolvers came off the line in 1974.

Domestically the .38 S&W probably hung on as long as it did because it could fit in the cylinders of small-frame revolvers originally designed around the .32 S&W Long cartridge, unlike the longer .38 Special. Additionally, the maximum chamber pressure of 14,000psi made it friendlier to inexpensive revolvers than the newer cartridge, which topped out over 3,000psi more.

L to R: .32 S&W Long, .38 S&W, .38 S&W Special, illustrating why the older cartridge fit the small .32 Hand Ejector frame while .38 Spl did not.

Overseas, the .38 S&W cartridge, in its British guise as the .380 Mk II, was the service cartridge in the waning days of the British Empire, chambered in top-break Enfield revolvers, and thus it can still be found in former colonies like India. Arguably it was possibly the most common centerfire handgun cartridge, globally speaking, for most of the period running from the 1880s into the 1950s. Smith & Wesson alone produced more than a million guns in the chambering, better than three quarters of a million more Enfields and Webleys, and who knows how many Colts...to say nothing of Harrington & Richardsons, Iver Johnsons, Hopkins & Allens, Forehand & Wadsworths, et cetera, ad nauseum.

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